Operating out of Barefield in County Clare, Galvin Construction is an industry-leading, family-run building contracting company that celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2023. To coincide with this major milestone, Building Ireland touched base with hands-on proprietor Enda Galvin – a builder who takes ownership of every project he puts his name to.
Since its inception in 1983, Galvin Construction has earned an unrivalled reputation as one of Clare’s premier building contractors, successfully delivering a vast and varied portfolio of outstanding residential and commercial projects to the very highest standards of construction excellence.
Today, this exceptional second-generation family business is fronted by Enda Galvin, who took the reins from his father John in 2011, having been heavily involved at construction’s coalface all his working life.
To ensure high-quality workmanship at all times, with projects invariably meeting if not exceeding customer expectations, Enda focuses on creating a professional and harmonious working environment, where teamwork is prioritised and all trades and personnel work in unison to achieve a common end goal:
“A lot of it comes down to taking responsibility for who’s doing the work and only using tradesmen who are capable of producing exceptional workmanship,” the Clare builder notes. “As the main contractor, the onus is on us to make sure that everything is finished right, with everybody working together to the high standards that our clients expect.
“If everybody is working together and getting along with each other, then that’s a big part of it. Once everybody is pulling in the same direction, it leads to a better working environment and the site is a better place to be. It’s simple, really: if you are doing it, do it right. Comebacks are no good to me or to anybody. All I’m interested in are quality projects done right and that’s what I strive to bring to my customers every time.”
Working closely with renowned architects, engineers and design teams, Galvin Construction pride themselves on establishing and maintaining strong contractor / client relationships through communication, transparency, honesty and flexibility. The deployment of highly-skilled personnel is a prerequisite to delivering remarkable results time and time again.
“You don’t want to run into any problems either during the construction phase or down the road and for that reason we only use experienced, highly-skilled workmen and quality materials,” Enda confirms. “We take full accountability for the finished project.
“I have a core group of directly-employed tradesmen who have been with me for the bones of ten years. They all have trades and are also skilled general operatives with a very good understanding of what they are doing.
“At the moment, we have three live residential developments up and running here in Clare and typically I’d have four or five of my own lads on each site as well as a number of proven subcontractors. I’ve build up good long-term relationships with these subbies and use the same ones all the time because I know from experience that I can depend on them to reach the levels demanded.”
As for Galvin Construction’s wonderful achievement of reaching its 40th-anniversary milestone, Enda adds: “It’s hard to believe – you don’t really see the time going by. The encouraging thing for us is that we have built our reputation on the quality of our work. We don’t do any major advertising at all, but prefer to get our work through referrals and word of mouth. We always leave quality behind us and that leads to more work.”
It’s the traditional way of running and growing a construction company – and still the best way. “If you’re not doing it right, there’s no point doing it at all,” Enda states matter-of-factly.
The aforementioned housing developments account for virtually all of Galvin Construction’s activities at present, although Enda and his team have also recently completed a superb 44,000 sq. ft. extension to printed paper cup manufacturer Cup Print’s facility at Ballymaley Business Park, Ennis. “We also still take on the occasional one-off new build home, although not as many as we used to because we are so busy with the developments.”
Regarding this trio of ongoing residential housing schemes, Enda reveals: “We’ve finished a scheme of 42 units in Crusheen and have now moved onto the next phase of 29 additional homes there. We’re also hoping to secure planning for another 42 houses on that site.
“We’ve been on site in Crusheen for two or three years now and of course there were many ups and downs through Covid but we are back on track now. Covid brought its challenges but we came out of it well and those first 42 houses are complete and we’re delighted to have moved on to the next 29.
“Meanwhile, we’re also currently building 17 houses in Tulla, County Clare, where we’ve just started to hand them over and I expect that all 17 should be handed over by January. In August, we started a third scheme in Shannon. Here, we have planning permission for 103 units in total and we have already started work on the first phase, which consists of 22 houses.”
With three live sites up and running, where current phases comprise some 69 units, Enda is in a position where his order book is full and he’s not actively seeking additional work as we speak. “We’re very busy for the time being, which isn’t a bad complaint. I have 15 lads employed directly on those jobs and you could be talking about another 50 or 60 on top of that if you include subcontractors.
“I have two lads running the office and a foreman on each site. I spend my own time on site, on the ground, meeting the lads and making sure that everything is going smoothly. I grew up working on sites and that’s where I prefer to be. You can stay on top of things and you also get more out of the lads that way.
“We have enough work on now and there’s no point taking on too much because that’s not doing the client any favours and it’s not doing ourselves any favours. We’re not going to take on more work than we can handle and the last thing I’ll do is let standards drop. There’s no point wasting anybody’s time.
“We carry most of our own gear and can do all our own site works and groundworks. There’s also a plant hire element to the company and we have some machinery on hire at a local quarry.
“I’m very lucky at the moment in that all the work is within 20 minutes of my front door,” Enda concludes. “That’s the furthest I have to travel and all the lads are local too. They’re all good, motivated lads and they are always on site early, fresh and ready to go.”
Galvin Construction Ltd.,
Faunrusk,
Barefield,
Ennis,
County Clare.
Tel: 086 3497709
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, January 2023, Vol 9 No 1
