M & R Hamilton are a family run agri contracting outfit in Co Tyrone which has been offering its customers a reliable service for more than 25 years now. Irish Tractor & Agri learned more from one half of the company’s directorship, Marcus Hamilton.
Based in Douglas Bridge, Strabane, Co Tyrone, M & R Hamilton offers its clients the very best services in agricultural contracting while also leaning towards engineering work in recent years.
The company is headed up by brothers Marcus and Roger Hamilton (hence M & R Hamilton) and has built up a loyal customer base in the space of quarter of a century.
Having spoken to Marcus just before the summer, his family’s business had been coming towards another hectic season and he was good enough to give Irish Tractor & Agri some insight into the company.
“We’re just outside Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone and we’ve been established 25 years,” Marcus outlined.
“We have three working full-time and we only keep seasonal workers here, so during the peak times we’d have four more staff. The three full-time staff here are myself and my two brothers, Roger and Simon.
“My dad William is still involved in getting parts for us here and his own dad would have first started off in this line of work. My brother and I started M & R Hamilton shortly after I finished college.”
When M & R Hamilton was first born, the business was largely concentrated on grass and silage work, along with slurry work and ploughing.
Since that time however, the Hamiltons have added another string to their bow in the form of engineering work, which sees them erecting farm buildings and tanks.
Their engineering work sees them offer services in shedding, shuttering and tanks, while also sticking to their roots in agri contracting, as Marcus explained.
“We do the complete job for our customers and would specialise in cutting silage and slurry spreading,” he said.
“On top of that, we have been leaning towards engineering with regards to shed building and we also build trailers as well, so we’ve been spreading our wings a bit.
“We have 150 acres of crops and we’re also renting out cattle sheds that can accommodate for 150 cows.”
Operating a fleet of Massey Ferguson tractors, M & R Hamilton have had a busy year thus far and are gearing up for an even more hectic summer.
June, July and August often sees the company’s staff putting in 10 to 12-hour shifts and they wouldn’t have it any other way at M & R Hamilton, with customer satisfaction having been their top priority since day one.
“Business is booming at the minute, especially in the farming end, and we can’t complain about that at all,” Marcus beamed.
“To be honest, the recession did and didn’t affect us here. The farming end wasn’t that badly affected and although money was scarce a while back for many people, it is getting better now and we’re just looking to keep up with the demand.”
Indeed the demand is high, considering that most of the company’s clientele are from in and around the Strabane area.
On top of this, many of them have been with M & R Hamilton from the beginning, which points to continued satisfaction over the past 25 years.
“We only cover around a four-mile radius and a lot of our clients would have been with us from day one,” said Marcus.
“A lot of them have had their sheds built by us and I have to give those fellas their due because they’ve been very loyal to us right down through the years.
“I’d say that we have at least 15 good customers right now, especially on the silage side of things, and we’ll hope to continue to grow those numbers year on year.”
With regards to the company fleet, the Hamiltons don’t stray too far away from Massey Ferguson, with Marcus particularly impressed by the 6499 model.
However, a New Holland has recently been added to the family’s collection and Marcus says he’s looking forward to putting it to the test this summer.
“We’ve three Massey Fergusons here and one would be an 8480 that sits for triple mowers,” he explained.
“We buy them from B&M Farms Services and the 6499s that they sold us are sort of bullet proof, so we can’t complain with what we’ve got here.
“We have a John Deere 7810 that would be here since 2004 and it’s still going strong for us and a New Holland 7050 that we bought in April of this year. We haven’t really got a chance to take it out yet but we’re looking forward to seeing what it can do.”
Diggers, dump trailers and HGV low loaders are also a part of the Hamilton fleet.
As Marcus explained however, getting the right men to operate them can be difficult so he often has to drive them himself to get a job done.
“We do a fair bit of digger work but to get good help with it can be impossible at times,” he said.
“I’ve three track machines and I drive them all myself during different times of the year and that kind of work can keep you ticking over during the winter.”
Keeping busy 12 months of the year is often the secret to a lasting agri contracting outfit and the fact that the Hamiltons have branched out into engineering in recent years only bodes well for the future.
“As I said, we’re building up more and more to engineering and we recently bought a new plasma cutter with a 16-metre bed on it,” stated Marcus.
“We do sheer grabs and rakes here as well and the plasma that I bought would have come second hand from an engineering plant in Dungannon.”
The future looks bright indeed.
M & R Hamilton
Address: Douglas Bridge,
Strabane,
Co Tyrone
Tel: (028) 8166 1597
Mob: 077 7412 6420
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 6, September 2017
