Patrick Darcy provides farmers in West Clare and beyond with a wide range of services, including engineering, agri contracting and plant hire. We dropped into his Ballymakea, Mullagh base to find out more about an excellent, long-established family business that dates back some three-and-a-half decades.
In West Clare, farmers have a family run business they can depend upon to provide a comprehensive range of excellent solutions from manufacturing and repairing of farm equipment to a full agri contracting and plant hire service. Clare man Patrick Darcy, alongside his sons Francis and Patrick Joseph, offers a myriad of services with levels of workmanship dependability and professionalism that are second to none.
Reflecting on the conception and early days of the multifaceted family operation that is P Darcy Engineering and Plant Hire/Agricultural Contractor, Patrick said: “it started back in 1981 when I set up the engineering business. I had served my time as a fabricator/welder and I started to build silage trailers, cattle boxes, gates and all types of farm equipment.”
In 1982 he brought his first tractor to take finished trailers out of the workshop and in the summer of ‘82, he brought a square baler and started doing baling. In 1983, he bought a new single chop harvester and after a couple of bad summers, farmers had to change to making silage instead of hay so from 1985 on the silage work grew.
Between everything, Patrick is kept busy all year around – contracting during the Summer and engineering mainly over the Winter, building general purpose trailers, sheds, gates, etc, for local farmers as well as doing repairs and servicing their own machinery. He also runs his own farm, where he keeps suckler cows.
In 2015, Francis and Patrick Joseph purchased a new Mc Hale 5500 baler and Mc Hale 991 BJS wrapper to add to the service that they provide. This year, they purchased a brand new Class rake.
At the heart of the contracting business is a spectacular fleet of tractors and machinery, including six New Hollands (an ’02 TM135, an ’03 TS115, an ’07 TM155, an ’08 TM130, a 151-reg T7200 and a 161-reg T6175) and an ’08 John Deere 6430. They also run an ’09 JCB 4128 loading shovel as well as an ’06 Hitachi Zaxis 130 excavator.
A cursory look around Patrick Darcy’s well-stocked yard will also reveal an NC dump trailer , NC low loader, Spaldings scrub mulcher and Kuhn Discovery disc harrow, while the Clare company also owns and operates an Joskin 2250-gallon vacuum tanker, 2013 Abbey 2000-gallon tanker, 2013 Hi Spec 1600-gallon tanker, Rabi power harrow, Major side spreader, 2010 Arbo 2000 hedge cutter, a 2010 John Deere 1365 mower, a 2012 Kverneland Taarup 4332 CT mower with grouper, 2013 Pottinger silage harvester and four silage trailers.
It’s a huge fleet by any standards and it demands considerable expenditure to keep it fresh and functional. “You’d be investing an average of €60,000 to €70,000 per year,” he estimates. Though obviously time-consuming, having the capacity and wherewithal to maintain the fleet in-house is a major advantage,
“You build up your customer base and if you can keep them happy then they will stay with you,” adds Paddy, who works all along West Clare from Cooraclare to Doolin, whilst also providing hedge-cutting and excavator services as far as Kilrush. He has been offering keen hedge-cutting solutions to Clare County Council since 2010.
The secret to the success of the business is not rocket science. “The key is to have good machinery and to be dependable. And, if you say you are going to do something, get there on time. You also need good capable drivers. There’s five employed here full-time all year, including myself and my two sons, and we also take on another two or three men at peak times.
“Francis looks after the hedge-cutting and baling, while Patrick Joseph works on silage, baling and plant hire (excavator and dumper work plus farm maintenance and reclamation) and I look after slurry spreading, silage cutting and the engineering. However, all three of us are able to cover for each other as and when required.”
Patrick also has a dust suppression contract at Moneypoint Power Station. “I have two tractors and two vacuum tankers working there,” he reveals. Regarding the rigorous upkeep of his vast fleet, he adds:
“We go through everything very meticulously over the winter and make sure it’s all as good as new at the start of the season. It’s prevention rather than repairs and minimise the down time as much as possible during height of the season.
We handle all the general repair work to the machinery ourselves and the main dealer will look after the bigger, more technical issues.”
Patrick’s wife Mary and daughters Ann-Marie and Eleanor look after the accounts etc. and collect machinery parts and they also collect the drivers from work when needed.
Looking to the future, the Clare man is confident. “We’ll keep it as competitive as possible” he concludes. “The weather and farm incomes are two big issues that are beyond our control and it’s very difficult to grow in the current economic climate if prices don’t increase for farmers produce. But we’ll keep providing the best service we can and hopefully customers will keep coming back to us with more work.”
P Darcy Engineering & Plant Hire / Agricultural Contractor,
Ballymakea,
Mullagh,
Ennis,
County Clare.
Tel: 065 7087167
Mobile: 086 8118966
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 3, April/May 2017
Agricultural Contractor, Engineering, P Darcy, Plant Hire
