For more than two decades, John Conlon Construction Ltd has been delivering exceptional building contracting and civil engineering projects to a growing array of satisfied customers across the midlands. We visited Clondouglas in Portlaoise and touched base with John to find out more about this modest, quality-orientated family business, which he runs alongside his wife, Deirdre.
A carpenter by trade, John Conlon has come a long way since taking a leap of faith and going out on his own in 2001.
Today, John Conlon Construction Ltd is firmly established as one of the most respected and in-demand building and civil engineering contractors in the midlands, consistently delivering a wide range of high-quality commercial projects for a who’s who of clients including – but by no means limited to – Laois County Council, the HSE, Lagan Building Solutions, EV Ready, Oglesby & Butler (Portasol) and many more.
The business continues to go from strength to strength and the Laois man attributes the success he’s enjoyed thus far on the John Conlon Construction journey to consistently producing quality workmanship that meets if not exceeds customer expectations:
“In construction and civils, quality is of paramount importance. Also, I’m on site a lot of the time myself and I meet up with customers regularly, communicate with them throughout the course of the project and troubleshoot and solve any problems they might have along the way.
“Furthermore, I have a very good workforce at my disposal, all of whom are highly skilled and competent. At the moment, we have ten people full time plus subbies. It’s a small enough company but we look after people and because of our size we can always give that personal touch.”
Going back to the genesis of the company, John reflects: “I built houses at first but gradually went more and more into civils, groundworks, warehousing, industrial and commercial units, and started to secure work with the HSE and the local council.”
Commercial projects now account for virtually the entire workload. John recently took on a job building a warehousing unit for Lagan Building Solutions at Melitta Road in Kildare town, County Kildare, having recently completed another one for electrical components specialists Alpha Drives in Portlaoise. Meanwhile, Oglesby & Butler (Portasol) turned to John Conlon Construction to execute a rebuild in Carlow.
Regarding the landmark Lagan Building Solutions project, John comments: “It’s my first time working with Lagan and it has gone extremely well. There is a great atmosphere working with them and I’ve really enjoyed it. The six-month project comprises a brand-new, turnkey 2,500 square metres warehouse.
“We went in on a greenfield site, fenced it off and have the main warehouse built at this stage. At the moment, we’re fitting offices, paving and doing first and second fixings.”
Another ongoing project, this one working for Doyle Construction, is the civils package for a new wing being built onto Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise. Meanwhile, John Conlon Construction also works extensively for Laois County Council and completed a total transformation of Lyster Square in Portlaoise as well as taking on regular infrastructural work on footpaths, roundabouts, etc.
“Civils has become a big part of what we do,” John notes. “We just gradually got more and more into it. I had a couple of diggers from when I was building houses and gradually grew the fleet of machinery year on year. We’ve found our niche and this is what we will continue to do going forward.
“We’ve built up a good team that specialises in this type of work. They have a nice spread of skills and Deirdre, who is a director and a qualified accountant, looks after financial operations within the company. We have some nice projects in the pipeline and are always willing to take on more. Generally, we try to stay within 50 miles of Portlaoise if at all possible but we will travel further for the right clients.”
John Conlon Construction has also installed walking tracks around a number of local GAA pitches, while another niche area of work is installing electric vehicle chargers nationwide for EV Ready / Mulhare Electrical, which has brought John and his team to a variety of locations island-wide including the IRFU’s high-performance facility in Abbotstown and DCU, while units are due to be installed for DPD at the time of writing.
Quality has always been a non-negotiable part of the John Conlon Construction ethos and the County Laois based building and civil engineering contractor remains focused on maintaining the highest standards of workmanship on every project undertaken.
“There’s no room for complacency – you have to keep that quality up, give every project your full attention and maintain strong working relationships with your clients,” he concludes. “I’m fortunate to get a lot of repeat work. We’ve never had to advertise or chase work – it all comes through recommendations, word of mouth, or repeat business.
“To ensure that this continues to be the case, we’ll continue doing excellent work and looking after our customers the best we can.”
It’s certainly been a winning formula for John Conlon Construction Ltd to date!
John Conlon Construction Ltd
Clondouglas,
Portlaoise,
County Laois.
Tel: 057 8666512
Mobile: 087 7997290
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, December 2024, Vol 10 No 12
featured, John Conlon Construction
