Established in 1978, Mooney Farm Buildings in Slane, Co Meath specialises in the fabricating and erecting of steel frame buildings. Irish Tractor Agri & Plant touched base with its Managing Director Peter Mooney recently to hear all about the company – from its origins to the projects it has on-going at the moment.
These are busy times at Mooney Farm Buildings and the plan for Peter Mooney and the rest of the team in Slane, Co Meath is to try and keep things that way right through to next year.
Operating with seven staff (full time and contractors), the company offers its clients expertise in the fabricating and erecting of steel frame buildings all across the country’s eastern and midland region.
Managing Director Peter Mooney heads up the business and also has two sons, Eanna and Oisin, that help with part-time work during the summer season and some weekends.
Irish Tractor Agri & Plant spoke with Peter recently to learn more about the ins and out of the business and its overall hopes going forward.
“When my father (PJ) and my uncle Jimmy started this company back in ’78, they would have had a good working relationship with the community, really in Meath and around the Drogheda area up into Lusk, Rush and north Dublin, Dunboyne into north Kildare and across to Westmeath and back through north Meath,” he outlined.
“Farmers have been very, very good to us and we try and do our best everywhere we go. They seem to keep coming back and that’s a very good thing.”
When PJ Mooney and Jimmy set-up shop 45 years ago, the times were so very different.
Back then, PJ, Jimmy and their erectors used poles, winches and ladders to erect sheds for local farmers.
Today, modern equipment makes the job much easier and, looking back on it, Peter recognises the achievements of the company’s original owners to get it off the ground and grow it into a successful venture over the decades.
Peter’s own background saw him working alongside his father and uncle as a young lad before going on to college and working in the pharmaceutical business for nearly two decades before coming back to the family business on a full-time basis.
“I was reared with it and I went off and did studies and did my own thing, but it was in my blood and I kind of wanted to work for myself more than anything,” said the current Managing Director.
“Jimmy had finished up and my father (PJ) was battering away at it, heading for retirement, and it was just a case of where it was going and I came back and said I’d give it a go.
“I just continued it on and the same farmers have kept coming back… and their friends and working with a conscience has paid off, I think.”
The proof is very much in the pudding.
These days, Mooney Farm Buildings are exceptionally busy, putting up 40 sheds a year on average, and much of that is down to the excellent reputation it has built up over by delivering quality work time and time again for its customers.
“It’s been very busy,” said Peter. “People are saying this year that it has eased off. We haven’t seen that so much and we’re still busy here, thankfully.”
So, how did the Covid-19 pandemic impact business at the time?
“Covid didn’t really make a difference to us. We kept our heads down and kept going, there wasn’t an idle day at all,” he stated.
“Myself and Eanna worked away on our own for about a fortnight here in the workshop and kept the sheds going to the yard and queuing them to go out. The rest of the lads in the yard came back and the lads on site kept going as they were on their own out in the fresh air. It didn’t really make a whole pile of difference to us. We had obligations to farmers and, Covid or no Covid, the jobs needed to be done so we kept going.”
The projects are flowing right now, with on-going work for Teagasc and a new grain store just completed in Bellewstown and many more jobs in the queue.
The equine industry is another area where the company offers its services and, as Peter himself puts it, they erect “all different types of sheds” at Mooney Farm Buildings.
“We do a good bit of work for Teagasc in Grange and we just completed a Calving shed there, which we’d be mighty proud of,” he stated.
“It’s got a fibre cement roof and a lot of daylight ingenuity going into it. We tried different things that have brought a lot of light in and ventilation. There’s also a lot of doors and open access to it as well.
“We have another project going on locally which is a very impressive job. Again, we’d know these people all our lives and they’re really good people and we did one side of the shed before, and we’re doing the other side of it now.
“When the shed is complete it will be about 200 feet wide and over 400 feet long. I don’t know how many cows go into it, but it’s an awful lot of cubicles.”
So, the burning question is, what has been the secret behind the success of Mooney Farm Buildings to date?
How has a small start-up grown into what is now a thriving business which is renowned for excellence in their work and has a golden reputation amongst its clients?
“In my mind, it’s about a relationship we’ve built up over the years,” stated Peter when asked why customers choose Mooney Farm Buildings first ahead of other competitors out there.
“It’s also about trying to put the best quality products that you can into our buildings.
“It’s very much about working with a conscience and trying to leave the best possible job you can do after you. It’s about the team that works with us and has always worked with us.
“We have one man in the yard who is an absolute legend here and is with us for over 30 years, and is treated as one of the family, Jackie Lynch. Jackie puts his heart and soul into every job and has contributed to making the business what it is today and I’d always take my hat off to the men that have worked here. The likes of Dermot Walsh has erected sheds with us for over 15 years and his brother Patsy did 13 years. Really, really good guys.
“We have another man with us probably 11 years or so, and he trades as ‘Elvis’ as nobody can pronounce his right name. They’re all really good erectors and, again, they work with a conscience, and they’re proud of what they do and we’d be proud of what we all do.
“It would be remiss of me also if I didn’t mention here Gerry Gaughran and Ciaran Duffy here who are more recent lads working with us.
“We feel with the sheds we’re putting up that we’re putting them up as much for ourselves as we are for the farmers.
“We are also CE certified and I believe were one of the first to get certified in 2015 so that covers Grant work, and our work in general, and I have to credit my wife Siobhan for all that paperwork side of things. Siobhan works in the office keeping the certification up to date and she also works on the bills and company accounts.
“As well as that, Mooney Farm Buildings support local too, as the company proudly backs Slane GFC and we would try to help them out with sponsorship where-ever we can.”
Looking at the coming months for his business, Peter says that meeting targets with the very best quality of work will, as ever, be the chief objective.
“In terms of aspirations for the short-term anyway, we’ll be looking to meet our deadlines as best we can with the projects we have.
“Christmas is always the mad deadline for everyone or shortly after it, so it’s to meet the deadlines and meet the targets and try and get the sheds out that people are expecting.
“That’s what we want to do and make sure they all go as planned and go up right,” he concluded.
Mooney Farm Buildings
Rossin,
Slane,
Co Meath
Mobile: 087 680 9145
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 11 No 5, October/November 2023
