With over 50 years’ experience and expertise in delivering quality finishes, Tom Crean & Son Painting Contractors Ltd are certified Master Craftsmen, and one of Ireland’s leading painting and decorating contractors.
Based in the townland of Ballymurray, which is just a few miles outside Roscommon town on the N61 Athlone Road, the second-generation family business was established by Tom Crean in 1970. Tom, who shares his name with the famous Antarctic explorer, is still going strong as lead Project Manager and Director, joined by his wife Eileen, a fellow Company Director, and his son John, as Managing Director. John honed his skills from an early age alongside Tom, having qualified as a painter, and lectured in this area over the years, as well as acting as a specialist coatings adviser. John took over the mantle in 2009, moving the family business from a sole trader to a private limited company.
The company employs a 53-strong team, with the majority of the staff in excess of 15 years with the company, and some now in their 30th year. John believes the key to their success is employing, developing, and retaining quality staff who believe in the company, take pride in their work and are specialists in the areas they work. The team is supported by up to 20 subcontractors at any one time. “We have developed strong long-term working relationships with subcontractors all over Ireland, with the majority in excess of 10 years,” John says.
John credits the company’s recognition at the recent SISK Ireland & Europe Supply Chain Awards to its staff, its processes, commitment to service, expertise, and quality craftsmanship. The company was shortlisted in two categories – Supply Chain Partner of the year and Regional Buildings and Strategic Projects.
The long-established painting and decorating contractor boasts vast experience across the domestic, commercial, heritage, church, industrial, pharmaceutical, and healthcare sectors, and has many long-term clients such as John Sisk & Son, Harvey Norman, TCD, UCD, NUIG, Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Brehon Construction, The Department of Defence, Center Parcs, TUS Athlone, Knock Basilica, Castle Ceilings, Athlone Extrusions and Tynagh Power Station to name a few.
Tom Crean & Son Painting Contractors is renowned across Ireland for its commitment to quality craftsmanship, professionalism, and personal service. Testament to its success is its wealth of repeat clients across all sectors, with several working relationships going back over 40 years or more. You can feel assured that by choosing Tom Crean & Son Painting Contractors you will be working with a company that has the highest commitment to Health & Safety, outstanding workmanship, quality and innovative product solutions, the environment, its staff and, most importantly, the needs of its clients.
“We’re well-known all over the country for carrying out projects of all sizes and complexities,” John adds.
“We’re a one-stop shop in that we can look after everything from the design of a project, employing an independent paint inspection company for quality control to lifting and equipment plans. Our extensive workforce ensures we can adequately resource projects, for a timely conclusion and handover. This gives our clients huge peace of mind and ensures a hassle-free experience.
“What gives us the greatest satisfaction is exceeding client expectations, delivering projects on time, within budget and to the highest quality finish no matter the project, whether it be a historic listed building to a power plant, school, hospital, or a church, for new and existing clients over and over again.
The company still has many of the same commercial, industrial, heritage and domestic clients it had 45 years ago when the business was only finding its feet. Carrowroe House on the outskirts of Roscommon Town was one of the first very projects undertaken by Tom when he established the business, a large stately home, built in the 1820s, which he continued to paint annually up until it was no longer occupied. When its new owners undertook major renovations in the late 2000s, the company was again employed to undertake restorative lime painting and decorative works where upon stripping back the decorative wall coverings, Tom recognised his distinctive signature, with a date of March 1970, a trade mark he still employs today! Both John and Tom agree loyalty means so much to us, we recently painted Ward’s Hardware (Topline Ward’s) in Roscommon for the 40th year or so.
“Our central location means that nowhere in Ireland is too far away. We have customers in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, and Limerick, right across the midlands and into Dublin. We’re currently working in Belfast for Harvey Norman, having completed the remainder of their stores in the Republic.
“We’ve been collaborating with John Sisk & Son on their vast range of projects for over 30 years. We’ve painted hundreds of schools, supermarkets and commercial buildings for them in that time. One of the largest projects we undertook for Sisk was painting and decorating the commercial, residential and recreational buildings at Center Parcs in Ballymahon, Co. Longford in 2018. We now work for Center Parcs directly as maintenance contractors. Our current projects for Sisk include Bonham Quay and Penney’s in Galway, Pfizer in Grange Castle, Dublin along with secondary schools in Portarlington and Kildare town.”
The affable managing director continues: “The Defence Forces are another long-standing client working across the island of Ireland on industrial projects in the Glen of Imaal army barracks Co. Wicklow, and Curragh army camp, Co. Kildare to listed buildings in McKee and Cathal Brugha barracks, to Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel. A relationship we have developed for the past 40 years.
The educational sector, in particular third level colleges and universities, have become a daily part of Tom Crean & Son’s work, working with Trinity College (TCD), UCD, ATU Galway, and TUS Athlone, Shannon, and Limerick. John continued, some projects stand out more than others, and not for their complexities but a sense of pride you get from doing a great job, one such job that springs to mind was the painting of Knock Basilica for the papal visit in 2018, the company and John himself even ended up on a television programme on Knock, as at the same time of the papal visit, the company were also painting Ireland West Airport. They are no strangers to painting churches, this year alone, the company has painted five.
When it comes to church painting and decorating, Crean’s specialist team pride themselves on carefully respecting the church’s fabrics and surroundings, while utilising innovative longer-life coatings and bespoke solutions to the protection of the buildings during works, all while ensuring minimal disruption to the public and services.
Industrial projects of note include Tynagh Power Plant, in Co. Galway, “we’ve also recently completed HID Global’s new European Centre of Excellence in Galway on behalf of Castle Ceilings Group. We structure our staff into specialist teams, this allows us to have adequate, experienced staff available to meet our clients requirements. Tom has a special interest and love for heritage and church projects, while John favours industrial, educational, and commercial projects, luckily, we have a skilled workforce that are adaptable and adept to ensure we can add value to projects no matter the size, complexity, or location.
The Roscommon firm has a wealth of experience working on commercial projects from airports, cathedrals, hospitals, pharmaceutical plants and factories to prisons, universities, hotels and large leisure and retail complexes. It is also an experienced industrial coatings contractor, having delivered complex projects, while maintaining robust safe systems of work, technical knowhow, and expertise, and achieving specification requirements to manufacturing, chemical and power generation companies across Ireland.
Tom Crean & Sons Painting Contractors also excel when working within live pharmaceutical and hospital environments. It has worked with many of the leading pharma brands nationwide, including AbbVie Ireland, Alexion, Alkermes Pharma, Allergan, EmeRi Nutrition, Jazz Pharmaceutical, Kent Pharma Group, Pfizer and Takeda Ireland, and extensively across the Saolta University Health Care Group.
The company are experts in the preparation of sterile areas and the application of specialist hygiene coating systems. In a pharmaceutical plant setting, their expertise includes painting to clean rooms, laboratories, manufacturing areas, offices, catering and recreational spaces. In a hospital setting, their expertise extends to the painting of ICUs, operating theatres, therapy suites, patient wards, mortuaries, offices, consultant rooms, catering and general-purpose areas.
As Tom Crean & Son Painting Contractors continues to go from strength to strength, the successful family business would like to take this opportunity to thank their clients, old and new, suppliers and importantly their staff for their continued hard work, dedication, and skill.
To view their work to date, please visit their website www.tomcreanandson.ie
Tom Crean & Sons Painting Contractors Ltd
Ballymurray,
Co. Roscommon.
Telephone:
Roscommon Office 090 6661047
Dublin Office 01 5252029
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, October 2023, Vol 9 No 10
