With over 50 years’ experience in agri contracting, groundworks and sports pitch construction, Shanaghy Plant Hire Ltd is a name you can trust.
Based in Corlismore near Ballinagh, Co. Cavan, the family business has earned an enviable reputation for top quality work at a competitive price. With a fleet of high-powered John Deere tractors and heavy plant operated by experienced drivers, it offers a wide range of services across the Midlands and North-East, including groundworks contracting, agri contracting, sports pitch development, land drainage and landscaping.
Closer to home, agri contracting is a speciality of this fully insured and VAT registered company. To this end, pit silage, slurry spreading, mowing, rowing, land drainage, land reclamation, excavating foundations for farm buildings and all farm heavy plant services are provided by father-and-son Sean and Kevin Shanaghy along with their six-strong team who are supplemented by part-time staff at busy times. The business is run in tandem with a suckler beef enterprise which Sean’s wife Eileen looks after.
“The business goes back over 50 years when my father started out with a JCB digger. He bought a Hymac after that and progressed from there,” explains Kevin, who came on board after leaving school in 2007.
“We traded as Sean and Kevin Shanaghy Agri & Plant Hire up until two years ago when we shortened our name and became a limited company.”
Committed to providing a top-class service and complete customer satisfaction, Sean and Kevin have an array of machinery to carry out your work quickly and efficiently, providing you with value-for-money and an alternative to investing in your own expensive equipment. The company’s success can be attributed to the knowledge, skill and expertise of its staff as well as the quality of its machinery. The Shanaghy team delivers the value and quality farmers expect from their agricultural contracting partner.
Shanaghy Plant Hire runs a fleet of seven John Deere tractors, including a stunning new 210hp 6R175 purchased from Meath Farm Machinery. The other models are a 6195M, 6150M, 7530, 6920, 6910 and 6810. The contractor cuts and conditions about 2,000 acres of pit silage per annum with a John Deere 8500i self-propelled forage harvester, a Krone Big M 420, and Krone front and back mowers. The Shanaghys also operate a CLAAS 2900 rake, four 18ft P Donnelly silage trailers and a JCB 426 loading shovel on the pit.
Their slurry equipment includes an Abbey 2,500-gallon tanker, two Abbey 2,250-gallon tankers (one with a dribble bar) and a NC agitator. They draw a lot of slurry for local piggery King Pork.
The groundworks services offered throughout the Midlands and North-East include sports pitch construction, sports pitch drainage, sports pitch maintenance, low loader transport and all groundworks projects. The Co. Cavan company has all the plant and machinery required to undertake this type of work, including seven excavators ranging from three to 20 tonnes. The digger fleet consists of two Case 210s, a Case 130, two Hitachi Zanix 135s, a Hitachi Zanix 130 and a Kubota U48-4.
The other groundworks equipment includes two Komatsu P65 bulldozers, three Broughan 20-tonne dump trailers, a Smyth 20-tonne trailer, an NC 16-tonne trailer and two smaller (14-tonne) trailers. A Volvo FH500 and low loader is used for transporting the bigger machines and for long haul purposes. There is also a tractor-pulled low loader. It goes without saying that all work carried out is in compliance with Health & Safety regulations. All muck / material moved off site is carried out under Shanaghy Plant Hire’s national waste collection permit.
All machines are maintained and serviced on a regular basis to avoid breakdowns and downtime. This is carried out both in-house and by Meath Farm Machinery. The Case diggers were supplied by Liam Stones Engineering in Rhode, Co. Offaly.
With such a wide range of services, there is no such thing as an off-season for Shanaghy Plant Hire.
“The variety of the work means that we’re busy 12 months of the year,” Kevin says.
“We pride ourselves on good quality work and always getting the job done on time. My father is well-known for being a top-class digger man. He’s still going strong at 70. Whereas our agri contracting customers are mostly within a 20km radius of home, we cover a much wider area for plant hire and sports pitches.
“We’re currently working for College Proteins on their new anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Nobber, Co. Meath. It’s a big job which involves digging out 130,000 m3 of soil. We previously carried out work for College Proteins on their fertiliser plant in Newry, so we have a very good working relationship with them.
“We also enjoy an excellent relationship with Hyland Turfcare who we’ve worked with on many pitch construction and maintenance projects. We look after the excavating, stripping, drainage and levelling of sports pitches for them. We install walking tracks around pitches and prepare car parks and footpaths as well. We’ve recently completed projects for Gowna and Arva GAA clubs in Cavan.”
Kevin is full of praise for Shanaghy Plant Hire’s professional, highly-skilled and friendly team.
“Our people are our greatest asset. We’d be nothing without them. It’s a team effort and that’s what makes it,” he adds.
As their family business continues to go from strength to strength, Sean and Kevin would like to take this opportunity to thank their clients and suppliers for their loyalty and unwavering support as well as their staff for their hard work, dedication and expertise.
Shanaghy Plant Hire Ltd
Corlismore,
Co. Cavan.
Telephone: 087 632 6378 (Kevin) / 087 274 8360 (Sean)
Email: [email protected]
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 12 No 3, September/October 2024
