Based in Gormanston, Co Meath, Midlands East Construction specialises in residential and commercial construction around the north County Dublin and Skerries region. Building Ireland caught up with co-director Ronan Collins to learn all about the company – from its origins to the overall state of business at the moment.
These are busy times at Midlands East Construction and the plan for co-directors Ronan Collins and Ciaran McDonnell and the rest of the team in Gormanston, Co Meath is to keep things that way right through to next year.
Established in 2006, the company operates with six full-time employees and has grown a reputation over the years for carrying out excellent new builds and extension projects.
Midlands East Construction provides a full service for its clients – “from foundations up to the final finish”, as Ronan Collins himself puts it.
Building Ireland touched base with the man himself to hear more on the ins and outs of the business and its growth year on year as a construction firm.
“Ciaran McDonnell and I would have served our time together as apprentices,” Ronan outlined.
“I left school in 1998 and went straight into an apprenticeship and did it in carpentry and joinery. The two of us ended up going working for the same lad and then we decided to give it a shot.
“I had been only out of my time as an apprentice and myself and Ciaran were both let go at the same time, so we just said we’d give it a shot and we’re still at it since.”
Fast-forward 17 years or so, and business is very much thriving at Midlands East Construction.
So much so that the company doesn’t need to venture too far away from home when it comes to its projects.
The work is concentrated in and around the north county Dublin region, as Ronan himself explained.
“There seems to be plenty happening. I suppose, because we’re established, we seem to be getting a good run of work,” said the co-director.
“We’re doing work with different architects and we’d be on tender lists, so the fact that we’re well established and reputable means we’re getting the work.
“We do a lot of work around north county Dublin and Skerries, which would be one of our main streams for work.”
“We don’t generally go too far from home, but that’s probably down to word of mouth and everything else. We have a good reputation locally and we wouldn’t travel to Dublin city or anything like that but, then again, we don’t need to. It’s busy enough here at the moment.”
Busy times for a construction venture come off the back of first-rate work and having a solid reputation for precisely that.
Right now, Midlands East Construction is immersed in several on-going projects for its clients and has more in the pipeline for later this year.
“We have a couple of one-off new build houses from start to finish that are ongoing and then we also have extensions going on at the moment that are single-storey and two-storey,” said Ronan.
“At the moment, we’re doing a single-storey here in Skerries for an architect that we haven’t worked for before and he seems to be happy with what we’re doing.
“We probably have five projects on here at the moment. It’s keeping us busy and we have good lads working with us and good subcontractors as well. You might have to wait for them a little bit, but they’re worth the wait for their quality of work.
“Put it this way, you wouldn’t be long getting a bad name if you were doing bad work.”
So, all of that considered, the burning question is what has been the secret behind the success of Midlands East Construction to date?
How has a small start-up grown into what is now a thriving construction business which holds a golden reputation amongst its clientele?
The way Ronan sees it, so much of it comes down to the fact that they deliver work of a high standard time and time again.
“I think it’s just that the name is good. We do a good job and we’re reputable,” he stated when asked why the company’s customers choose them first ahead of other competitors out there.
“I’d say a lot of the architects that we’d be working for too would recommend us as well. Every project we carry out, no matter how big or small, is left right.”
Looking towards the months ahead, Ronan says the plan for both himself and Ciaran is to keep the company in its present busy state, maybe grow a bit along the way but not too much either.
“There seems to be plenty of work coming onboard, so we just hope to keep it going and keep the lads working away,” he said.
“They’re all happy that the work is close by and they don’t have to be travelling. We have a
highly-skilled and experienced team with us and our top priority is to keep our customers happy by providing superior workmanship, attention to detail and good value-for-money.”
“You can take on too much and not be able to keep up your standards, but you have to keep your standards high. So, there’s no point in going too big either because you have to be able to complete the jobs and keep everybody happy.”
He concluded: “Architects give us work and they don’t want any hassle or annoyance in getting phone calls or emails. They just want the job done right and they trust us to do that.”
Midlands East Construction
Station Road,
Gormanston, Co Meath
Mobile: 087 633 6647
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: /midlands-east-construction
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, October 2023, Vol 9 No 10
