building a business

Transcription

building a business

150 years of the sisk group
building a business
building a business
building a business
150 years of the sisk group
150 y e a r s o f t h e s i s k g r o u p
BUILDING A BUSINESS
150 YEARS OF THE SISK GROUP
Published on behalf of the SiSk
Group by Associated Editions Ltd.
The SiSk Group, Wilton Works,
Naas Road, Dublin 22, ireland.
www.siskgroup.com
Associated Editions Ltd,
33 Melrose Ave, Dublin 3, ireland.
www.associatededitions.ie
iSBN 978-1-906429-09-6
Text ©2009 Emma Cullinan with
additional text by Hal Sisk and Tom
Costello. Edited by Madeleine Lyons.
Sisk book committee
& project team
Declan Hughes (Project Manager)
kristina Beele (Photograph Research)
Hal Sisk
Richard Sisk
Liam Nagle
Tom Costello
Bernie kennedy
List of contributors
George Sisk
Hal Sisk
kevin kelly
Pierce O’Shea
Brian keogh
Liam Nagle
Phil Meaney
Donal Moulton
Laura Howlan
Melanie McHugh
Ciaran McDonald
Jim Doyle
Gerry Maguire
Paul Carmody
Tom Costello
Andrzej Wejchert
Bernard O’Connell
Tommy O’Connell
Richard kiely
Michael Barnwell
Philip Howard
Liam Walsh
Dave Tracey
Padraic White
Design and layout by kevin Dunne,
Vermillion Design
Art Direction by Anne Brady,
Vermillion Design
Project Management by Éamonn
Hurley, Associated Editions
Printed and bound by
Nicholson & Bass, Belfast
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or
transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording or any other
information storage and retrieval
system, without prior consent in
writing from the SiSk Group.
image opposite: Construction at
Aviva Stadium, Lansdowne Road.
Photography credits
kyran O’Neill
Peter Barrow
Anne Brady
A&D Wejchert Architects
ABk Architects
Gerry Flynn
Cork City and County Archives
Cork Public Museum
Robert Ballagh
Examiner Publications (Cork)
Failte ireland
Honan Chapel UCC Cork
Jacobs
kMD architects
Liam Lyons
Stan Shields
St. Vincent’s Hospital
Mount Carmel Hospital
Paddy Cahill
irish Architectural Archive
National Gallery of ireland
Emma Cullinan
Ger Ryan
W.H. Byrne & Son Collection,
irish Architectural Archive
National Library of ireland
RiBA London
Denis Mortell
Barry Mason
William Cotter
Ronan McCall
OPW
RkD Architects
The irish Times
St Vincents Healthcare Group
Scott Tallon Walker Architects
Hal Sisk
Central Bank of ireland
Hard Hat Photography Ltd
Every effort has been made by
the SiSk Group to acknowledge
correct copyright of images where
applicable. Any errors or omissions
are unintentional.
F ami ly
cONTENTS
Foreword
4
Family
6
Foundation
32
Growth
86
Overseas
116
BranchingOut
140
Craftsmanship
162
Transformation
176
Conclusion
218
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foreword
OUR COMPANy has evolved from a small family business, set up in Cork soon after
the famine, to become the large diversified company that it is today. The business
has grown and changed considerably since the early days and we now work with
cutting edge technology in the building, healthcare and distribution sectors across
the world, and yet, throughout our 150 years and right up to the present day, certain
core values and structures have remained in place. it is these standards which, we
think, have contributed to our longevity.
Ours is still an irish-owned family business whose strength lies in its workforce and a
good relationship with its clients. We are proud of the fact that many of our staff have
spent their entire careers with the SiSk Group and most of our key managers have
been with us for many decades: Sisk is not just a family business but an extendedfamily business.
We are also proud of our long-standing relationships with many of our clients and
partners. Such close bonds stem from our commitment to completing our work
efficiently and to a consistently high standard.
The building industry is known for the way in which it is affected by rises and falls in
the economy and Sisk has adopted innovative strategies in order to ride the waves
over our long existence. As a company we are continually evolving and we look
forward to our next 150 years.
George Sisk
Chairman, Sicon Ltd, SiSk Group
Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin.
F ami ly
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6
BUilDiN G a BU Si NESS
family
JOHN SiSk & SON’S founder was born in Cork in 1837, the same year as Victoria
became Queen of Britain and ireland. His childhood was a time of severe crisis for
ireland including the national disaster of the Great Famine during which, by death
and emigration, the population declined by two million.
John was orphaned when he was just 11 years old. His parents died in the
widespread cholera epidemic associated with that terrible period. They were
buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery, where thousands of famine victims also lie (many in
unmarked graves) and where John himself rests today, having died just before the
establishment of the irish Free State in October 1921.
After the death of his father, John was fortunate to find an apprenticeship with a
Quaker family of plasterers. He lived with this family, and John would later employ
his former master, Richard Martin. Access to apprenticeships in trades was restricted
in those days, and often one needed to be a blood relative to gain entry to a trade.
We know John’s father Patrick was a plasterer, and it was likely his grandfather,
Nicholas, was also in the building trade. Thus the Sisk family building tradition may
go back to the 1750s, or earlier.
in 1859 John Sisk married kate Burke, and in the same year, he also established his
own business as an independent contractor. it was a tough time to start a business
– the legacy of the Famine lingered still, there was no social security, no health
service and no municipal housing. ireland’s condition resembled that of many
developing countries today.
But John persevered, and while most of his early work is not recorded (the earliest
recorded building documentation is a receipt for completion of a school building in
Opposite: John Sisk, founder (1837–1921)
F ami ly
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8
St. Finbarr’s Street. One of four Cork streets of
artisan houses built (with borrowed money)
by John Sisk in 1896 to house
his tradesmen
Opposite: 1911 Census forms of John Sisk and
John V Sisk. The Census was taken 2 months
after John G’s birth
1874), his obituary 62 years later included among his achievements the construction
of no fewer than 30 churches, a number of large schools, libraries and bank buildings.
But the records do not show, for example, that while building the spire of the Catholic
church and school building in Clonakilty in the mid-1880s he also built Donovan’s
Hotel on the main street, which, like the Sisk business, remains today in the same
family ownership. Many similar commercial contracts went unrecorded.
in those days, a lone manager of a business could realistically only handle contracts
within the small radius of a pony and trap, from the nearest railway station. While
always Cork based, the firm ventured further afield in Munster, with periods of
activity in north Tipperary, west Cork, north kerry and Waterford. Thus while building
the huge church at Nenagh, nearly 100 miles from Cork in 1896, John also took on a
lesser contract of a small church in nearby Cloughjordan. To complete this job, John
found and reopened a local stone quarry, recruited tradesmen from all over Munster
and manufactured all the timber features on site, or in his own joinery shop in Cork.
“One can only imagine the difficulty of getting to places in those days and a lot of
tradespeople would move to towns,” says his great-grandson and chairman of SiSk
Group today, George Sisk, who saw such a project first hand while he was still at
school. “in Donamen Castle in Co Roscommon (Divine Word Missionaries Novitiate),
the first project i was on, there was still a legacy of travelling tradesmen.”
F ami ly
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10
BUilDiN G a BU SiNESS
Churches
Some of the 30 churches built throughout Munster by John Sisk.
They were usually built of local stone in plain Gothic Revival
and Romanesque stlyes. Towers, spires, or side aisles were often
added later as contributions from parishioners permitted. These
also included a Methodist Chapel in killarney, and additions to St.
Finbarr’s (C of i) Cathedral, Cork
1. Church of the immaculate Conception, Watergrasshill,
Co Cork (1895)
2. Cloughjordan Church, Co Tipperary
3. Drimoleague Parish Church, Co Cork
4. Sacred Heart Church, Darrara, Co Cork (1897)
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2
4
F ami ly
The huge parish church of St. Mary’s of
the Rosary, Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Built as
a potential cathedral, it lost out to Ennis as
the see of the diocese of killaloe
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F ami ly
in Cork in 1896, appalled at the living conditions of his employees in what was then
a shanty town off Barrack St, John built four streets of terraced houses, totalling 80
dwellings, and let them to his tradesmen (St kevin’s, St Finbarr’s, St Nessan’s and St
Brigid streets).
Even then the economy rose and fell, just as it does today, and John soon sought to
diversify from only contracting. He established the Ballyphelane Brick Works (on the
southern edge of Cork) - the first move in a strategy of diversification continued by
later generations of the company.
We have no images of John in his early life, but we know he held a deep Catholic
faith, yet was also inspired by some Quaker moral principles (as evidenced in his
housing initiative). He had a social conscience and cared for the poor through
various societies, and was anti-alcohol and smoking. These were ideals he instilled
in those who worked for him in the building firm.
Workers who smoked were quick to hide their pipes when the boss approached
although the story goes that one of them was a bit slow off the mark one day and, as
John Sisk came close, he quickly put the clay pipe onto a brick course and mortared
over it.
John and kate had six boys: Nicholas (born in 1860); Maurice (1863); Richard (1865);
John Valentine (1868); William (1869); and Thomas Francis (1871). Tragically, just as
John had lost his father when he was young, the boys were to lose their mother
kate too early – she died in 1885. The four middle boys went into the building trade
(Maurice studied medicine and Thomas, sadly, died young).
Nicholas worked as a plasterer and tiler in the family firm and then rose to foreman.
William was a carpenter with Sisk and a talented woodcarver whose work can be
seen today in the Honan Chapel, Cork.
Richard began his career with the firm as a plasterer’s apprentice on four shillings
a day and later became a foreman. He then set up his own building company, but
returned to Sisk in 1911.
John Valentine (known as John V) also began his career as an apprentice carpenter
and set up on his own in 1900, but in 1907, when his father became ill and the
original business fell on hard times, he returned to the family firm as a partner.
Hence the name John Sisk & Son, proudly carried today. John and his sons were
constitutional nationalists, supporting the irish National party led by Charles
Stewart Parnell.
John’s abstinence from alcohol may also have been one of the key factors which
helped him succeed in an intensely competitive market. To provide an alternative to
pubs, he co-founded the Cork Catholic young Men’s Society. John Sisk was imbued
with great energy and enthusiasm – values synonymous with the Victorian era –
traits he clearly passed down to his son John V, and grandson, John Gerard (known
Above: John G Sisk (sitting far right) on his
graduation from civil engineering at UCC
in 1930
Opposite: John Valentine Sisk (1858–1957).
The “Son” in the company name, he formed
a partnership with his father in 1906
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as John G), who each went on to become owner/managers of the firm. Today, his
great grandson, Hal, firmly believes this spirit of tenacity and enterprise has passed
intact through the generations and ensured the long-term success and survival of
the company.
Very few of John Sisk’s words have been recorded, and only an occasional letter and
signature, but John G remembered regularly visiting his grandfather in retirement.
The 10 year old John G clearly recalled the old man impressing on him the words:
“ireland is a very small island and you must work all over it.” Advice that was taken
seriously by John G, because while John Sisk and John V worked all over the southern
half of ireland, John G took the business to Dublin, all over ireland and even into
Europe and Africa.
When John V took over the business it was in serious decline. But he obviously
had faith in the company’s prospects as he put all his personal capital and
property leases into the partnership.
John V’s school career had been cut short at 13 when, for reasons not recorded, the
Presentation Brothers asked him not to return to their school after the Christmas
break of 1880. it is said, that with regret, and a modicum of compassion, his father
took him on as an apprentice carpenter.
Top left: Provincial Bank, Fermoy, Co Cork
(Now AiB Bank)
Top right: John Sisk’s medal of abstinence
from alcohol
Opposite: Classical west front (1891) of the
remarkable 18th century Baroque interior
of Waterford Cathedral. Founder John Sisk’s
only work in east Munster
F ami ly
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F ami ly
17
Opposite: parish Church of St Mary’s
of the Rosary, Nenagh, Co Tipperary,
built in 1896. Pen and wash by Fergal
McCabe
Right: Hall of the head office of the
Munster and Leinster Bank, South
Mall, Cork (1912)
But ironically it was John V who breathed life back into the company and, no
wonder, even when he first worked at Sisk as a foreman he showed a flair for getting
things done: on the Clonakilty industrial School project he got the country builders
to construct one course of bricks and the city builders to construct another course
at the same time. Their rivalry sped up the work.
His grandson, Hal, remembers him as “a small man with big hands. He was a fiery
individual who loved poetry and used to recite it for hours.” He was also passionate
about sport, and while based in Clonakilty he founded the local GAA club there in 1887.
A very significant early contract for John Sisk & Son was the building of the Munster
and Leinster Bank head office in South Mall, Cork in 1912. in fact it was John V who
helped to secure the bank job for John Sisk & Son even though the company was
not at the top of the tender list. This was for various reasons, including the fact that
the architect, Arthur Hill, apparently thought John Sisk was too old for the job, but
following an encounter with John V he said: “The son is a pretty clever young fellow.”
18
John V’s passion for natural materials, such as stone and timber, was evident in all
the work he did, not least in the great lengths he went to to get the plasterwork
right at the Munster and Leinster Bank building. Once he had found the exact
plaster required for the project, his brother Richard was responsible for the ornate
plasterwork in the dome. This meticulous approach to building and raw materials
remains a fundamental tenet of the family’s business today.
in 1914 Sisk was contracted to build the Honan Chapel, beside University College Cork,
at a cost of over £8,000. As the first World War was under way, John Sisk & Son even built
army accommodation huts at Victoria (later Collins) Barracks in Cork. Their speed won
the company more work in Fermoy. ”We had the men and we had to get it done – not
for any reason but to make a bit of coin,” said John V who was hoping to make up for
losses they were experiencing on a church project in Newport, Co Mayo. inflationary
costs incurred by the war had accumulated on that job to the point where they almost
broke the company.
During the Civil War that ran from 1922 to 1923, John V also had problems moving
money around. During this time John Sisk & Son management needed to bear arms
in order to deliver wages.
John Sisk & Son’s founder died in 1921, aged 84, leaving the business to John V, who
was now solely in charge of the company’s destiny, although his second son John G
would soon play a large role in the future of the company.
After leaving Clongowes Wood College, John G Sisk studied civil engineering at
University College Cork – near where his father had worked on the Honan Chapel –
and joined the firm at the age of 20 as an apprentice engineer on 10 shillings a week.
One of John G’s first major projects in the 1930s was the new Cork City Hall, and
here he displayed the same attention to detail and craftsmanship evident in the
work of his father and uncles before him. Despite what might be presumed to be
a privileged background and education, he quickly set out to learn the craft of
building and he developed a life-long passion for joinery design and manufacture,
and also for natural stone.
Another of his tasks was to scour the papers for jobs, countrywide, that the company
could tender for but, he said, sometimes there was nothing for weeks on end. Once
asked if there were bad economic times, he quipped that “there were no economic
times.” There was no social security, he said, and often they would have to get
breakfast for men who came to work and fainted with weakness. “When jobs came
to an end we had to sack a number of people, which was very sad. Things were very,
very tough. it was so tough people were actually starving or near starving.”
When work dried up in Cork in 1937, John G, who was now 26, decided it would
be necessary to move to Dublin. His son Hal recalls: “it is no exaggeration to
describe this move as emigration, and for John Sisk there was no turning back. it
was absolutely dramatic for him in that he brought his wife with him, as well as
Form of tender for the facade and spire of
the Church of The Holy Trinity, Charlotte
Quay, Cork
F ami ly
19
Above: St Patrick’s Church, Newport,
Co Mayo (1915–1917). Unusually built in one
phase with a single donation of £10,000 in
1909 by Martin Carey.
Left: Cork City Hall (1930–1935). A technically
challenging and prestigious contract at that
time. Photo courtesy of Cork City & County
Archives.
20
BUilDiN G a B U Si NESS
F ami ly
Presentation of a Lifetime Achievement
Award by the Construction industry
Federation in 1999 to John G Sisk, flanked by
his three sons (l-r) John, George and Hal
Opposite: John Gerard Sisk (1911-2001),
founder of the SiSk Group
his cousin Herbert Dennis. They were to be the company’s only two employees as
secretary and foreman.”
As company secretary, Mary Magdelene (Molly) Cooney was to prove crucial to the
success of the Dublin operation, although it got off to a slow start. John V was wary
about the move to Dublin, knowing how logistically difficult it had previously been
to carry out jobs far from Cork and also knowing of other contractors who had tried
and failed to do this before.
The couple moved to Ranelagh, where Molly found it difficult to settle, especially
since John G had previously built them a lovely house in Tivoli, Cork. But they
eventually grew to love their Dublin home on Cowper Road – where John G died in
2001. They had four children: Hope, George, Hal and John.
The first prestigious job John Sisk & Son landed in Dublin was the Department of
industry and Commerce on kildare Street. While this was being built during the
difficult war years, Sisk also landed the contract for Cavan Cathedral in 1938.
The company had pitched for the Cavan job without really expecting to get it, and
it stands as a testimony to John G’s constant determination and optimism. John G
recalled: “We had priced the job as a forlorn hope, as my father had had a row with
Ralph Byrne, the architect, over a job in Mallow, and Byrne told him he would never
give him a job.” As a result he was very surprised to get a phone call from the QS
(quantity surveyor) asking him to visit his offices. He went with his wife Molly because,
“i expected it would be a short visit and we would go on to the pictures.”
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Left: interior of St Patrick and St Felim’s
Cathederal, Cavan. Showing the italian
marble columns imported with some
difficulty at the start of World War ii
The QS explained that John G was in the running against other firms and the
decision would be made on the following Monday. The following week when John
G arrived, Byrne said: ”i told your father your firm would never work for me but i am
told you know your job, and i am prepared to trust you.”
As John G put it: “i said. ‘Mr Byrne, you and i will get on’ – i suppose i was a cheeky
ruffian – but he grinned and said, ‘i think so.”
John G’s canniness extended to making jobs run smoothly. On one famous occasion
he paid a station worker to shunt a train carrying marble columns for Cavan Cathedral
over the Border from Northern ireland on the weekend before italy joined the war
(after which time the marble would have been seized).
A couple of years before Cavan Cathedral was completed in 1942, the structure of
the company changed, and John V, then in his 70s, passed most of his shares to John
G, who became managing director.
During the difficult war years the company diversified into materials supplies when
it set up a stone-crushing operation to supply stone for war works; opened two
concrete block-making plants and unexpectedly entered the fuel business. it was
difficult to run trains at the time because coal was scarce and the locomotives were
fuelled by turf and timber. When Percy Reynolds, chairman of the Great Southern
Railway approached John G to come up with an alternative, he devised a method
Above: The opening of Galway Cathedral,
1966. President Eamon de Valera
congratulating John G Sisk
F ami ly
of making fuel by combining coal duff (tiny pieces of coal dust) and pitch (solid
petroleum) briquettes in a concrete mixer and supplied the railway company with
fuel. This helped to keep John Sisk & Son going when there was little economic
activity in the Republic. The two production plants in Dublin and Cork for the fuel
blocks were eventually sold to the railway at a loss of £3,800, and John G never
sought recognition of his invention.
During the Emergency, when there was little money to be made, quite a few
engineers joined the Engineers Corps of the British Army. One such person was
Derry O’Donovan, but when he left the army at the end of the war he came to work
with the company, as did others, including Michael Driscoll. These men played a
major role in the growth of the business and were significant in the expansion of
the company away from the owner-manager structure to the company it is today.
When John G had trouble getting approval to work in Northern ireland he phoned
his father John V who in turn rang “someone in Whitehall” – a connection he had
made during the first World War when the Sisk company was approved to work as
a contractor at Cork Harbour. “My father found a general in Whitehall who got onto a
major in ireland and within a day we were registered to work in the North,” says George.
The work in Northern ireland included the construction of Nissen accommodation
huts for US servicemen. George recalls a story from this period about Sisk’s then
formidable foreman Jack Carmody. They were clearing the site with explosives and
“the problem was that they put too much explosive into a trench which blew up the
Nissen hut beside it. Jack thought that he couldn’t tell my father this so he bluffed
his way onto another camp and suggested that a Nissen hut there be taken down,
transferred to the scene of the explosion and rebuilt over the weekend.”
John Sisk & Son also built air-raid shelters in Dublin and Cork and one story goes that
a man cycled into one of them in Manor Street, Dublin 7, and sued the firm for the
loss of a leg. His case weakened when it was found that the leg in question had been
wooden. He was awarded 35 shillings in damages.
After he had moved to Dublin, John G travelled to Co Cork often. “All of our summer
and Christmas holidays were spent in Cork or Crosshaven where my grandfather
had a house and my father and mother had a smaller house in the garden. Holidays
here were very pleasant and before rural electrification my mother cooked for many
in a builders hut on two Primus stoves,” remembers George.
Tommy O’Connell, an estimator in the Cork office, says John G would call in for a chat
on his way through and he remembers “a very shrewd man who knew how to pick
a good team and he would then look after them.”
Not long after the completion of Busaras in Dublin, John V, then in his 90s, felt that
his end may be near and as his son John G set off for Dublin one day he said that he
might not be there when he next visited. John G felt very uneasy the next day and
incorporation of the Dublin branch of the
building company, a seminal step for the
expansion outside Munster
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F ami ly
25
Opposite: Soon after completion, in 1964, the
new head offices and joinery works (left) of
the group in the green fields outside Dublin
at the Red Cow crossroads, now a major
traffic artery into Dublin
Left: The joinery works at Capwell in Cork
when he got a phone call from Cork he knew that his father had died. He passed
away on July 2nd, 1957, in his office, laughing at a remark from a colleague.
John G had not only lost a father but a friend: the pair had been known for the
way they could read each other’s minds at meetings.
By the 1960s Sisk had expanded into Africa, and by the end of the decade the
business began to grow there, which tied in with a downturn in ireland. George
Sisk was called in to his father’s office one Friday, and was asked if he would like
to go to Africa. “i jumped on a plane and landed in Lusaka, in Zambia, where
i worked with our director there, Frank Monaghan (whose brother Séamus
worked as a QS in the Dublin office). i was bitten with the Africa bug and have
been in love with the continent ever since.”
“Africa is a chapter of our history that we are very proud of. it was a great thing
but that chapter could have been greater if development in Africa hadn’t
succumbed to the catastrophe that is now Zimbabwe. i hope and pray that
things will come right. i love the people and the country and find that smell of it
just magic. When my eldest daughter was in Transition year at school my father
took her there and she was thrilled. My whole family has a bit of a grá for it still.”
As John Sisk & Son was demonstrating how it could move with the times, the
man who had expanded the company from Cork to Dublin (and later beyond),
John G, died in 2001 at the age of 90. While he had retained a close interest in
the company in his latter years (paying frequent visits to the Stone Developments
quarry in Carlow and the Sisk Training Centre workshop he had founded), he had
26
already handed over to the next generation in 1974. George was to become chairman
of the SiSk Group, John became chief executive of the non-building activities arm of
Sisk (Capwell Developments) and Hal became director of the Ascon board (the civil
engineering side of the business).
What was remarkable about John G was that he built up the business despite being
quite reserved. Hal recalls: “He was surprisingly shy and introverted. He was always
home in the evenings, listening to the radio and sketching. For a man like that to
effectively establish one of the largest companies in ireland was astonishing. it
shows how you can turn a weakness into a strength. He was incredibly shrewd;
he put good management into the business and he incentivised employees way
ahead of his time.”
Winning contracts by tender and delivering a good product on time was all the
marketing that John G believed the company needed to do. Hal says: “Bombast and
self-promotion were anathema to him. A teetotaller and a non-golfer, he was the least
clubbable man you could imagine. My mother was far more sociable. Speaking in
public was a torment for John G, even though in private meetings, without being
eloquent, he could be forceful, utterly convincing and authoritative.”
in his quiet way, John G played a key role in the early days of modern ireland, or the
Lemass era as it was known, by building a litany of landmark buildings, including two
cathedrals. And while his passion was working with the simple materials of stone and
timber, John G also took a very sophisticated and strategic approach to investment
risk-taking by building a number of substantial companies with diversified interests.
“At a time that was hostile to enterprise and new initiatives, John G ventured where
others merely speculated,” says Hal.
Today his son and SiSk Group chairman, George, remains faithful to the family
tradition, and he happily admits he never imagined he would do anything else.
“My father didn’t stop working, and at the weekends he would take us out to visit
projects such as Blanchardstown Hospital, which was a very big job when i was a
boy.” From that time, George says, he was destined to join John Sisk & Son: “i always
wanted to go into the family business. it was a no-brainer, it is in the genes.”
He completed his education at University College Cork, where he studied
engineering like his father before him: “Civil engineering is one of the better ways
into the building trade as it is a direct professional training for construction.”
While George’s early career at Sisk was spent in Africa, when he returned he worked
in the Cork office, moving there with his wife Anne. He rose to the position of
managing director and then, shortly after the birth of the first two of his five children
he moved to the Dublin office.
When George took over SiSk Group in 1974, it was apparent his father’s nous for
business had been passed on intact, as he was clearly comfortable with decisions
Top right: Black granite quarry in Zimbabwe,
painted by John G Sisk
Opposite: George Sisk current chairman of
Sicon Ltd, SiSk Group
F ami ly
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Left: Recognition of John G Sisk’s
achievements with Papal and Dutch
decorations
Opposite: John Sisk & Son constructed
the Cross and Altar in Dublin’s Phoenix
Park for the Papal visit in 1979. Over one
million people attended mass here on
September 29th, 1979
to diversify into new countries (such as the Uk, Germany and Africa) or into new
business areas (such as healthcare) when the need arose.
“When a company gets to a certain size, market share becomes a limiting factor and
so you have to seek new markets,” George says.
Colleagues describe George as a deep thinker whose management style puts the
group and company first but in a way that is consistent with a family business and
the Sisk family ethos. He managed the business with his brothers in a partnership
model, always trying to achieve consensus but, if needed, was not afraid to make
the final decision. His vision for the business has always been focused on growing
and developing capabilities but in a conservative and controlled way.
George is a competitive man, whether in business or personal activities (he loves
rugby and sailing), and yet in his dealings with people (clients, employees and other
stakeholders) he is described as fair, full of integrity and he strives to maintain a
trusting relationship. Today George still plays an active role in the business, and he
says the decades have flown by. “it doesn’t seem that long. i’ve enjoyed it – oh yes,
i’ve enjoyed it, and i continue to wake in the morning with ambitions. We have got
this far and want to go a hell of a lot further,” he says, revealing the same tenacity as
his forebears. ■
F ami ly
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30
The Sisk Name
it is often asked if the Sisk name is irish. And the answer is yes. Like most irish
names, it is specific to a locality. The heartland of the Sisks is an area on the
south coast, in the eastern part of Co Cork, stretching from Cloyne to an area
around Cork Harbour. That is where many farmer and fishermen Sisk families
occur, for example 38 Sisks were recorded as owning or occupying land in
the Land Survey of 1852.
But they were also to be found in Cork city, and the family of John Sisk,
who founded the company, can be traced back to a Nicholas Sisk who
married in 1788, significantly in St Finbarr’s Church on the south side of the
city, the place where his grandson would later start the business.
Brendan Sisk of Aghada and genealogist Paul McCotter have traced the
Sisk name back to early medieval times, with evidence in east Cork from
as early as 1260. it occurs in a variety of spellings, sometimes ending in x.
But spelling was not an exact science then and the name seems to have
evolved over the centuries. The Gaelic alphabet does not use the letters x or
k, but many Gaelic words occur which end in “sc”, such as iasc (fish). Written
in English this can become an “sk” ending. There is no evidence of a Dutch or
German origin, as has sometimes been suggested.
For centuries it was virtually unknown outside of east Cork, but the Sisk
surname has now become more familiar. Thanks to the success of the family
firm in ireland, and increasingly elsewhere, for many “Sisk” now means
“Building.” ■
The Sisk name has been indelibly imprinted
on some works over the years
Top: Honan Chapel pews
Middle: Cork City Hall
Bottom: An irish version of the name Sisk on
the Department of industry & Commerce,
kildare Street, Dublin
F ami ly
The Oval
in 1996 Sisk & Son celebrated the 50th anniversary of its trademark –
the familiar red oval with the words ‘BUiLDERS’ and ‘CONTRACTORS’
above and below the name. Now instantly recognisable in the trade, it
has become both timeless and classic. Graphic design follows fashions
and many firms often feel the need to ditch a familiar logo or trademark
for an updated model. But John Sisk & Son has no such intentions, and
we are proud that the design has stood the test of time. This is not
surprising, considering its excellent provenance.
Reynolds Stone (1909–1979) was one of Britain’s leading designers
and was responsible for the design of post-second World War £5 and
£10 notes for the Bank of England. in 1948 John G Sisk commissioned
Stone to produce a design suitable for use on stationery, site hoardings
and on plant. This was a relatively novel concept at the time but one
which Reynolds Stone fulfilled superbly.
For the sum of £50 (€1500 in today’s money), Stone designed the Sisk
oval as it is today.
The words ‘BUiLDERS’ and ‘CONTRACTORS’ were the common trade
names of the time, and there are no plans to change their inclusion on
the Sisk oval. it will remain an enduring icon for continuity in quality
construction. ■
Top to bottom: The famous Sisk oval as it
has remained since its original design
An alternative logo used on a Sisk calendar
in 1954
The SiSk Group logo
Logo modified to mark the anniversary
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foundation
THE SiSk GROUP has reached its 150th anniversary as a fully irish-owned company
which has withstood world wars, ireland’s transition to independence, two global
depressions and more minor economic shakeouts to become one of the biggest
diversified family companies in ireland.
Such expansion would have seemed inconceivable to the young plasterer, named
John, who began the building business just 11 years after ireland’s worst crisis: the
Famine of 1845–1849.
One of John Sisk’s first major projects included the first building for the Cork Distillery
Company on Morrison’s island, constructed in 1868, at a time when the company
was based at 4 Frenche’s Quay, Cork.
The company went on to work on many convents, churches and houses, including
Crosshaven Convent; Bon Secours convent, and offices for The Cork Examiner and a
home for its owner Thomas Crosbie. Then in 1906, John Valentine (John V) – John’s
fourth son and a carpenter – returned to the family firm as a partner and it was he
who became the Son in John Sisk & Son.
From this point the company grew rapidly and John V’s tenacity and knack for
business – and a love of stone, wood and craftsmanship – was later carried through
by his son John Gerard (John G) who was born in 1911. Throughout this period Sisk
was pivotal in the realisation of the buildings that defined the emerging Church and
State in ireland.
By the early 20th century, Sisk had worked on many church buildings (including
the galleries at St Finbarr’s South Chapel in Cork, in 1881, and the iconic spire of
interior of St Patrick’s Church,
Newport, Co Mayo (1915–1917)
F o U N Dat i o N
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34
Munster and Leinster Bank, South Mall,
Cork. A milestone in the development of
the company (1912). Marking the overlap of
John Sisk and his son John V
F o U N Dat i o N
Holy Trinity church in 1890) and the hugely significant head office of the Munster &
Leinster Bank in the South Mall, Cork. Prior to this project, Sisk, now John Sisk & Son,
had also built banks in killaloe, Listowel, Fermoy, kilkee and Schull.
When Sisk began much of its significant work architectural styles were changing, and
with it building methods. Over the lifetime of the company it has followed the changes
from cut-stone to brick laying and more recently to structures of reinforced concrete
and steel.
A key building the company worked on was stylistically (not least in its interior
work) positioned at the heart of changes in irish architecture and politics: the
Honan Chapel, beside University College Cork, was paid for out of the Honan family
bequest, in 1914, to both build and furnish the chapel.
At a time when the irish language was being revived this was a truly irish building,
created by irish people using local materials (the walls, for instance, are in Cork
limestone).
The Honan Chapel was a welcome project in difficult times, as the first World War
was raging. indeed, Sisk even built accommodation huts at Victoria (later Collins)
Barracks in Cork. Four building firms were involved in the project constructing the
huts mainly in a field between the barracks and Assumption Road, and Sisk worked
to prove itself: “There would not be any one of the four that made as much money
as we did, because i was there from morning til night, up to my backside in mud and
rain,” John V remembered.
Top left: The foundation stone of
the Honan Chapel being laid by Dr
O’Callaghan, Bishop of Cork on May 18th,
1915. The Church opened for worship on
November 5th, 1916
Top right: An account of the design and
construction of the Munster and Leinster
Bank head office as displayed at 66 South
Mall, Cork
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36
The founder of the business, John Sisk, died at the age of 84, in October 1921. As Sisk
moved into a new independent phase under John V, a major project for Sisk was the
construction of the new Cork City Hall, which was to replace the one burned down
during the War of independence. Designed by Dublin architects Jones and kelly, the
foundation stone at Cork was laid on July 9th, 1932, by Eamon de Valera, who then
opened the building four years later on September 8th,1936.
By this time, John V’s son John G had joined the company as a civil engineer and
designed new offices for the company in Capwell Works, Douglas Street, into which
Sisk moved in 1933. He also worked on the City Hall job from the start.
When work in Cork dried up in 1937, John G found it necessary to move to Dublin
and open an office there. This was a dramatic move in a time that preceded modern
telecommunications and road infrastructure – developments which, we sometimes
forget, dramatically diminished what were then long distances.
The company established offices in inchicore and worked on a few smaller projects,
including Corpus Christi Church in Whitehall, Dublin, before landing a very prestigious
job, the construction of the first purpose-built offices for the new independent irish
government, the Department of industry and Commerce in kildare Street. However
the construction was hampered because it started in the build-up to the second
World War, and the job was carried out during the war years.
Opposite: Pagaentry for the opening
ceremony of Cork City Hall, attended by
president Eamon de Valera and Lord Mayor
Sean French
Top left: Cork City Hall 1930–1937. White
Cork limestone from Little island quarries
was used. Courtesy of Cork City & County
Archives
Top right: Foundation stone-laying
ceremony. Former taoiseach Eamon de
Valera has trowel in hand
Middle: The invitation issued for the
opening ceremony
F o U N Dat i o N
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38
Left: Holy Trinity Church (1890)
Above and opposite top left: Architect D.J.
Coakley’s detailed drawings for the facade,
steeple and turrets of the Holy Trinity Church
F o U N Dat i o N
39
During the construction of the kildare Street building, Sisk landed another large
contract, the building of Cavan Cathedral in 1938. The craftsmanship on Cavan
Cathedral was exceptional and involved much decorative stonework. The exterior
is in Wicklow and Dublin granite, limestone, and Portland stone, while the interior is
mainly in sandstone and marble.
Top right: The confined premises of the
company at Capwell in Cork before the
move to the Airport Road
Because Cavan Cathedral was built during the war, many of the cathedral materials had
to be procured in the build up to, and during, the second World War. This proved difficult
and its successful completion was down to a lot of luck and a little bit of cunning.
A couple of years before Cavan Cathedral was completed in 1942, the structure of
the company changed and John G became managing director, and sole shareholder.
it was a difficult time in both the Cork and Dublin offices. in Cork, at the end of the
1930s, the company was really only working on the School of Commerce at Morrison’s
island, Cork, while in Dublin the staff was down to just three people, with many irish
workers heading abroad. Jobs in both cities included air-raid shelters.
in 1958 Sisk started to build another cathedral, in Galway, which also involved
complex craftsmanship. Pope Paul Vi sent Cardinal Cushing, from Boston, to open
Galway Cathedral on August 15th, 1965. The televised ceremony was attended by
many dignitaries including Cardinal Conway, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of
All ireland and president Eamon de Valera.
40
Left: interior of Galway Cathedral.
An ecclesiastical building on a grand
scale, unlikely to be repeated in
our time
Cavan Cathedral (1938–1941). One of
three cathedrals built by the company
during John G Sisk’s career. Pen and
wash by Fergal McCabe
As with the churches and cathedrals that Sisk had built, many of the banks it had
constructed to date were in a classical style. But a booklet to mark the opening of
Galway Cathedral gives an indication as to how tastes were beginning to change:
“There are indeed, conflicting opinions still: many would have preferred a bolder,
more contemporary design as being expressive of the new developments in Church
life. One must remember, however, that the building took six years to complete; its
walls were already some height before ‘conservative’ became a really bad word.”
The new hospitals, that were constructed as part of the Hospital Building Programme
under the newly elected coalition government of 1948, tended to be in a more
contemporary style. At last, it seemed, large-scale irish buildings were looking to
Modernism for inspiration, with their white concrete walls and rectangular plans.
The hospital building programme was accelerated under then minister for health,
Dr Noel Browne, in response to the tuberculosis crisis in ireland. in 1943 more than
half of the deaths in ireland’s 25 to 35 year olds were caused by TB, so in 1948 Sisk
signed ireland’s first million pound building contract for the construction of a new
tuberculosis treatment centre (Galway’s Merlin Park Sanatorium).
F o U N Dat i o N
41
F o U N Dat i o N
A major contemporary building for Sisk was Busaras – the central Dublin bus station
serving all the regions – designed by Michael Scott and built between 1945 and
1953. Despite divergent views on its design, the building won the Royal institute of
the Architects of ireland (RiAi) Triennial Gold medal in 1955, and it was featured on
a stamp in 1982.
Another contemporary-style tower built by Sisk is linked with the foundation of
the modern irish State. Liberty Hall’s origins were in the irish Transport and General
Worker’s Union, a forerunner of SiPTU (Services, industrial, Professional and Technical
Union) which now owns the building. The union, in its various forms, has been on
the Beresford Place/Eden Quay site in Dublin for more than 90 years.
Many of those involved in the union played a key part in the 1916 Rising. James
Connolly was the union’s acting general secretary when he led the irish Citizen Army
and other groups in the fight for independence. The location at Liberty Hall became
the headquarters of the committee that planned the Rising. The Proclamation of an
Opposite: Galway Cathedral under
construction, on the former site of a jail,
on the banks of the Corrib river
Above: John G Sisk (left) and minister for
health, Dr Noel Browne, signing the first of
three contracts for TB sanitoria in Galway,
Dublin and Cork. This was the first million
pound building contract in ireland. Standing
are William Cotter (l), company secretary, and
Norman White, architect
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44
F o U N Dat i o N
45
Left: Liberty Hall at left foreground
with the irish Life headquarters
incorporating irish Life Mall and
Office Complex in background –
also constructed by Sisk. The irish
Life centre comprises a total of
eight buildings arranged around an
impressive entrance plaza and internal
garden court. A prominent feature is
the main tower building which rises
10 storeys over the entrance plaza and
forms the main element of the irish
Life headquarters
Right: Minister (later taoiseach) Jack
Lynch and John G Sisk at the opening
of the company’s new head office and
joinery works on the Naas Road, Dublin
(1964)
independent Republic was printed in Liberty Hall and it was from here that Connolly
and others led the force of volunteers to seize the General Post Office (GPO) nearby.
Liberty Hall was among the buildings damaged during the fighting over the following
week. The Rising and the following War of independence led to the establishment
of the irish Free State in 1922. Work began on a new Liberty Hall in July 1961, and it
opened in 1965.
Then, in 1967, the company began building a bank that looked to the future in
its design. Having been used to building from the bottom upwards, laying brick
and stone, one atop the other, the Central Bank on Dublin’s Dame Street was a
structure that was effectively hung from its roof. The Central Bank project, designed
by Stephenson Gibney & Associates, was from start to finish steeped in controversy,
and at one point construction was halted for a year because of a design issue.
The bank was finished in 1978 – following a public inquiry, further planning
applications and appeals and Sam Stephenson was left reeling from the ferocity of
attacks on his character.
The Modernist work continued with the building of the Arts Block and Administration
Building at UCD, in the late 1960s, early 1970s – when the university was expanding
from its city centre location to the new campus at Belfield. in ireland this marked
the Lemass era which saw a modernisation of the country through the building of
industrial and educational establishments.
46
F o U N Dat i o N
47
Left: Arts Block at Trinity College Dublin,
the first modern building within TCD’s
bounds
Right: Diagram depicting changes to
the planning permission granted for
the Central Bank Building on Dame
Street, Dublin. Photograph courtesy of
the irish Architectural Archive
The design of the overall plan of the new UCD university campus was put out to
international competition and was won by a 27-year-old Polish man, Andrzej Wejchert.
Another important university project that Sisk worked on, also involved architects
from overseas. Trinity Arts Block, 1979, was the second project at the university
by Uk firm, ABk (Ahrends Burton and koralek) which went on to open an office
in ireland. They had won an international competition to design the now iconicBerkeley Library, answering a brief for a building that was of the 20th century, just as
Trinity’s previous buildings had been of their time.
“ABk were very demanding architects. They had a reputation for producing buildings
of a very high standard,” says kevin kelly, former managing director of John Sisk &
Son. “i think maybe they thought the irish construction industry couldn’t do things
properly, but by the time we had finished they realised that we were as good as – if
not better than – what they were used to.”
ABk and Sisk also teamed up on St. Andrew’s College in Booterstown, Dublin and
on other schools. As well as many university buildings, Sisk built several other third
level institutions, such as Regional Technical Colleges, now institutes of Technology.
Andy Devane of RkD designed Gonzaga College, where George, Hal and John
Sisk attended school and extensions to Clongowes Wood College, where other
members of the Sisk family were educated. More recently Sisk built the University of
Limerick Glucksman Library and information building (by architects Murray O’Laoire,
1997), Dublin City University library (Scott Tallon Walker, 2000), UCD Nova Building
(kavanagh Tuite, 2002) and the Cork School of Music (Murray O’Laoire, 2005).
48
Another symbol of the profound social change ireland was experiencing was the
£9.5 million Ballymun council housing project. This project of 3,021 homes was
conceived to relieve a massive housing crisis as Dublin’s inner city buildings were
falling into a state of disrepair. For this Sisk teamed up with English contractor Cubitts
and heating company Haden to create Cubitts Haden Sisk, with the National Building
Agency (a new state agency) as a client. The project was completed within a three year
deadline, and was 40 years ahead of its time in ireland in its use of pre-cast wall panels.
Such “off-site” construction techniques are now commonplace and can both minimise
building time and allow improved quality.
Although a very significant technical achievement, ireland’s society was not then
ready for multi-storey housing and unfortunately the Ballymun scheme was not
ultimately a social success. ■
Above: Opening ceremony of UCD Arts
Block. (l-r) Dr T. Murphy, registrar, UCD;
Padraig Faulkner, minister for education;
Andrzej Wejchert, architect; president of
ireland, Eamon de Valera; Prof. JJ Hogan,
president, UCD; Jack Lynch, taoiseach;
John G Sisk; Joe McHall, secretary, UCD
Opposite: Off-site manufactured elements
slotting into place in the technically
advanced Ballymun housing scheme
(1965–1968)
F o U N Dat i o N
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50
Munster & Leinster Bank
Head Office
The £50,000 bank building was built on the South Mall, Cork, in 1912,
and rose to four storeys. it was built from Little island (Cork) limestone,
and designed in a classical style. The building is testimony to John V’s
attention to detail, and he enlisted the help of his brother Richard, a
plasterer, to complete the job to the highest specifications.
The specification called for plastering that was similar to that on the
Morning Post offices in Aldwych, London (the Post was later bought by
the Daily Telegraph).
John V was given a sample of the plaster but found it difficult to copy (it
did not rub off onto dark fabric whereas local samples did) and so he went
to London to try and find out the secret. He only discovered what it was
when he returned to ireland and licked the sample and tasted the elusive
ingredient: alum, a chemical more typically used in dyeing and tanning.
The bank project employed all of Sisk’s skills on materials that came
from around the world as well as local stone. The materials were crafted
by workers at the building company, including the ornate plasterwork in
the dome by John V’s brother Richard ■
Banking hall of AiB Bank, South Mall Cork, formerly
Munster & Leinster Bank head office
F o U N Dat i o N
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52
The Honan chapel
The planning and design of the Honan Chapel reflected the growing Gaelic
revival and confidence in using decoration with Celtic themes.
But this was also a time of increasing industrialisation and there was a
counter movement that valued hand-crafted, as opposed to machine-made,
objects. This Arts and Crafts movement found an outlet in ireland when Lord
Mayo founded the Arts and Crafts Society of ireland in 1894. Later Sir John
O’Connell, former lawyer and later priest, joined that society in 1917 and
became a committee member.
But before this he was the driving force behind the building of the Honan
Chapel, along with Sir Bertram Windle, president of Queen’s College Cork/
UCC. The architect was James E McMullan but many feel that O’Connell had
a great influence on the design.
The chapel was in the Hiberno-Romanesque style which looked back to the
12th century for inspiration, to a time that was thought to be more truly irish
(although the term ‘Romanesque’ reveals also a European influence) and away
from British-sounding styles such as Victorian and Georgian.
The Honan Chapel’s facade is a copy of the 12th century Romanesque
St Cronan church in Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and its interior is similar to that
of Cormac’s Chapel, Cashel, Co Tipperary. The building also carries its own
miniature irish round tower at one end.
A renowned Arts and Craft architect at the time was William A Scott,
professor of architecture at UCD, and he became involved in the design of
Honan Chapel. He designed the wrought iron grille and hinges at the front
door as well as a sanctuary lamp and an altar plate set. This is important
because not only was the church itself influenced by Romanesque and Arts
and Crafts, the interior fittings were all beautifully crafted, most in a Celtic
style. Even the stained glass windows were created by masters: Harry Clarke
and people from artist Sarah Purser’s studio.
O’Connell wrote to Windle, that “all work was to be carried out in ireland,
and so far as possible carried out in Cork, by Cork labour.” That put Cork-based
Sisk in a good position to get the job and, in late 1914, Sisk was awarded the
contract for the new memorial chapel at University College Cork at a cost of
over £8,000. The foundation stone was laid in May 1915, and the following
year, O’Connell wrote in his publication The Honan Hostel Chapel, Cork, that
“no building, especially a chapel… can be so worthy as when it is built of
the stone of the land in which it is set, and when it is made by the labour of
men who will worship and pray in the church which their own hands have
helped to build.”
Along with the many other distinguished craftspeople, Sisk staff also
created some of the internal furniture, much of which bears the company’s
distinctive white oval plate, and the words, engraved in black, “John Sisk &
Son Builders Cork.”
The company carried out much of the oak work, often carved with chevron
patterns typical of the Romanesque period and some with open-work
interlacing. internal pieces created by Sisk include the confessional grille; a low
credence table; a music stool and a notice board. The company also made the
31 pews, a carved oak armchair for the university president with matching
kneeler and a pulpit comprising an oak lectern on a stand with steps and a
handrail. There is also iron-work, for instance in the vent panels in the ceiling
with interlaced animal patterns.
While the building’s Romanesque style looked far back, it also, strangely,
looked forward. its arched doorways already pointed to the Art Deco movement
while elements, such as Scott’s wrought ironwork, spoke of Art Nouveau ■
The Honan Chapel Cork, 1917. A perfectly detailed
gem with superb decorative elements. This was the
Collegiate chapel for University College Cork, thus
built adjacent to the non-denominational college
F o U N Dat i o N
53
The Sisk Name
F o U N Dat i o N
Opposite: Honan Chapel pews, carved by William Sisk,
brother of John V
This page: Details of stone carvings, mosaic ceiling,
and stained glass of the Honan Chapel
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cork city Hall
The design of Cork City Hall was in a traditional style, with references to the
Custom House in Dublin, designed by James Gandon in 1781 (which Sisk
was to later renovate). One of the architects on the project was Michael Scott
who was to work with Sisk again on the Dublin Busaras building, in 1945–53.
Building began in 1932 – the foundation stone was laid by Eamon de Valera
– and John G, in one of his first projects with the family business, was tasked
with marking out the positioning of the 900 piles. Some of those were so
near the cracked walls of the municipal baths that Sisk thought the building
might be seriously damaged when the piles were driven in. Sisk attempted
to take out insurance against this, to no avail. Luckily an oversight in previous
building work saved them: because the baths had been built without proper
drainage there was now a wide, deep trench outside the building to take
waste water. When John V found out about this he was relieved, “i knew the
trench would take up any vibration caused by the pile driver,” he said – and
he was right.
Much of the dressed limestone on the City Hall facade was quarried in
Little island, delivered onto site with an early electric crane and, at the cutting
edge of technology, sliced with large circular and swings saws.
yet simple hoists were also used, sometimes powered by mules. John G
remembered that the old man in charge of the mules complained that they were
not as good as the mules he knew in the American Civil War – 67 years earlier. ■
Cork City Hall. Photograph Courtesy of The
irish Examiner
F o U N Dat i o N
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The Department of Industry and commerce
The team John G took to the inchicore offices in Dublin in 1937 included
foreman (and cousin) Herbert Dennis.
The first prestigious job they landed was the construction of the
Department of industry and Commerce in 1938, an entirely new section of
the government – in that it didn’t have a counterpart in the previous British
administration in ireland. The building was erected on the site of the former
Maples Hotel which had burnt down.
A competition to design the building, in kildare Street, just up, and across
the road from the current Dáil, was held in 1934. it was only open to architects
from ireland or those who had lived in the country for 10 years or more, and
it was won by architect JR Boyd Barrett. The building was of a conservative
design that sat neatly into its surroundings – indeed, even now many people
are only dimly aware of its existence – staying with the neo-Classicism that
predominated in ireland at the time, ignoring the emergence of Modernism
across the world.
yet the building does have elements that speak of its time, with Art Deco and
Art Nouveau constituents. This is evident in the flat roof, stepped doorway, tall
arched window, lino patterns within, polished timber ballustrades and stepped
stone fireplaces.
Tenders to build the 50,000sq ft offices were invited in February 1938, and
eight companies applied including Sisk, the only one not based in Dublin. it
was nine months before Sisk learned it had won the contract, and to announce
the fact the company took out an advert in The Irish Builder and Engineer.
Sisk had to agree to certain conditions, for instance that all of the steelwork
be sourced at Smith and Pearson in Dublin – a large commission considering
the steel-frame structure used 1,040 tons of metal (40 years later Sisk’s
Williaam Cox subsidiary was to buy Smith and Pearson’s window making
facility when the company went into receivership in 1979).
Stone used in the building came from ireland, with the granite sourced
in Ballyedmonduff in Dublin; limestone for the cornices, string courses and
carved elements came from Ballinasloe in Galway and some stone lining the
tall windows was from Ballybrew quarry in Wicklow.
Delays during the build were caused by trouble sourcing some materials,
often due to war and weather. Lifts, steel lockers and bronze door panels
were difficult to get during the war as was the Australian walnut specified
for timber panelling and doors, as the timber was then being swallowed up
by rifle production.
One person who became knowledgeable about stone during the kildare
Street project was 17-year-old William Cotter who started on site as a timeclerk and was later involved in drawing some of the details of the building
(he subsequently spent his entire career at Sisk, including many years as
manager of Stone Developments). The job was completed in 1942.
John G praised his team: “i got a timekeeper, William Cotter. Herbert
Dennis was in charge with Jack Carmody and Paddy Woods under him. it
was finished in spite of all the local Jeremiahs who had us broke before we
started, and we made money on it.”
in particular John G attributed the success of the job to his cousin, Herbert
Dennis: “it was due to his untiring efforts that the kildare Street job was a
complete success.”■
Department of industry and Commerce, kildare
Street, Dublin
F o U N Dat i o N
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1. Modern in many features yet blending with 18th
century facades, typical of this part of Dublin
2. The team of builders. Many like William Cotter,
Paddy Woods and Jack Carmody started on this
job and became lifelong Sisk employees (note the
absence of helmets and safety vests back then)
The Sisk Name
3. An advertisement that appeared in the Irish Builder
and Engineer from November 21, 1942. Courtesy of
the irish Architectural Archive
Opposite:
4. Classic detailing shown in the Australian walnut
staircase of this first office building commissioned
by the irish Free State
5. The minister’s office and those of the senior
civil servants were fitted out to a high standard
including wood panelled walls and Art Deco
fireplaces
6. Sculptures by Gabriel Hayes
1
2
3
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5
6
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Together with Galway Cathedral (1966), Cavan
Cathedral marks the end of an era in building. While
the structure used reinforced concrete and steel, the
visual effect is of a building which might have been
built 200 years earlier
cavan cathedral
While working on the kildare St building, Sisk also won a sizeable contract to build
Cavan Cathedral in 1938 (or, to give it its full title, the Cathedral of St Patrick and
St Felim Cavan).
The craftsmanship on Cavan Cathedral was exemplary. Sisk established a
special drawing office in Dublin whose role was to interpret the architect’s
requirements and to predetermine the size, shape, finish of each of the
thousands of stones in the building and identify its location in the structure.
The stones were all cut to the required size and each was marked with an
identity letter and number. They were carefully checked when they were
delivered to site and stacked near where they would be used on the building.
The limestone (for the moulded cornicing and bases, pilasters and simple
carved caps on the aisle walls) and the Portland stone was crafted on a
stonecutting workshop on site.
Despite that background and all of the complexities of the job, “it was a
lucky job,” said John G, for whom it was the last job he managed personally
on site. “All went well. i bought all the timber a few weeks before war-time
rationing. i bought all the Portland stone before the quarries closed, also all
the copper for the roof one week before it was controlled and under ration.
“The most amazing piece of luck was the marble. This was ordered from a
very decent italian, Oliviero Danieli. My father rang me from Cork one night
and said, ’i think that Mussolini is going into war, you had better do something
about the trainload of marble columns (which had come through Belfast) or
they will be seized as contraband of war.’ i left that evening and was on the
border at the GNR station soon; saw the customs man and explained the
position and offered him a cheque for the duty of £8,000-odd. He explained
that he would have to have a guaranteed cheque but he was a Catholic and
i persuaded him i would cover it by morning. i then saw the station foreman
and gave him £5 to shunt the wagons of marble to our side of the border
and stayed there until he did so. i then phoned the Cork office and had my
cheque covered and the next morning italy was in the war: some timing…
by the skin of our teeth.”
it was said that the Cavan bishop, Patrick Finegan, had accelerated the
cathedral project in the knowledge that war was coming and that funds for
the build would be difficult to get afterwards. He was responsible for much
of the fundraising and his successor Bishop Patrick Lyons, who took on the
role in 1937, dedicated himself to the project. He blessed the site and turned
the first sod on September 28th 1938 and blessed the corner stone when
it was laid a year later. Other religious involvement in the build took place
when the 11ft 6ins high cast bronze cross was hoisted through 200ft of steel
scaffolding – flashing in the mid-day sun on the way up – and the choir sang
Te Deum (a hymn of thanksgiving).
The cathedral is in a classical style whose portico (porch or entrance)
has four Corinthian columns (made from Portland stone on site, each
requiring 1,200 stone cutter hours – not including the capital and base) with
elaborately carved capitals and figures of Christ, St Patrick and St Felim on
the tympanum (the flat panel above the columns, in this case triangular).
The high altar is in green Connemara marble and pink Midleton marble.
The pulpit on the south side, the statues and 28 interior columns are all in
italian marble. William Jones, who was an apprentice mason on the cathedral
job, recorded how these columns have a continuous 10 inch-diameter hole
drilled right through the length of the centre to allow 8 inch-diameter solid
steel columns (made by J&G McLoughlin, Dublin) to be inserted into them
which were designed to carry the weight of the overhanging clerestory walls.
John G paid close attention to the build, “i visited the job twice a week and
left the house [in Dublin] at 6am, visited the job and was back in the Phoenix
Park at 1pm eating my sandwiches and then on to the office to estimate till
6pm. in those days we really worked.” ■
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Galway cathedral
Galway Cathedral (Dedicated to Our Lady Assumed into Heaven & St. Nicholas)
involved complex craftsmanship. The design, begun in 1949, by architect John
Robinson, later of Robinson keefe Devane, alluded to a number of historic
styles. in December 1957, Sisk was given the contract to build it for £600,000.
in Irish Builder and Engineer magazine in December 1957 it was reported
that “the tender of John Sisk & Sons (Dublin) Ltd, at £599,488, has been
accepted for the erection of the walls, roof and dome and construction of
floors and windows of the Roman Catholic Cathedral.”
Construction on the seven year project began in February 1958 and soon
hard green granite was found a few feet under the surface but it didn’t slow
up progress.
The cathedral is in a cruciform plan with central dome. The building is made
from local, natural materials including two shades of local limestone to give
a variegated pattern. The high walls, requiring the workmen to scale great
heights during the build, are in rock-faced stone while finely-chiselled light
grey limestone highlights features such as windows, doors, arches columns
and moulding. The coffered ceiling is in cedar and the altar, sanctuary and
main passageway floors are in marble.
Pope Paul Vi decided to send Cardinal Cushing, from Boston, to open the
cathedral on August 15th, 1965, which he did in a televised ceremony attended
by many dignitaries including Cardinal Conway, Archbishop of Armagh and
Primate of All ireland; president Eamon de Valera; former president Sean
T O’kelly; opposition leader Liam Cosgrave and taoiseach Sean Lemass.
At the ceremony the Bishop of Galway praised John Sisk & Son: “The work
went through quietly and without break and was completed in seven years;
and even Solomon took seven years to build the temple in Jerusalem…
We did not set out to build a masterpiece or to initiate a new architectural
revolution. We had no higher ambition than to build a church that would be
solid, dignified and worthy of Galway, and so we built it not of concrete or
synthetic stone, but of good Galway limestone.”
John G Sisk spoke too, thanking his builders and client, and highlighting the
procurement and use of stone: “Building, as you know, is composed of roughly
50 per cent labour and 50 per cent material but in this case, as most of the
materials used in the job were not only irish, but local, we reckon that about
80 per cent of the cost of the work was paid in the city and county of Galway.” ■
The old gate of the jail has long been removed, and
the cathedral occupies this pivotal position with
confidence
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F o U N Dat i o N
Opposite: interior of Galway Cathedral.
1. Cardinal D’Alton, the Archbishop of
Armagh, blessed the site and the
foundation stone on October 27th,
1957
2. Archbishop Michael Browne and
John G Sisk, beside Jack Lillis (site
agent)
3. Pope Paul Vi appointed Cardinal
Richard Cushing, Archbishop of
Boston, Pontifical Legate to dedicate
the cathedral which took place on
the Feast of the Assumption, August
15th, 1965
1
2
4
3
5
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4. Archbishop Brown flanked on the
left by architect, Fred Browne, and
John G Sisk, and on the right by Sean
McElligot (Sisk director), and site
agent Jack Lillis
5. L-R: Martin Cullen (clerk of works),
John G Sisk, Jack Lillis
68
Busaras
Built between 1945 and 1953 as the central Dublin bus station for all regional
buses, Busaras (from bus, and the irish ‘áras’ meaning building) was designed
in the international Style that had been emerging in Continental Europe and
the US before the war and was relatively new to ireland.
Architect Michael Scott had visited Europe and returned to ireland with no
reservations about designing in a Modernist style – shown in his own house
in Sandycove, and at Busaras. One of Michael Scott’s talents was also said to
be choosing staff, and many in the Busaras design team – including Patrick
Scott, kevin Roche, Robin Walker and Wilfred Cantwell – were keen to design
in a modular Modernist style. But by far the bravest decision on the project
was that of the then government to commission Michael Scott, knowing
that he would design in the Modern style.
Many of those involved in the project would say that the design of Busaras
was based on Swiss-born architect, Le Corbusier’s work, notably his Maison
Suisse in south Paris.
Busaras is not symmetrical as an overall form. This meant that the services,
lighting and various elements of the building (including the reinforcedconcrete fins in the glazing, the wave form canopy) were carefully arranged to
fit into this template.
Overall, Busaras comprises separate volumes, although they do slide into
each other: with the bus station section emerging from the two rectangular
office buildings.
The architectural team was responsible for designing many of the internal
elements of the building, so, in a similar way to the Department of industry
and Commerce job and even the Honan Chapel in the early 1900s, Sisk
carried out both large-scale parts of the build and the more meticulous
details.
The building won the Royal institute of the Architects of ireland (RiAi)
Triennial Gold medal in 1955. it was featured on a stamp in 1982 ■
The building was left unfinished for years while changes
of government created uncertainty as to which agency
should occupy the offices over the bus station. Building
started in 1945, but it only opened in 1953
70
Hospital Building Programme
“i am faced in ireland today with a problem of gigantic proportions,” said
then minister for health, Dr Noel Browne in May 1948 (quoted in The Irish
Times). “There are very few irish families who have not been closely touched
by tuberculosis. i am faced with a waiting list of over 1,000 persons who are
awaiting admission for treatment to sanatoria.”
The Hospital Sweepstakes was set up by the government to help fund
the new medical centres. in 1948 Sisk won ireland’s first million pound
building contract for the construction of a new tuberculosis treatment
centre (Galway’s Merlin Park Sanatorium) and two weeks later, did the same
again for Sarsfield’s Court, Cork and Blanchardstown (now James Connolly
Memorial Hospital), Co Dublin.
Over the years Sisk won a number of hospital building projects, including
the St Clare in Glasnevin; Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin; Cavan
Regional Hospital; Cork University Hospital; Limerick Regional Hospital;
extensions to Mercy Hospital, Cork, and Mount Carmel, Dublin; University
College Hospital Galway (phase 2); Mayo General Hospital, Castlebar; St
James’s Hospital; Bons Secours, Glasnevin (new wards), St Joseph’s, Clonmel
and The Mater, Dublin.
The design of the sanitoria was based on the concept of isolating TB patients
– the only treatment then known – and thus they were composed of a large
number of separate buildings set in a rural parkland environment.
One Sisk story is told about an incident when the sanatorium at Sarsfield’s
Court, Cork, was being built. The foreman mason, Jim Freeman, was apparently
discussing some item with the foreman carpenter, Dan O’Brien, when a gust
of wind carried the plans away. Freeman set off in pursuit. When Jim returned,
the foreman carpenter remarked, ‘Do you know Jim, that is the first time i ever
saw a mason following the plans’.
Just as construction was finishing on the three sanatoria, at last an
effective drug treatment for TB was discovered, and so the buildings
were converted into hospitals. ■
Architect’s impression of the new Mater
Adult Hospital. Sisk started construction in
September 2009
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3
1
2
4
F o U N Dat i o N
73
Hospitals
Opposite page:
This page:
1. Mount Carmel Hospital,
Rathgar, Dublin
5. Limerick Regional Hospital
2. Whitfield Clinic, Waterford
3. St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin
4. Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children,
Crumlin, Dublin
5
7
6
8
6. Mater Hospital, Dublin
7. University College Hospital, Galway
8. University College Hospital Cork A&E
74
Liberty Hall
Liberty Hall was evacuated in 1956 and demolished over three months in
1958. Architect and structural engineer Desmond Rea O’kelly was appointed,
along with Sisk who embraced the then modern building techniques involved
in the construction of the tallest tower in Dublin, at 17 storeys and 60 m (198ft),
and ireland’s first skyscraper. Work began on site on July 20th, 1961.
Liberty Hall’s non-reflective glass led some to call it a ‘crystal tower’ and
a review in Irish Builder and Engineer magazine said: “Under the changing
skies of our climate – at night lighted up, or in the daytime – it always looks
handsome.”
Liberty Hall designer O’kelly says that the building was inspired by Frank
Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax building in Wisconsin and that the distinctive
wavy roof atop Liberty Hall was not in a reference to the nearby Busarus, as
some have suggested.
A significant and memorable figure in Sisk’s history, Jack Carmody, had
joined Sisk in 1938 as a carpenter on the kildare St job and went on to become
a legendary foreman in the company. Jack came from Co Clare and his father,
Martin, was a train driver on the West Clare Railway who is said by his family to
have inspired the song Are ye right there Michael? by Percy French.
Carmody, who was involved in many Sisk jobs including Shannon airport,
Crumlin Hospital, Blanchardstown Sanitorium and UCD, had a fairly fierce
reputation which also ensured that jobs got done. “He was a colourful
character,” remembers his son Paul. “He would roar and shout until he got his
own way. He was not a big man but he was very determined. He had a great
drive to bring people along and ensure that the building was done to proper
standards and quality, and on time. Lots of architects would want him to be
on a job because they knew it would be done right”■
Top : Jack Carmody, a legend in the irish building
industry, who worked for John Sisk & Son for 44 years
(1938–1982)
Middle: invitation to the opening of Liberty Hall
Opposite: Liberty Hall, offices of SiPTU, ireland’s largest
trade union. Photograph: Bryan O’Brian, courtesy of
The irish Times
F o U N Dat i o N
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76
The central Bank
The Central Bank on Dublin’s Dame St was designed by Stephenson Gibney
and Associates to be a brave new building in central Dublin. Of substantial
height, which in Dublin – especially then – meant eight storeys, it was set back
from the street and largely invisible from nearby roads.
The arguments about the new Central Bank building had started before
building began in 1967 and it took a long time for the formidable structure
to be accepted – and then not by everybody. The completed building wears
design decisions that would be more suited to the skyscraper that many
appeared to think it was. The thin base it stands on helps to give the building
a human scale at street level – being the size of a house. The overhanging
floors above are held up from the roof on cables that plummet down the
external walls. External structural supports as part of the overall design had
been heralded by the Centre Pompidou in Paris a few years earlier.
“it was a unique construction and nothing had been done like this in
ireland before,” recalls kevin kelly, former Sisk managing director and at that
time the regional director in charge of the build.
“it was constructed from the top down. We used a system called slipform
to construct the cores [a type of concrete formwork]. Then we put on the
roof and assembled the building by making the floor at ground level and
then hanging it from the roof, from a metal bar, and then jacking each floor
into position and fixing it at the core. it was a challenging project using a lot
of novel techniques, other buildings like it had been built elsewhere but we
had never seen anything like it in ireland.”
in fact general jitters about the radical new structure finally halted the
project in 1974. Then minister for local government, Jimmy Tully, issued
instructions for work to cease on the Central Bank. The reason was that it was
higher than the original approved design.
“it turned out that when they developed the design they put in air
conditioning so the extra floor-to-ceiling height, when multiplied by seven,
was substantially greater,” says kelly.
The builders were initially told that work would stop for about a month
but the site was closed for the best part of 12 months. The bank was finally
completed in 1978. Whatever people thought about the design of the
building, the formation of the building’s structural supports certainly enables
good views. And that’s the surprise for those few lucky enough to enter this
building. While from the outside those bands of concrete and long slits of
glass suggest a building that is weighty enough to deal with the country’s
finances, inside you find that those horizontal bands of glass are actually the
full height of a floor, with the coffered ceilings and services tucked behind
the concrete strips. The floor shoots out by about one and a half metres
beyond the glass wall so the eye is carried right out to the edge ■
Opposite: Central Bank, Dame St, Dublin. See a video
of the project at www.sisk150.com
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The Sisk Name
F o U N Dat i o N
Opposite: A ‘top down” construction process. First
the concrete core, then the steel roof, then the
suspended floors. Photographs courtesy of irish
Architectural Archive
Below left and bottom: Splendid views over Dublin
enjoyed by the directors and staff of the Central Bank.
The panorama has significantly changed to the east
with the major development of the international
Financial Services Centre, the Gasometer was
demolished but Trinity College and the Georgian
and Victorian Liffey-side facades endure
Bottom right: interior details of the Central Bank on
opening in 1978
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80
Arts Block and Administration
Building, UcD
Polish architect Andrzej Wejchert came to ireland to work on his first major
job, the design of UCD, which he did with local architects RkD (Robinson
keefe Devane) who had previously worked with Sisk.
“it was my first meeting with the irish building industry and i really felt that
i was in very good hands,” Andrzej Wejchert recalled shortly before he died
in May, 2009.
“Sisk maintained a consistent moral profile and reliability right through
the project. They embraced the project with great gusto. They were masters
because, in addition to precast technology, they also had in situ concrete
[created on site] and the quality of the white concrete by Sisk was astonishingly
beautiful, as can be seen today. Derry O’Donovan was one of the directors who
ran the job and Mr Sisk was always in the background.
“They also had a fantastic site agent, Jack Carmody, with whom i had
endless discussions about what is white because i was talking about white
concrete and was trying to identify just how white white concrete should be.
He was a very experienced contractor and i was a young architect so there
were potential tensions but he was quite an individual and totally disarmed
me because he told me that in his family home they had some LPs which
were recorded by the Polish pianist and prime minister ignacy Paderewski.
i found it extraordinary that i could talk with a site agent who knew about
classical Polish music from his home. We were great friends.”
Sisk was not daunted by new building technologies, says Wejchert. “We
were at the edge of technology, using pre-stressed concrete with complex
cables going in two directions. it was a very innovative structure.
“The whole issue of concrete at UCD involved a fairly thorough thinking
about resources available in ireland. ireland didn’t have steel in the same way
as the US which had already developed it as a structural element. But ireland
had stone as its most important indigenous material and crushed stone, and
therefore cement and therefore concrete, was really an irish material.
“i also thought that the university would stay around for a long time and i was
looking for a certain element of permanence; that’s why i used concrete.”
But the brickwork, too, was a cause for celebration, Wejchert remembered.
“One brick silicate wall in front of the Administration building at UCD was not
vertical so it was not an easy wall for bricklayers to build. it involved inclined
joints made in such a way as to prevent rain water getting in. you couldn’t
plumb it because it was not straight.” He praised the Farrell brothers, working
for Sisk at the time, for overcoming the problem.
“When we were doing Blanchardstown Shopping Centre in 1992 – about 20
years after UCD – where there was a lot of brick work, we built sample walls and
who should i meet on site but the Farrell brothers. That was incredible, it was
like meeting your dearest friend,” Wejchert recalled. He pointed to a picture of
a wall they built. “imagine this number of bricks put there not by a machine
but by a man. Look at the consistency of that. i started to question how it was
humanly possible to get this consistently, it is almost inhuman, and i talked
about it to Sisk director Paul Hackett. He just said, ‘the secret is supervision,
supervision, supervision’, and when you think about it that is perhaps what
makes Sisk so extremely good today.” ■
Arts Block and Library at University College Dublin
campus at Belfield. Moving out of the city centre
to the new campus was a brave and successful
initiative of the then president of the college, Prof.
Michael Tierney
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The Sisk Name
F o U N Dat i o N
Opposite: Administration building entrance.
1. Glazed tunnel joining the Arts Block and
Administration buildings
2. The late Andrzej Wejchert, architect
3. President of UCD, Professor JJ Hogan, left,
Diarmuid (Derry) O’Donovan (Sisk director)
centre, Andrzej Wejchert, right
4. UCD Nova built by Sisk in 2002
3
1
2
4
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Ballymun
The Ballymun council housing project was a joint venture between Cubitts,
Haden and Sisk, and the National Building Agency. This project of 3260
homes was built on the site of a former agricultural college to relieve a
housing crisis in a country where local authority building had been on the
decline since the mid-1950s. After four deaths in 1963 from falling buildings,
Dublin Corporation’s Housing Committee sought ways of removing people
from dangerous inner-city structures.
The Department of Local Government put out a call for contractors, saying,
“The urgency of the housing situation requires that these dwellings should
be provided as speedily as possible ...in these circumstances consideration
will be given to proposals employing new building methods and techniques.”
People are well acquainted with the fact that this housing project, which
included towers of up to 15 storeys, was system-built. The goal was to
construct 84 homes a month, or about 1,000 a year, using pre-cast Balency
system blocks which contained all ducts for services, screw fixings and
plumbing. The system was developed in France and used precast concrete
wall panels for internal partitions and external cladding, and floor slabs that
contained heating coils and electric wiring. They were made in a plant just
500 yards from the site.
A contract was signed by Sisk in February 1965 for 1,000 homes a year and
John G Sisk was reported in The Irish Times saying that he would like to assure
the minister for local government, Neil Blaney, that the consortium would
make every endeavour to carry out the contract in time.
All the elements of the build were standardised leading to floor-to-floor
heights of 8ft 6in throughout the flats, the concentration of all services (such
as plumbing, ventilation, heating, gas, water) into a `technical block` (a precast
concrete element measuring 5ft 6in long and 1ft 3in wide) and there was one
standard bathroom plan in all flats (all measuring 7ft 6in and 5ft 6in) and a
standard arrangement of kitchen fittings (despite several different plans).
A ceremonial gathering in December 1968 saw the last precast unit
being lifted in (of that phase), marking the completion of 2,616 flats (with
the remainder to be finished by the following February to eventually house
about 12,000 people). The final tally came to 3,260 dwellings in place by the
summer of 1969.
Today apartment living is an accepted part of irish people’s experience, but in
the 1960s it was novel and perceived as alien in ireland. Ballymun did not succeed
as a social project, but it was a milestone in the development of the new ireland,
just like many of the landmark projects with which Sisk has been involved. ■
Ballymun Housing Project (1965–1968). Technically
and contractually innovative, it was said to be the
largest public housing project in Europe at the time.
See a video of the project at www.sisk150.com
F o U N Dat i o N
85
growth
TAOiSEACH SEAN LEMASS often referred to as the Architect of Modern
ireland, was hugely influential in ireland’s transition from a stagnant economy in
the 1950s to one of the most attractive locations in the world for foreign direct
investment in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The industrial Development Authority (iDA) was charged with selling the image
of ireland as an attractive location for such investment.
During the decades of industrial development, we have seen a transition
from the early manufacturing and textile industries to assembly and on to the
high tech and generally more sustainable information and communications
technology (iCT) and pharmaceutical sectors.
Padraic White, former managing director of the iDA, says one of the main
attractions of ireland, apart from its favourable tax regime, was its ability to
deliver projects from site acquisition through planning, design and construction.
John Sisk & Son has been to the forefront of creating this positive image of ireland
for almost 50 years, with its ability to successfully complete projects anywhere in
the country.
ireland’s success in industrial development is a regional story that became the
catalyst for the country’s prosperity and the growth of Sisk all around the State.
The west of ireland in the 1970s saw great change with the arrival of such
industries as Burlington in Gillogue, Co Limerick, and Clondra, Co Longford. At
the time these were huge buildings (122,000 sq m) built for the manufacture
of denim. The architect for those buildings and, indeed, other Sisk-built factories
Opposite: Centocor Biologics,
Ringaskiddy, Co Cork
88 BUilDiN G a BU Si NESS
Top left: Wyeth Laboratories,
Newbridge, Co kildare
Opposite: Wyeth Laboratories, from
above, after several extensions
have been added. The deceptively
straightforward “boxes” mask the
extremely sophisticated technology
inside, built to challenging
environmental standards
such as Digital in Galway and Polaroid in Newbridge was Fred Browne of RkD
Architects. “Fred became legendary for his ability to successfully design and manage
these projects. it is worth noting that at this time there were no indigenous project
management companies like the ones we have today, and, at times, Fred seemed to
single-handedly represent ireland’s entire expertise in the successful management
of these complex projects,” says Tom Costello, who succeeded kevin kelly as Sisk &
Son managing director in 1999.
“The industrial buildings were on extraordinarily tight programmes,” recalls kevin
kelly who joined Sisk in 1960 and retired as managing director in 1999. “One morning,
when a huge plant for Polaroid in Newbridge was nearing completion, Fred Browne
and i went to meet the chief executive of Polaroid in London airport. We met him at
Heathrow early in the morning. We shook hands and did the usual niceties and then
he said: ‘What will it cost me to abort?’. i told him it would be the full contract price.
it was absolutely devastating… Also, the whole town of Newbridge was expecting
a huge employer. it later became a meat-packing plant and is now occupied by the
pharmaceutical company Wyeth and is very successful.”
“The arrival of Pfizer in Cork in the early 1970s took ireland to the premier league of
the pharmaceutical industry,” Padraic White remembers.
Ger Dennehy, now head of Sisk’s Pharma division, has worked closely with Pfizer in
ireland in the OSP3 and OSP4 plants where they manufacture global blockbusting
drugs: Lipitor and Viagra.
By 2000, 13 of the top 15 pharma companies in the world had a manufacturing
presence in ireland. For Sisk it has been a fascinating journey to partner most of the
G ro w t h 91
pharma companies. Costello recalls his first involvement in the pharma business at
Abbott in Ballytivnan, Sligo in 1980. “We learned so much from those companies,
from their high expectations and exacting standards regarding health and safety,
quality, project management, scheduling and cost control. Once learned, never
forgotten - we built up our skill base over the years to enable us to manage the
completion of such major projects as Hewlett Packard, iBM, Centocor and Wyeth,
Newbridge.”
The management approach to these projects has changed dramatically over the
decades. Whereas in the 1970s and 1980s clients felt obliged to have their projects
managed by major US companies such as Catalytic, Lockwood Green, Bechtel,
Jacobs or Fluor, invariably over the past 15 years even the most complex projects
are managed by irish companies such as PM Group and, indeed, Sisk.
Hewlett Packard (HP) was Sisk’s first industrial client to use management contracting,
a new form of client-contractor relationship. The concept was new in ireland in the
early 1990s. The knowledge acquired from more than 20 years working with its other
clients was fundamental to Sisk’s success in securing the project. Starting in 1995,
over three phases, a total of 340,000 sq m of buildings was constructed at a cost
of €180 million, and completed in 1998. Such was the teamwork and relationships
developed with HP and the design team of RkD, Arup, BeMRA and Bruce Shaw were
such that the 45 strong project team were delighted to get together for a reunion
in November 2005. The HP team duly travelled from the US. A return trip to Corvallis
in the US is planned for 2015.
Opposite: Wyeth Grangecastle, Co Dublin.
The world’s largest single bio-pharmaceutical
investment when built
Top left: Abbott Laboratories Co Sligo.
Leading the list of US medical products
manufacturers who were drawn to ireland
by the attractive combination of English
language, educated workforce, low taxation
regime, and the capacity of the construction
industry to deliver on time while learning
new skills
Top right: Pfizer OSP3 & OSP4 in Ringaskiddy,
Co Cork
Airports
Energy (opposite page)
1. Dublin Airport
1. ESB power station at Marina, Cork
2. Team Aer Lingus
2. Lisheen Windfarm, Co Tipperary
3. ireland West Airport, knock
3. Whitegate CCGT power station, Cork
4. Shannon Airport
5. Cork Airport
3
1
4
2
5
1
2
3
When iBM decided to set up its campus at Mulhuddart in Dublin it initially hired a
US management contractor for the first phase. Padraic White saw the development
of iBM’s state-of-the-art campus as one of the key building blocks of software in
ireland. “it was truly of historical significance.”
When Sisk got the chance to tender for the second phase, it won the business, and
since then it has retained an almost continuous presence on the campus for the
past 12 years.
The strength of the relationship was proved in the winter of 2008 when extreme
weather conditions resulted in the failure of significant areas of roofing, putting
the manufacturing process at risk. With one phone call and an army of roofers, the
emergency repair work was completed in eight days with no lost time in manufacturing.
The Shannon region had been a base for industry from the 1960s with the
establishment of the Shannon Free Zone, the brainchild of Brendan O’Regan. Limerick
was particularly lucky in attracting Analog Devices to Raheen industrial Estate in the
early 1980s. An enduring relationship began between Sisk and Analog Devices in
1984 when Pierce O’Shea, now managing director of John Sisk & S0n international,
successfully tendered for the first project. From 1989, Jim Tuohy has maintained the
relationship to the present day delivering projects amounting to a combined value of
more than €200 million. Jim remembers in particular the Class 10 cleanroom built in
10 months in 1994. “We had to excavate 3,000 cubic metres of rock inside the existing
building while the wafer fabrication facility continued production.”
Top left: Hewlett Packard in Leixlip,
Co kildare. Built in 3 phases, this plant was
planned to be adaptable to the continuous
changes in HP’s product range
Top right and above: Laboratory
and Cleanrooms in Hewlett Packard
Opposite: iBM, Mulhuddart, Co Dublin
G ro w t h 97
Wyeth’s project director, Tom Trevithick, regards ireland’s status as an established
pharma location as one of the main reasons why ireland is generally one of three
countries internationally who compete for new pharma investment. The others are
Singapore and Puerto Rico. Cork can rightly assume the title of “Pharma Capital.” For
the past 20 years more than 50 per cent of Sisk’s business for the southern region
has been in the pharma business. Many of Sisk’s senior staff are ‘career pharma
managers’. Frank Quirk, director in the southern region, was project manager for the
Warner Lambert (now Pfizer Loughbeg) bulk tableting facility in 1999. There, Frank’s
skills at managing a fast-track project schedule were finely honed.
in 2007 Sisk was privileged to be selected as an “alliance contractor” by Wyeth for
the construction of its Biopharma project in Grangecastle in Dublin. Frank Quirk,
with his team, delivered the Drug Substance Building defect free at completion.
This page: Analog Devices Limerick. Sisk has
continually worked with Analog for more
than 25 years
The Sisk relationship with Wyeth goes back to the Wyeth Medica 2 Newbridge
project in 1997. Sisk’s skills at managing a construction project adjacent to a fully
operational facility were essential to the success of the project.
Opposite: Architect’s impression of the
completed Aghada CCGT power station,
Co Cork
The jewel in the crown of the business with Wyeth is the BZA/CE-PNP job, a
€150m project, where Sisk (pharma division team) delivered the full construction
ICT & Pharmaceutical
1. Microsoft Datacentre, Grangecastle, Dublin
2. Elan, Athlone, Co Westmeath
3. Janssen, Little island, Co Cork
4. Seagate, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
5. Genzyme, Waterford
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2
4
3
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5
100 BUilDiN G a B U Si NESS
management service. Within the three storey building, the process facilitated the full
production of tablets from cold storage of raw material through to fully coated tablets
ready for packaging.
Over a 15 week period 45 per cent of the man-hours for the project were worked
equating to 3 per cent progress per week – a rare achievement on a complex
pharma project. in a sector of the construction industry where cost over-runs are
endemic, an equally rare achievement was the completion of the project within a
lump sum fixed price budget.
in 1994, the iDA arranged with Sisk to meet an anonymous client. Costello recalls the
meeting at the Dunraven Arms Hotel in Adare. “The introductions we had were by
Christian name only: ‘Hi, i’m Dave’. The Dave was Dave O’Connor of Johnson & Johnson
in New Jersey.” The project in question was Vistakon in Limerick which manufactures
contact lenses.
“This was the start of an excellent relationship between the two companies. in the
15 years up to this, the partnership of Johnson & Johnson, Sisk and PM Group has
delivered various phases at Vistakon, De Puy, Janssen and Centocor in Cork and,
most recently, Cordis at Cashel. it has been a wonderful journey, at each stage we
have been challenged to deliver to a higher level,” says Costello.
in 1994 Bill Tibbitt, former director of engineering at Johnson & Johnson, regarded
health and safety in ireland as well below their expectations. Through continuous
improvement and a belief that projects can be completed accident-free Sisk
delivered world-class standards in health and safety on the Centocor project in 2007.
The Centocor project stands as testimony to how Sisk’s capability had developed
over the years when it was appointed construction manager for the project.
Above: Vistakon external (left) and lobby
(right) in Limerick. This is a world leading
contact lens manufacturer
G ro w t h 101
Working closely with PM Group, Sisk was involved right through the design phase,
construction, commissioning and validation.
Centocor manufactures a drug called Remacaid which is used to treat Crohn’s
disease. The process involves the raw material arriving in laboratory vials containing
hybridoma cells. The cells are grown in a series of culture vessels, and fed with a
controlled media which allows and encourages rapid cell growth. When sufficient
quantities are available in the bioreactors, a complex harvesting process extracts
and purifies the antibody cells for medicinal use.
The €180 million project was completed one month ahead of schedule, and 10 per
cent below budget. A major milestone, which was celebrated with then minister for
enterprise Micheál Martin, was the achievement of one million accident-free hours
on the site.
in 2007 while Sisk was constructing Wyeth-BZA and Centocor, it had become the
sixth largest pharma contractor in the world, with turnover in pharma projects of
$252 million.
As Sisk marks its 150th year in business, it is working with two other multinational
clients who remain strongly loyal to ireland, namely Coca-Cola and Microsoft.
Coca-Cola is developing a bulk ingredient manufacturing facility in Wexford. This is
the “secret” ingredient that makes Coca-Cola unique. Sisk worked successfully with
Coca-Cola in 1996 when the Ballina beverages plant was built. Here the famous
Coke “concentrate” is manufactured for European and Middle Eastern markets, and
needless to say, information on the secret ingredient will never be divulged.
Top left: Cordis, the 5th Johnson & Johnson
manufacturing facility to be built by Sisk.
Cordis manufactures drug-eluting stents
Top right: Centocor plant manager Paul
Tracey and Paul Brock, Centocor executive,
fulfil a US tradition of signing the last steel
section before erection
Bottom right: Minister Micheál Martin TD at
the celebration of one million accident free
hours on the Centocor site
G ro w t h 103
Microsoft employs 1,200 people in ireland and is currently developing a 28,000sqm
data centre at Grange Castle, Co Dublin. it is Microsoft’s first mega data centre
outside the US.
The first phase has availability of 5.4 mega watts of critical power. Over time this can
expand to 22.2 mega watts. At completion of Phase 1, the design and construction
teams won high acclaim from Microsoft: “The safest, most professional, timely and
efficient delivery of a project in the Microsoft Data Centre Programme,” said Brian
Matson, director of Data Centre Development with Microsoft.
“Sisk work in all sectors of the industry but there is no doubt that iCT [information
and communications technology] and pharma are the best training ground for our
staff,” says Costello.
“As industrial development stimulated the phenomenal growth of the irish economy,
those projects have enabled the professional growth of Sisk. Our international clients
have continually set the bar higher and higher for the irish construction industry.
Right now our management and skills are truly world class.” ■
Opposite: Centocor Biologics, Ringaskiddy,
Co Cork
Top: The construction team led by
Philip Howard (regional director) centre,
on Microsoft’s 1st EMEA Data Centre,
Grangecastle, Co Dublin
104 BUilDiN G a B U Si NESS
General Industrial
1. United Drug, Magna Park, Dublin
Opposite:
2. Bulmers brewery, Clonmel,
Co Tipperary
5. WorldPort datacentre, Dublin
3. Astellas (formerly yamanouchi),
Mullhuddart, Dublin
6. Diageo brewery, Waterford
7. Microsoft datacentre, medium voltage
switch room, Grangecastle, Dublin
4. Burlington industries, architect’s
impression before the CAD era
3
1
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4
5
6
7
civil Engineering
From its earliest days small civil engineering works were carried out by
John Sisk & Son (John V completed a sewerage scheme in Greystones, Co
Wicklow in 1900, before he rejoined his father in 1906). But in 1955, a more
lasting initiative took place as a direct result of John G’s entrepreneurial flair
and good relationships with other companies.
On the introduction of consulting engineer William O’Connell, John G
met Jonkeer W S van Lennep of the Dutch Hollandsche Beton Maatschappij,
whose company was interested in finding an irish joint venture partner
to build a new bridge at Wexford. Over a half hour meeting in a hotel in
Harcourt Street, Dublin, a corporate relationship started which was to last
for 33 years. The contract was won and completed, and the joint venture
continued in a co-owned company, Ascon Ltd, (the name was based on the
concept of associated construction companies). it became ireland’s largest
civil engineering firm, with an impressive record of building harbours,
power stations, cement manufacturing plants, many more bridges, and
even a harbour on Lake Malawi in Africa.
“My father was awarded a Commandeur in the Orde van Oranje Nassau
from the Dutch government for his work, which is the highest decoration
handed out to people who are not Dutch nationals,” Hal recalls.
By mutual agreement, the shareholding eventually changed in 1988
from the original 50/50 basis, with the Dutch partners, now HBG, buying
Sisk’s interest. yet the relationship not only brought to ireland the legendary
Dutch technical expertise of construction in and over water, it also revealed
new business practises to Sisk. John G took on board several concepts from
this partnership, which allowed a window to a business culture beyond the
conventional model of the English speaking world.
The most significant example was the idea of two firms working together
as equals, pooling complementary skills and resources on a 50/50 basis. in
1955 this was unprecedented, at least in ireland, and it horrified Sisk’s legal
and accountancy advisors. Today such joint venture (JV) arrangements are
common, and many large projects are delivered on a JV basis. The most
enduring of these being SRB (Sisk Roadbridge).
When Sisk sold its shares in HBG, as it had then become known, it was
free to conduct its own civil engineering work. After that, there was a long
period when Sisk focused mainly on general building contracting. it was in
the early 1990s that the company decided to establish a specialised civil
engineering department within the construction company.
This required specialist expertise and knowledge and began with the
recruitment and appointment of Pat Lucey from Christiani Nielsen. Christiani
Nielsen had been a very successful Danish civil engineering company which
unfortunately went out of business in the 1990s. One company’s misfortune
became another company’s good fortune and Sisk recruited many of its
excellent core civil staff from Christiani Nielsen.
When working with Sisk in Germany, Sisk director Brian keogh also noticed
that many contractors entered into joint ventures. “Even on small jobs. it
meant that they could share expertise and share risk. We decided to follow
that strategy of joint venturing. We saw it as an opportunity to expand; with
different JV partners into so many different types of schemes,” says keogh.
it was this combination of excellent core specialised staff and the strategic
decision to joint venture with many different partners, that enabled Sisk to
participate in ireland’s consecutive National Development Programmes,
and to go on to participate in the construction of some of the largest civil
engineering contracts in ireland in the last 10 years.
As evidenced by the familiar Sisk signs on new motorway bridges, the
company has made a major contribution to the new road network, which
has so effectively shrunk travelling times on the island.
Opposite: Construction of harbour and coastal
protection works against erosion at Greystones,
Co Wicklow
G ro w t h 109
Sisk Civil Engineering’s joint venture partners have included Dutch, Austrian, Spanish,
Opposite: Painting by Patrick Hennesy of the
construction of Wexford Bridge in 1956
Uk and irish companies, and projects have included a major 80km section of road on
Top left: Parkwest Terminal, Dublin
the N8 with Roadbridge; an M8 Rathcormac Fermoy bypass as DirectRoute Fermoy;
Top right: Lisheen Windfarm, Co Tipperary
the Celbridge interchange on the M4; an N11 improvement scheme with SM Morris;
an immersed tube tunnel in Limerick as part of a consortium known as DirectRoute;
a new train station at Park West in Dublin built over a live railway, and a new harbour
development at Greystones with the Northern ireland company Lagan Construction.
“infrastructure is the foundation of development,” says keogh. “it does not just involve
roads and bridges but ports, rail, water and waste water, and solid waste technology, all
of these areas are core to our business and our future development.”
Among some of Civils’ more notable successes were the delivery of Sisk’s first PPP
(public and private partnership) projects, i.e. the previously mentioned Rathcormac
and Fermoy Bypass (Toll Road) as part of DirectRoute (Fermoy), and the delivery of the
first successful ECi (Early Contractor involvement) project in ireland (the M8 Cashel to
Mitchelstown 40km roadway with JV partner Roadbridge). Civils’ has also built up an
expertise in delivering (design and build) motorway projects, again with its JV partner,
Roadbridge.
“The world of civil engineering knows no boundaries, and this expertise is eminently
exportable,” says keogh. ■
110 BUilDiN G a B U SiNESS
Road Infrastructure
1. N2 Finglas-Ashbourne bypass
5. M8 Fermoy bypass PPP
2. N11 Ashford-Rathnew bypass
6. West Link toll bridge on the M50,
Co Dublin
3. M4 Celbridge interchange
4. N9/N10 kilkenny bypass
7. M8 Cashel-Mitchelstown ECi
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Civil Infrastructure
1. Berth 50 upgrade, Dublin port
2. Ferrycarrig Bridge, Co Wexford
3. Dún Laoghaire marina, Co Dublin
4. Sisk crew at Greystones marina
5. Bray-Shanganagh waste-water treatment plant
Opposite: N8 Fermoy-Rathcormac road, completed
nine months ahead of schedule in October 2006
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1
4
2
5
114 BUilDiN G a BU SiNESS
The Limerick Tunnel
PPP Scheme
1. Hammerhead section of roadway
under construction
4. internal view of the ‘dry’ but not yet
completed tunnel
2. Floating a section of the immersed
tube tunnel into position before
setting it into place on the river bed
Opposite: View of the extensive site and
adjoining roadworks which form part of
the overall project
3. The immersed tube tunnel section
nears completion in the casting basin
1
3
2
4
116
overseas
JOHN SiSk & SON’S ventures out of ireland and into Africa, Germany, and the Uk
were often precipitated by economic slumps at home and that was certainly the
case with its first move across the border into Northern ireland during the second
World War.
AFRICA
in 1957 Sisk chose to expand into Africa because it wanted to operate in a country
that was English speaking and that ran under English law. England was seen as being
too close to ireland economically and so would follow the same economic cycles.
“So the logic of going to Africa was a counter cyclical investment,” says Sisk chairman,
George Sisk. “The choice initially came down to Australia, Canada and the African
Federation of Rhodesia [and Nyasaland]. Africa took two days to get to, Australia
took four days and we didn’t think we had anything to offer Canadian industry so
we ended up in Africa.”
in the early years much of the work was on mission stations located in far-flung areas
of the country and John O’Donovan, who was charged with setting up the African
operation, often had to drive 300 miles to pay wages on a Friday. As his long-time
colleague Bryan Hayden recalls in an obituary of John (died in July 2006), “he was
always the first one to start singing all the old irish songs at Christmas parties and
in most other social gatherings. He had a wonderful charisma, an infectious smile
and an incredible sense of humour which could turn anger into laughter in no time
at all”.
Court Houses, Harare, Zimbabwe
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118
Left: Quarrying black granite, Zimbabwe
Above: Commerical bank building,
Zimbabwe
“John O’Donovan became Mr Sisk in Africa, and was very famous in his day, he was
a brilliant engineer and builder,” says George.
About six years after Sisk arrived in Rhodesia and Nyasaland, at the end of 1963,
the countries became independent from Britain with Northern Rhodesia becoming
Zambia; Nyasaland becoming Malawi while Southern Rhodesia became Rhodesia
and, later, Zimbabwe (in 1980).
Sisk began to win larger contracts in Africa in the late 1960s, and George worked
on a number of jobs in the Southern Province, building schools in Masabuka and
Namwala. As before Sisk was not afraid to travel to work, Namwala being some
300km from Lusaka with the last 50km a dirt road on the flood plains of the kafue
River. At times in the rainy season the journey ‘was difficult’ with the whole road
under water for 10km stretches.
The company also built offices, factories, hospitals, satellite stations and banks across
Zimbabwe, Malawi and Nigeria. At one point Sisk was building more than 30 houses
o v ErSEaS
a day in Harare, and it also undertook philanthropic work in Mozambique, building
houses after floods.
“When we got there the police service was run by British police seconded from
Liverpool,” says George, “And the civil service was mostly a British administration but
it was rapidly changing over to African people.”
One irishman who became involved in the politics of change was Carmelite Bishop
Donal Lamont, who moved to Umtali in Southern Rhodesia in 1946, and commissioned
Sisk to build him a cathedral. He often dined with the Sisk family. Lamont, who was born
in Co Armagh, and educated in Dublin, stood up for the plight of Africans under white
minority rule. As the Bishop of Umtali (later called Mutare) – where Sisk built a large
post office and a housing scheme – Lamont denounced the (ian) Smith regime while
supporting black leaders. in 1976 Lamont was charged with encouraging mission
workers to treat wounded guerrillas while keeping their whereabouts secret from the
authorities. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, later reduced to four, but was
instead held in a hospital ward until being deported to ireland. He was nominated for
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 and he appeared on a postage stamp when Zimbabwe
won independence under Robert Mugabe in 1980. Mugabe, who went to a Jesuit
mission school, invited him back as Bishop of Mutare but Lamont became unhappy
with the violence and corruption in the country and returned to Dublin (he died
in 2003).
“i visited there through that time,” recalls George. “And when UDi [Unilateral
Declaration of independence in November 1965] was declared in Rhodesia things
got more and more difficult. in time, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and the recent
collapse is very sad.“
Sisk also worked in Nigeria where Pierce O’Shea, managing director of John Sisk &
Son Uk from 1989 to 2008, went to live with his wife and two children for a few years
from 1982.
The family lived in Nigeria while O’Shea worked in north and central Nigeria, including
work on projects in the new capital as it was being constructed. Named Abuja – Lagos
was the capital until 1991 – “it’s still the official capital of Nigeria but nobody goes
there,” says O’Shea, who is now managing director of John Sisk & Son international.
The projects included schools, colleges, hospitals, offices, factories and work for the
Nigerian Air Force, including staff accommodation and runway repairs.
The work was done by about 30 irish staff – many of whom went out there with
their families – and about 600 local employees.
Weather conditions meant adapting to local conditions. There was often a shortage
of raw materials, and it was always either very hot or rainy. “We had to make our own
concrete blocks and at one stage we even made nails. Also, you couldn’t get tap water
– lorries delivered water to the sites from rivers,” O’Shea recalls.
Top: Conditions were often primitive as
evidenced by these site offices
Bottom: Early years in Africa with Phil
O’Donovan, wife of John O’Donovan,
founder/director of Sisk in Africa
119
120
Left: High-rise commercial buildings in
Harare, Zimbabwe
Above: Satellite communication station
Equipment, such as cranes and scaffolding, had to be imported from Europe and
much of the carrying was done by the workforce, who would lift bowls of pouring
concrete on top of their heads.
Staff in Africa would travel around in the company’s basic four-seater Navajo
turboprop plane piloted by a former policeman from Zimbabwe. it was not a
sophisticated flying machine, says Bernard O’Connell, who worked in Mozambique,
Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe with Sisk. it had no toilet and was non-pressurised,
so had to stay below 13,000 feet.
“There was one hospital project in Mozambique that, in the rainy season, was a six
hour drive to the nearest reasonable sized town – so we used to fly in. it was fantastic
because you could ask the pilot to dip the wings and view the building site from the
air.” They would also watch wildlife in this way.
o v ErSEaS
“After a while you get used to it and we would travel back on that little plane from
Zimbabwe to Mozambique in tough weather, getting thrown around. it wouldn’t be
a lot of people’s cup of tea but i was never scared,” O’Connell says.
Landing strips varied and one of them comprised a length of concrete in the middle
of a bush. “The pilot would buzz in over the strip to let people in the bush know that
we were coming and you would see bicycles crossing the runway. There was no
tower or radar. When we landed it was such a novelty that everyone would come
out to meet us. i will never forget getting off the plane one time in the mid-1990s,
and heading off to site in a truck, leaving two guys with bows and arrows to look
after the plane.”
in recent times the Group has divested itself from any remaining interest in the
African business.
On site at Harare Airport, a joint venture
between Costain and John Sisk & Son. Africa
offered a unique working opportunity for
those who chose to go. The irish team
included Eamon McCarthy (sitting on fence,
far left), Joe McLoughlin (standing 1st from
the left), Ciaran McGill (standing 2nd from
left), Andy Tyrell (sitting on fence 2nd from
right), and Paul Sullivan (sitting on fence far
right). Paul and Joe are currently regional
directors with John Sisk & Son
121
122
Left: Four Seasons Hotel,
Canary Riverside
Right: Former County Hall,
London. A flagship project by
which these civic offices were
revamped to multi-functional
uses including two hotels
UK
in 1984 John Sisk & Son opened offices in England, after Sisk had completed some
work in Scotland having attracted the attention of an architect with the Scottish
Development Agency. in the late 1970s, Sisk had begun building with a new
technique known as Tilt-up Construction, which suited industrial units. This involved
casting the floor slab first, building the wall panels on this and then tilting them up
to standing position and then putting the roof on.
Sisk built one such structure for the iDA (industrial Development Agency) in
Newbridge and it was this which was spotted in New Civil Engineer magazine by a
Scottish architect who was researching Tilt-up. He was shown around the Newbridge
site by Brian keogh. A few days later Sisk flew to Edinburgh and plans began for the
construction of two factories in Scotland. Following their completion in 1984 the
company established an office in London.
in 1989, Pierce O’Shea, having returned from working with Sisk in Africa, became
managing director of the Uk operation until 2008, when he became chairman of
John Sisk & Son Uk, and later managing director of John Sisk & Son international.
Uk turnover had reached about £18 million when O’Shea arrived and by 2007 the
turnover had climbed to £250 million.
The current managing director, Paul Wilson, started with Sisk Uk in 1985 as a project
manager and surveyor from Laing, becoming a director three years later. He took
over the reins as managing director in November 2008.
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124
Hotels in the UK
Top: The intercontinental London, Park Lane
Below: Royal Garden Hotel, kensington
Opposite: Library at Mariott County Hall. Now the
coffee and tea lounge
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126
Sisk Uk began life on London’s Euston Road, and in the early days, most contracts
were less than £5 million – all had an irish link through the client or one of the
consultants. initially, all staff members were also from ireland.
Later Sisk Uk moved to St Albans, to avail of better parking and easier access to
greater areas via various motorways and rail networks.
O’Shea wanted to establish the company as a British contractor rather than an
irish contractor abroad and to establish Sisk in markets in the Uk where it could
demonstrate independent expertise.
The first sector arose almost by chance, and led Sisk into a lot of hotel work. it
was commissioned to refurbish the Copthorne Tara Hotel in kensington which was
quickly followed by another refurbishment at the Royal Lancaster on Hyde Park in
the early 1990s. These projects firmly established Sisk in the hotel market especially
in central London.
“We conducted major internal and external works while guests were still staying in the
hotels. We would be taking rooms and giving them back on a weekly basis,” O’Shea
recalls. Sisk Uk has returned to the Royal Lancaster to carry out further work three times
since then.
Sisk Uk also built hotels from scratch, including the Hilton in Croydon which was
significant because they used a new technology – the tunnel form system – for
building the rooms. This was a quick method of construction and, from a hotelier’s
Top left: Pierce O’Shea at the St. Patrick’s Day
presentation to development director Philip
Howe at the Hilton Hotel, Croydon, Surrey
Top right: Site team at Grosvenor apartments
Park Lane, London
Bottom: Site team at residential
developments, Bolsover St, London
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point of view, it has a high level of acoustic performance: room to room sound
insulation was greatly improved. The system allowed the construction of four
bedrooms a day and the structure of the bedroom block of the 168-bed hotel in
Croydon went up in two months.
From these first experiences in the hotel market, Sisk in the Uk is now recognised as
one of the main hotel build and refurbishment contractors. Over the last few years
the company has completed over 5,000 hotel rooms for budget and 5-star luxury
brands such as Four Seasons, Travelodge, intercontinental, Holiday inn and Hilton.
As with the hotels, Sisk Uk has adapted and kept up with new building technology.
This, combined with a number of collaborations with major signature architects
such as Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, has ensured Sisk Uk has been at the
forefront of building innovation.
North Greenwich interchange tube and bus station
127
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Opposite: Dickens Heath Village urban
regeneration scheme. Top and bottom
Left: village square. Right: waterside
developments
Left: Major distribution centre for Tesco at
Daventry international Rail Freight Terminal
Bottom: Peugeot Uk headquarters and
technical centre, Coventry
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One such project was the American Air Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, by
Foster + Partners for the imperial War Museum.
Sisk has grown to be very strong in the industrial, commercial, rail, retail and
residential sectors across the Uk. it now has offices in Manchester, Birmingham,
Reading and Bristol, in addition to its head office in St Albans.
Paul Wilson says: “We are proud that we are celebrating our own anniversary, 25
years in the Uk in 2009, as well as the company’s 150 years. The success of the
business in the Uk owes much to the history and culture of the irish parent. We
have married innovation with traditional values and never lose sight of the need to
deliver projects on time and on budget for our clients.
“By achieving a reputation for delivery we have been able to obtain a large proportion
of repeat business from clients such as Travelodge, Hilton, Prologis, Brixton, Network
Rail, Quintain, Royal Mail and Derwent London.”
Landmark projects such as the refurbishment of the Grade ii-listed Wembley Arena
in 2006 were further demonstrations of Sisk’s ability to find solutions to challenging
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projects and still complete on time. it directly led to two residential projects for the
client, Quintain, as part of the Wembley Stadium environs redevelopment.
Completed in 2008, the striking curved glass Chancery Place office and retail
redevelopment, by HkR architects, in Manchester’s financial district demonstrated
Sisk’s capabilities in the commercial sector and earned the client a BREEAM rating
of Very Good.
As the market recognised Sisk’s ability to manage larger and more complex jobs,
more mixed use developments were won, notably the £60 million two-phase
Dickens Heath Village project in Solihull for Parkridge. This blended residential,
commercial, retail, infrastructure and leisure amenities as an entire new community
was built, nestling beside the Birmingham to Stratford upon Avon canal. ■
Opposite, top: Wembley Arena London
Opposite, Wembley Arena next to
Wembley Stadium as seen from the air
Above: Hyde bus station, Manchester
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132
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Opposite: Office Development at
Chancery Place, Manchester
Above and left: Manchester airport
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American Air Museum,
Duxford, cambridgeshire
The American Air Museum in Duxford stands as a memorial to the 30,000
American airmen who gave their lives flying from Uk bases during the
second World War.
A strong example of contemporary design, it houses the biggest collection
of American airplanes outside of the USA with many suspended from the
ceiling as if in flight.
This required the construction of the largest unsupported concrete arch in
Europe. “The level of partnering between the builder and architect is much
higher on a project like this because you are working at the outer limits of
known design and construction,” says O’Shea. “For example, the roof is made
up of precast concrete slabs fitted together as they would be in an old brick
arch, with a ‘keystone’, but each one weighs two or three tons and there were
thousands making up a segment of an ellipse. We had a temporary internal
structure holding it up and when the last of the concrete slabs went in we
took away the internal frame. No one knew how much it would settle, we
were expecting a settlement of about 150mm, but it only settled by 80mm
or 90mm. There were very, very heavy pressures on the foundations, so the
foundation design was deep.” in front of this is a 90m wide, 20m tall glass
curtain wall.
The Air Museum won the Stirling Prize (from the Royal institute of British
Architects) in 1997. According to O’Shea: “Once you have done something
like Duxford, no-one questions your ability as a builder. The cutting edge
jobs are the exception. They are good for your reputation, for putting you on
the map and for testing yourself technically.” ■
Above: HRH Queen Elizabeth ii meeting Pierce O’Shea
and Nigel Warnes
Opposite: American Air Museum at Duxford,
Cambridgeshire (winner of the RiBA Stirling Prize)
Following pages:
Top left: The museum at dusk
Bottom left: Topping out at the completion of the roof shell
Right: Under construction
o v ErSEaS
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i l DiNG a BUSiNESS
DEv Elo pmEN t
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The Sisk Name
Germany
Shortly after Sisk had set up in England, it also headed to Germany, just as the
Berlin Wall came down at the end of 1989. While the company had a steady
stream of work, and some major projects, it proved a difficult market to break
into, and most contracts were for non-German companies.
What did help Sisk to win contracts, says Brian keogh, who commuted to
Germany from ireland every week, was the family history.
“We had one meeting with an architect from BMW and once we told him
that Sisk was a family business which had started in 1859, he didn’t want
to know what Sisk had built. He didn’t know the company name but he
understood that if we had been a long time in business and it had always
been family owned and private, then they were in a safe pair of hands. That
opened a lot of doors for us in Germany.”
From 1990 on, Sisk carried out projects in many German cities including
Essen, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Bremen. The company built leisure
centres for Leisure Corp whose management included Paul McGuinness of
U2 and Ossie kilkenny. Another home-based company they worked for in
Germany was irish Life, building offices, while they also worked for the US
Quality Hotels chain, on a number of jobs, including the conversion of a
former Zeiss factory (maker of lenses for telescopes and microscopes among
others) in Jena into a 300-bed hotel.
One of the key projects Sisk carried out in Germany was refurbishment
and new-build work at Schonefeld Airport in Berlin, to include shops, banks,
lounges as well as departures and arrivals halls. One of three Berlin airports – the
other two were Tegel and Templehof – it had been in East Berlin and was being
converted to ‘western standards’. Sisk won the contract after a competitive
tender against 12 companies, including major German contractors.
“it was a fabulous job,” says keogh, “And one of the first East German
buildings to be refurbished. it was interesting having the east Germans
and west Germans working together, as well as English and irish. The west
Germans looked down on the east Germans and the irish and English weren’t
that friendly with each other either.”
At that time the difference between west and east was still evident,
remembers Jim Doyle, a Sisk director who also worked for Sisk in Germany.
“The wall had just come down and it was an amazing experience flying into
Berlin… On the east side there were Trabants and other East German cars
and the whole atmosphere and landscape was completely different to the
west. it was surreal moving from one to the other in just a few steps.”
“We brought out irish companies and materials – including stone – so
hundreds of people were regularly flying between the two countries,” keogh
remembers. “We became fully immersed in German and had language
lessons once a week. Many of the East Germans didn’t speak English and
meetings were conducted in German.”
Some of that German even stumped the German teachers, says Doyle,
who remembers the woman teaching German had difficulty understanding
the technical terms employed in the German DiN (Deutsches institut für
Normung or, in translation, the German institute for Standardisation).
When things began to pick up in ireland in 1994 and falter in Germany, the
German side was wound down and the staff came back to ireland. ■
Top: Shoenfeld Airport, Berlin
Bottom left: Troisdrof Quality Hotel in Jena
Bottom right: Meister Dachdecker (master roofer)
in traditional outfit and Gary Hill, vice-president of
Quality Hotel at the completion of the hotel. Second
from left Martin Carney (regional director), third from
left Brian keogh (director)
branching out
STONE DEVELOPMENTS
Stone Developments emerged out of Sisk’s original contracting business, with John
Sisk & Son buying stone quarries to ensure a steady supply of good stone for its
buildings. Before mass transportation, sourcing materials close to a site made sense
because delivering materials over long distances was difficult.
So on each of its construction projects John Sisk & Son sourced stone locally but in
the case of Castlerea Mental Hospital (now a prison), which the company worked on
in 1937, this proved difficult. As a result John Sisk & Son sought out supplies further
afield which resulted in the company buying a limestone quarry in Ballinasloe.
During its work on Cavan Cathedral in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Sisk
sourced granite from four Dublin and Wicklow quarries, and decided to buy the
Ballybrew quarry in 1954. Then, in 1963, Sisk bought the James Walsh & Sons’ Old
Leighlin Carlow quarry to supply limestone for its monuments business as well as its
building work.
Ten years later, in 1973, the three quarries were brought together under the
umbrella of Stone Developments Ltd which supplied limestone and granite to the
monuments and building trade.
During the 1980s recession, the company explored markets overseas and a
contracting office was set up in London in the early 1980s, to supply and fit both
irish and internationally sourced stone on large building projects. That contracting business relocated to ireland 10 years later, but Stone Developments
continued to supply irish limestone to various projects in Britain, including the
Mayor of London’s offices.
Opposite: “The Scoop” at MORE London,
landscaped in Carlow limestone by Stone
Developments
B raN ch i N G o U t
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in parallel with the development of the Uk market, Stone Developments entered
the Benelux region, where it had identified a market for a Belgian blue limestone
known as Petit Granit that was almost identical to irish limestone from the company’s
Carlow quarry.
Top left: At work on the restoration of
St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin
During the recent economic boom, the rise in finished granite monuments coming
from countries with cheaper manufacturing in the early 1990s had led to the demise
of the large scale manufacture of granite monuments in ireland and the quarry and
factory in Ballinasloe was closed in 1993.
Opposite: Blue limestone quarry at Old
Leighlin, Co Carlow
in the later 1990s the demand for imported stone on building projects and pressure on
granite prices led to the closure of the manufacturing operation at Ballybrew in 2005,
while the design and contract management side moved to Bray. Meanwhile, the limestone exports to Belgium were flourishing and when a key
agent decided, in 2002, to sell his distribution business in Belgium and a limestone
quarry he owned in kilkenny, Stone Developments bought them.
Today Stone Developments has two vibrant businesses – a limestone side that
supplies both processed and semi processed material to irish and international
markets and a contracting company that supplies and fits irish and internationally
sourced materials to large building projects, including those built by Sisk, such as
the Whitewater shopping centre in Newbridge, Co kildare.
Top right: Painting by John G Sisk of the
limestone quarry at Carlow
143
Opposite: Restoration of St Patrick’s
Cathedral, Dublin
Right: A mirror-image extension of an
existing block at Dromoland Castle,
Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co Clare. Constructed
using Carlow limestone
Below: Office and quarry staff at Old Leighlin
Quarry, Co Carlow
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146
conservation and Restoration
Stone Developments took over the running of the Conservation and
Restoration business from a sister Sisk company, international Contract
Cleaners, in 1996. it then developed the scope of the business from simply
facade restoration to include other associated trades such as roofing, leading,
steelwork, plastering etc.
The first major job it undertook was the facade restoration of Dublin City
Hall. Over the past decade it has completed work on numerous occasions
at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. This work involved restoration of the spire,
the roof, leadwork and also steelwork for the restoration and realignment
of the bells. Among other contracts Conservation and Restoration has
completed is the Browne Clayton Memorial, a 94-foot Corinthian column in
Wexford. The unique granite column was originally built to honour a popular
local man who was an officer in the British army and was killed in battle in
Egypt. it was struck by lightning a number of years ago, and the missing
and damaged decorative stone was replaced in the column and a lightning
conductor installed. The restoration team has also worked on the Church of
the Assumption in Callan, Co kilkenny, where it was found that the support
structures beneath the spire were unstable. The job involved taking down
the spire, stone by stone, marking each one, providing a new underpinning
and building the spire back up again stone by stone. in addition they detailed
and manufactured replacements for stones that had been damaged over
time, and plastered the portico walls.
Demand for their skills is on the increase as more and more irish people
and businesses understand and appreciate the importance of protecting
and preserving our built heritage. ■
The recently rebuilt Browne Clayton Memorial
in Wexford (right) and the 94 foot Corinthian column
as it was before restoration (left). Photographs: Donal
Murphy photography
148
Left: Glass roof lights
Right: kildare County Council buildings
showing clearly the elaborately glazed
facade
WILLIAAM COX
When the irish distributor of Coxdome rooflights went out of business in the
1960s, kevin Callan, the then commercial director of Sisk, approached its parent
company Williaam Cox of England and negotiated a 50 per cent share of the
business, taking Sisk into glass and cladding. After a number of further buyouts, SiSk
Group currently shares ownership of the company with CRH (Cement Roadstone
Holdings). The company began by importing rooflights and selling them through
builders’ providers. Such was the demand, though, that an irish production facility
was established in Monastery Road, Clondalkin, and the company later expanded
into the Robinhood industrial Estate in Clondalkin, in 1974.
Williaam Cox briefly went into the acrylic bath market before establishing itself as a
windows company in ireland, installing doors, windows and screens countrywide. it
then expanded in 1991 by teaming up with branded glazing and cladding systems
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150
B raN ch i N G o Ut
Opposite: Cork County Hall. Refurbished in 2006
with a twin-skinned facade
Left: Charlestown shopping centre, Dublin
Below: Jury’s Hotel, Cork
Bottom: Trespa cladding at the Griffeen Centre,
Lucan, Co Dublin
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companies to become a key player in that market by providing engineered natural
daylight and ventilation solutions to buildings. The company is now based in the
Cloverhill industrial Estate in Dublin and has premises in Cork and Belfast.
Williaam Cox’s glazing and ventilation systems can be found in many prominent
buildings, such as Beacon Court, Sandyford; Cork County Hall; Croke Park Stadium;
Elm Park, Dublin; kildare County Offices, Naas; Red Mall Blanchardstown Centre; the
Pavilions shopping centre, Swords; the Whitewater shopping centre, Newbridge and
on the sweeping polycarbonate roof of the new Sisk-built stadium at Lansdowne Road.
A question often asked is how the company got the extra ‘a’ in its name. Founder
William Cox, from the East End of London, was struggling financially when he went
to a fortune teller in the Far East who said that he would get rich by changing his
name. That extra ‘a’ apparently made all the difference for his business boomed from
then on.
Williaam Cox is supplying and fitting all
the cladding and glazing at the Aviva
Stadium, Lansdowne Road, Dublin
KORINE
Sisk has been involved in buying and developing property for 67 years, and
under the leadership of John O. Sisk, it built, and owned, several shopping centres
including the Swan Centre in Rathmines, and Ballymun (both in Dublin), Shannon
and Waterford City Square. To simplify the structure, Sisk Properties was closed, and
its portfolio sold off at the beginning of this century, and korine came into existence.
korine now concentrates on the Uk. it buys properties or sites, develops them, holds
them for a while (and lets them out) and then sells them – often as a portfolio, says
managing director Ciaran McDonald. One of korine’s first projects was Silverstone
House in Sandyford, which the company sold in 2006. korine also developed
warehouses beside the SiSk Group’s offices on the Naas Road, Dublin.
Above: Retail units in Oxford Street, London
(left) and commercial offices in Reading Uk
(right) as seen before (bottom) and after (top)
redevelopment
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ORIGO
Origo started in 1954 (as LMC Company) with the importation and distribution
of heavy construction equipment. its origins stem from a year earlier, when – at a
trade fair in Germany – John G Sisk, always the innovator, bought Bosch power tools
for his company. A short time later he was offered the distributorship contract for
ireland and the business grew from there.
in the early 1970s the company added more products from the Bosch range: Bosch
domestic appliances, Bosch automotive products and the Bosch-owned Blaupunkt
in-car entertainment systems. “The Bosch-Origo relationship has survived to our
mutual benefit and for Bosch, it is unique in Europe”, says John O. Sisk who chaired
Origo for some 30 years. in the 1990s the company added power tool brands such
as Skil and Dremel and the garden equipment company Qualcast.
in 1999 Origo expanded again by acquiring the distribution rights for Stihl
garden equipment (including chainsaws and concrete-cutting saws) and Viking
garden machinery, which supplies a large range of garden machinery and ride-on
tractor-mowers.
Left: Stihl chainsaw at work
Above: One of the many power tools Bosch
supplies into the irish market through Origo
Opposite: Bosch’s latest range of kitchen
appliances in distinctive black
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in 2003 Origo moved into a modern distribution facility at Magna Business Park in
Citywest, Dublin (built by Sisk). This move enabled further growth, both from within
the existing portfolio and from acquisitions.
By 2005 Origo was a key supplier to kitchen, construction, garden and automotive
industries.
As well as expanding its distribution base over the years, the company has also
undergone name changes. in 1960 it switched from LMC Company to Beaver
Distribution, which came from the name of its first offices, in Beaver Row, Donnybrook.
in 2006, it was decided the name needed updating, and an in-house team undertook
the task. When the word ‘Origo’ was mooted it was universally accepted: it is the Latin
word for ‘source’ which tied in nicely with the company strategy.
Above left: Viking Tractor Mower
Above: Bosch Auto Diagnostic equipment
HEALTH CARE
in 2005 the family and board of SiSk Group made a strategic decision to further
diversify the group. The irish economy was booming and construction levels were at
an historic high, so the decision to seek opportunities in other sectors and broaden
the group’s base was a brave one by the family.
SiSk Group entered the healthcare market and over the next two years it acquired
five companies comprising more than 200 employees and a combined annual
turnover approaching €100 million.
All of the healthcare companies within SiSk Group come under the Sisk Healthcare
umbrella.
When Sisk entered the healthcare market it chose to concentrate on distribution
because it had more than 50 years’ experience in that sector through Origo, and it
understands the distribution business.
Health was identified as a growth sector in light of demographic trends indicating
that numbers in the 30 to 39 age group look set to grow by 20 per cent by 2010,
while numbers in the 18 to 25 age group are expected to drop by 17 per cent, and
ireland’s ageing population will need good healthcare.
A key element of the SiSk Group’s successful entry to the healthcare sector was its
attraction to these companies as a family business. Each of these businesses in their
own right was founder owned and managed, but ultimately a family business. Their
cultures and approaches to business were similar to those of Sisk.
Top right: Leibinger Maxilliofacial Plating
System (Tekno Surgical)
Bottom right: StarClose femoral closure
device (Synapse Medical)
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Sisk Healthcare products
1. iridex opthalmic lasers (M.E.D.
Surgical)
2. Xience drug eluting stent (Synapse
Medical)
3. Sorin iCD (Cardiac Services)
4. Stryker i-Suite (Tekno Surgical)
5. kimberly-Clark drapes, gowns and
masks (M.E.D. Surgical).
Opposite: Philips Ultrasound in critical
care setting (Cardiac Services)
3
1
4
2
5
B raN ch i N G o Ut
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in March 2006 Sisk acquired Howth-based M.E.D. Surgical, which was established in
1993, and supplies and distributes surgical products to irish hospitals. The company,
which has 22 employees, distributes operating theatre products and supplies, made
by leading multinational medical device companies.
Started in 1993 by Denis McFerran, Colin Dolan and Vincent Prone, M.E.D. Surgical’s
annual sales have grown from £287,000 in the first year to around €14.5 million. The
revolution in laparoscopic treatment has been a key driver of the company’s success.
in 2006 SiSk Group acquired Cardiac Services, which was then owned by Bill
Dempsey. Bill drove its development and growth over a 30 year period. it was
founded in Belfast in 1968 and later opened offices in Dublin (1974) and Manchester
(1990). Cardiac Services has 89 employees and supplies diagnostic and therapeutic
equipment in ireland and the Uk. it also trains clinical staff in the use of its equipment.
in March 2007, the company expanded in the Uk with the acquisition of Beaver
Medical which distributes Philips cardiac diagnostics and equipment concerned
with resuscitation, ECG, monitoring and foetal monitoring.
in January 2007, Sisk bought west Dublin based company, Tekno Surgical, which
was launched in 1996 to supply orthopaedic, plastic surgery and general surgical
products in ireland. Tekno Surgical was started in 1996 by John Osborne and
Michael Connole.
Sisk’s latest acquisition was Synapse Medical in July 2007. it supplies equipment
into critical clinical areas, such as cardiology, endovascular, neuroradiology and
stroke management. Synapse Medical, which was established in 1998 by William
Costello, represents over 15 healthcare companies, and has recently secured its own
pharmaceutical licence. ■
Top left: Fraxel skin resurfacing laser (Tekno
Surgical)
Top right and opposite top right and left:
Stryker orthopaedic implants (Tekno Surgical)
Opposite bottom left: Laerdal Heartstart
FRX AED (automatic external defibrillator)
(Cardiac Services)
Opposite bottom right: ‘Rapid Response” CPR
craftsmanship
WHEN JOHN SiSk & SON undertakes conservation projects, it draws on the skills –
for instance in stone, plasterwork and carpentry – that its staff used to construct
new buildings in the past (such as Cavan and Galway cathedrals and the Munster &
Leinster Bank in Cork).
A fundamental love of natural materials such as stone and wood has been at the heart
of Sisk’s work and was evident from its earliest years. John V’s tenacious passion for
detail was evident in the lengths he went to in his quest to find the missing ingredient
that would get the plasterwork exactly right at the Munster & Leinster Bank building in
South Mall, Cork. A trip to London to source it was in vain, but he finally struck on the
vital missing component when he tasted the sample – alum. All of the materials on
that project were crafted by Sisk workers, and the ornate plasterwork in the dome was
carried out by John V’s brother Richard.
One of Sisk’s first major conservation projects was on Dublin’s Custom House, which
is somewhat related in style to Cork City Hall – a building the company had built
from scratch in 1932. (Cork City Hall was John G’s first major project with the family
business, and with its references to Dublin’s Custom House, it was an early indicator
that he too embraced the same ambitious and meticulous approach to quality
building work as his forebears).
The Custom House had been designed in 1781 by James Gandon, then just 38 years
old. Gandon was a London-based architect who trained under William Chambers,
who was also to work in ireland, for instance on later additions to Castletown House
which Sisk recently restored.
Gandon was responsible for key neo-Classical buildings in Dublin, including the Four
Courts, Bank of ireland on College Green and king’s inns (also later restored by Sisk).
Custom House, Dublin (now the
Department of the Environment).
Major restoration carried out by John
Sisk & Son ltd in 1988
craF t SmaN Sh i p
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164
The Custom House needed to be restored in time for the building’s 200th
anniversary in 1991, and the task was overseen by architect David Slattery of the
Office of Public Works (OPW). Much of the work involved restoring the 18th century
stonework which included statues and coats of arms by key sculptors and carvers of
the day including Thomas Banks, an English sculptor who did a study tour of Rome,
and was responsible for monuments in St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.
Other stone work is by Agostino Carlini, an italian sculptor and painter who lived in
England and was one of the founder members of the Royal Academy, and Edward
Smyth, who was born in Co Meath, and carved many of the figures for the Custom
House including those on the south front of the building.
The OPW also commissioned Sisk to restore the Royal Hospital in kilmainham in
1980. The building, originally created for invalided soldiers in 1683, was designed by
architect Sir William Robinson and was based on Les invalides in Paris. it comprises a
four-sided structure enclosing a large central courtyard. Arcaded walks at courtyard
level run beneath passages on the floors above.
Just as Gandon’s work had Palladian references, so too did Castletown House
in Celbridge, Co kildare, which was also restored by John Sisk & Son in the late
1990s in work that included a new roof. The house was built by William Connolly
(1662–1729), the Speaker of the irish House of Commons, using irish craftsmen
and materials where possible. But it was an italian architect, Alessandro Galilei, who
designed the main facade.
Top left: Southeast corner showing large sculptural features
on the Custom House. Robert Ballagh was commissioned
to paint the hoarding for the project, ably assisted by
children in the locality. Courtesy of Robert Ballagh
Bottom right: The Old Soldiers Hospital kilmainham by
James Malton. Photograph courtesy of the National Library
of ireland
Top right and opposite: The Royal Hospital kilmainham,
Dublin, 1983. A rare surviving non-ecclesiastical public
building of the 17th century, most deserving of restoration.
The ornate ceiling is formed from papier-maché
craF t SmaN Sh i p
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craF t SmaN Sh i p
Opposite and top left: Castletown
House (1622–1729). ireland’s grandest
Palladian style mansion. Underwent
multi-phased restoration
Top right: king’s inns, Dublin
167
Sisk was employed to repair the roof, parapet and cornice of the main building.
The company restored the brick parapet with stone facing and stone cornice, using
stone from the reopened original quarry at Edenderry. Much of the stone was handcarved to match the original. The leaking roof had caused truss ends to rot, so these
were repaired. To prevent further decay a temporary roof covered the building while
new slate and lead was installed.
Sisk then restored the east and west colonnades and the roof of the west wing.
The company also removed, repaired and relaid the granite steps at the house’s
entrance.
At about the same time Sisk restored another James Gandon building, the king’s inns
on Constitution Hill, Dublin, for barristers. Over its almost-200-year existence both
weather and pollution had taken their toll on the building and Sisk was contracted
to restore the granite and Portland stone exterior as well as refurbish the interior.
Two further restoration projects undertaken by Sisk also involved the construction of
new buildings. One such was the Merrion Hotel, which saw the conversion, in 1997,
of four listed Georgian houses into a grand hotel, while a new six-storey hotel and
apartment block was built to the rear, designed by Burke-kennedy Doyle architects.
The work involved repairing and restoring original features such as doorcases,
window frames, floors and the restoration of the Rococo stucco plasterwork
ceilings, in lime and crushed marble, with motifs such as flowers, fruit and birds. The
plasterwork was overseen by Séamus O’hEocha, a stuccadore known for his hand
modelling of lime-based plaster. Layers of paint were removed to reveal the plaster
underneath and missing pieces were replaced.
The other major conservation job involved the restoration of the Guinness
Storehouse and installation of new sections. The building was originally constructed
in 1904 to a design by AH Hignett of Guinness in the Chicago School of architecture
style. it is a multi-storey steel-framed structure, and was used as a fermentation
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building until 1988.
Left: Cellar Bar at the Merrion Hotel
it became a visitor’s centre in 2000, comprising a six floor, 52,000sq m space.
Designed by imagination and RkD, the building includes a 31m high atrium running
up the centre of the building in the shape of a giant pint glass (which can be seen
from each floor through glass walls), topped by a circular roof-top bar, with glass
ceiling and walls that gives a panoramic view of Dublin.
Top right: Merrion Hotel Lobby
Many of the original elements, such as girders, floors, ceramic work and brewing
Bottom right: Carved stone staircase with
wrought iron hand rail
Opposite: Dining room of the Merrion Hotel
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Guinness Storehouse
Located in the heart of the St James’ Gate
Brewery, Guinness Storehouse is ireland’s
number one paying-in visitor attraction.
Originally built in 1904 the storehouse was
constructed in the style of the Chicago
School of architecture. The Storehouse
underwent a major refurbishment and
opened its doors in 2000. Guinness,
another great irish family business,
celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2009
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Top left: Reproducing a window from the former
Harcourt Street railway station
Top right: Trainees and managers with products at the
training centre
The Training centre
John Sisk & Son has a team of highly skilled craftsmen to carry out its
conservation work supported by its own carpentry and joinery workshop
where each year new people are taken in and trained in the craft. it was
started more than 40 years ago by John G, and it remains today a testament
to his enduring enthusiasm for the basic materials of stone and timber. Even
after he retired he would often visit the workshop.
“We get about 150 applicants a year and interview about 30 and take on
between six and 10 people,” says David Tracey, training centre manager. These
train at the centre over a four year apprenticeship, and spend periods at Fás,
finishing with a National Craft Certificate. Most remain with the company
and many of today’s management team started at the training centre.
As carpenters are often among the first and last to be on site during the
building process, Tracey believes they get a good overview of all aspects of
building. “Those trained up in-house this way are the best – they have the
trade background and think the Sisk way, which is to say, they believe in
quality and in getting the job done right.”
Reflecting its commitment to recognising skilled trades, Sisk sponsors
the National Skills Competitions and World Skills Olympics, in the joinery
and carpentry sections. its own staff have been in the finals a number
of times.
“it promotes trades and definitely ups the skills,” says Tracey, who crafts the
winner’s plaque in yew.
The workshop has provided timber elements for many of Sisk’s restoration
projects for which it has to tender separately (it also works with other building
companies).
Bottom left: Not flat pack MDF but real woodworking
Bottom right: A special structure for a permanent
exhibition at the National Museum, Collins Barracks
On the Royal Hospital kilmainham project they worked on the sash
windows and for king’s inns, the workshop refurbished the windows, skirting,
architraves, mouldings and floorboards; all matching the original exactly.
The workshop also worked on the Merrion Hotel, including the skirting
where the profile and pattern changed from one house to the next, across
all four Georgian houses; keeping the style in each house true to the original
even though all of the houses are now linked. At Custom House they worked
on the replacement doors and windows over five years.
When the old Harcourt Street station building was being restored Tracey
and his team took out one of the listed windows in order to see how it was
made and reproduced it. “We specialise in bespoke pieces,” says Tracey, “i am
interested in looking at how things were made in the past: all done by hand.
Sometimes l’d say, ‘how did they do that?’ but i would never say never. We
can do anything here and it is great to stand back and say, ‘we did that’, the
job satisfaction is immense.”
The workshop also works on new buildings and has been involved in the
shopping centres at Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, the Pavilions Swords and
Dundrum. it created a walnut staircase for the Alto Vetro apartment tower in the
Docklands by architect Shay Cleary, and in nearby law firm McCann Fitzgerald’s
Riverside One building, it created the main boardroom with its walnut panelling.
Also in the Docklands, on the Spencer Dock project, the workshop worked
on the buildings for accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and they
provided all of the timber elements at Croke Park stadium, on both the Cusack
and Hogan stands. Tracey has also created a wall of wooden letters for architect
Daniel Libeskind’s Grand Canal Theatre in the Dublin Docklands. ■
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Toy Story
For almost 50 years Sisk has honoured an annual Christmas toy-making
tradition at the company’s timber workshop instigated by John G. in the runup to Christmas, the training centre transforms into a Santa’s workshop when
many of the staff construct around 450 beautiful, traditional-style toys to
delight children in hospitals, orphanages, Barrettstown Gang Camp, centres
for single mothers and in the Travelling community.
Chalk boards, rocking horses, Wendy houses and countless other toys are
made here and then delivered to the lucky recipients.
“Typically we start into toy-making in October and our aim is to have
everything delivered by the second week in December, when the lads dress
up in Santa suits and head off in their trucks. When we arrive they are waiting
for us; it goes down a treat,” says David Tracey, training centre manager ■
Right and opposite bottom left: At work in the
joinery making the Christmas toys
Opposite top: Dave Tracey (far left) with the trainees
and their annual toy-making output, a tradition
maintained for 50 years
Bottom right: The trainees on completion of the
toys campaign Christmas 2006
equipment have been kept. The internal steel frame, comprising rolled and
riveted steel joists and plated girders, was stripped back and repainted its original
aqua blue. ■
transformation
FR OM 1995 to the peak of the boom in 2007, the average price of housing and
commercial property roughly tripled in ireland. To satisfy this unprecedented
demand, the scale of development here went through the roof. The rest as we know
is history, but on reflection, this period will also be remembered as a time when
the country was physically transformed. in 1994 the construction industry had an
annual output of €5 billion, by 2007 this figure had escalated to €36 billion.
John Sisk & Son benefited from much of this activity, playing its part in all sectors of
the State’s development – motorways, sports stadia, pharmaceutical and industrial
facilities, retail developments, public buildings, hotels, offices and apartments. in
2007 Sisk turnover peaked at €1.35 billion.
This is the story of Sisk’s role in ireland’s recent physical transformation.
CROKE PARK & THE AVIVA STADIUM AT LANSDOWNE ROAD
When the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) started the rebuilding of Croke Park in
1992, there was little sign of the economic boom that would start in 1995 and last
right up to 2007. “Liam Mulvihill, director general of the GAA and his colleagues were
true visionaries,” says Tom Costello, managing director of John Sisk & Son ireland.
The decision to revamp Croke Park came for a number of reasons, key among them
was concern over stadium safety following a number of high profile disasters at
Hillsborough in 1989, Heysel in 1984, and Bradford in 1985.
There had also been a fractious All ireland game between Galway and Dublin in
1983, where it became apparent the ground was not equipped to safely handle
emergency situations.
The GAA’s 125th Anniversary
celebrations at Croke Park, Dublin.
Photograph: Matt kavanagh
courtesy of The irish Times
t raN SF o rmat i o N
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1
2
3
“The former stadium made few concessions to architectural consideration or
aesthetics and never had the footprint of artistic expertise and experience. This
is why we insisted that the proposed Croke Park project would be the focus of
the best architectural expertise and would be a fusion of design, aesthetics and
functionality,” wrote Liam Mulvihill, then director general of the GAA, in Architecture
Ireland magazine.
initially the international firms of HOk architects, and Lobb, sports specialist, were
employed to draw up a masterplan for the project. Then local architectural firm
Gilroy McMahon was appointed to see the job through.
The day after the 1993 All-ireland football final between Derry and Cork the Cusack
stand was demolished. By May 1995 the new stand was ready. The next phase, the
Canal End (now the Davin Stand after Maurice Davin, first president of the GAA), was
completed in 2000, followed by the Hogan Stand in 2002 and finally Hill 16 in 2005.
Throughout the 13 years redevelopment the stadium hosted all major hurling and
football matches.
The stadium accommodates 82,300 people and has hosted extraordinary events
such as the opening of the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games, a truly
memorable rugby match between ireland and England in 2007, two memorable
U2 tours along with the annual spectacles of hurling and gaelic football matches.
Opposite:
1. Croke Park before redevelopment
2. The 82,300 capacity stadium upon completion
3. The elaborate roof support steelwork
Above: The traditional pre-match parade of
players before the senior all-ireland hurling final
2009 between Tipperary and kilkenny, with the
Hogan Stand in the background
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180
181
Left: Aviva Stadium, Lansdowne Road,
August 2009
Right: (l-r) Tom Costello, managing
director of John Sisk & Son ireland;
Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, TD; and
John Power, director general at the
institute of Engineers ireland on the
occasion of Sisk becoming the 100th
firm in ireland to be accredited for
continuing professional development.
The presentation took place on site at
Lansdowne Road
Des McMahon of architects Gilroy McMahon and a former Tyrone footballer was
duly rewarded for his creative work at Croke Park when he was presented with the
RiAi Gold Medal in 2009.
The original Lansdowne Road Stadium, opened in 1878, is the oldest rugby stadium
in the world. When the tender to build the new stadium (now known as Aviva
Stadium) came to the market in 2007, Sisk assembled a team under the direction
of Michael Barnwell who had led the Croke Park project. The confidence of having
completed Croke Park so successfully helped the team to take a balanced view of
the challenges of building a stadium even though the trials and tribulations of the
Wembley project were very much in the news at the time.
“it was a great project to win and it has been a great project to work on. Right from
the start the client, design and project teams have shown an absolute commitment
to the project and a pride of being involved in what will be a stadium to match or
even exceed any stadium internationally,” says Michael Barnwell.
in summer 2010, 50,000 patrons can look forward to their first match in the Aviva
Stadium and admire the splendid quality of the design and construction.
HOk Sport, who were also involved at Croke Park, were the architects in conjunction with
Scott Tallon Walker at Lansdowne Road. Engineers Buro Happold did an outstanding job
in the design of the very complex structure. The main package contractors were SiACCimolai (steelwork), Williaam Cox (cladding), Mercury (mechanical) and kentz (electrical).
“While the completed projects may look similar, the creation of Croke Park and
Aviva were very different,” says Costello. “The skill level in the industry has developed
hugely in the past 10 years. Now the management of safety, schedule and quality are
right up there with the best in the world. The challenge is to maintain this valuable
resource in the country.”
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1
Aviva Stadium at Lansdowne Road
1, 3, 5. Architect’s impressions of the finished stadium
2. The Sisk team responsible for construction of the
Aviva Stadium
4. Tom Costello managing director of John Sisk & Son
ireland, John Delaney, chief executive of the FAi,
Philip Browne, iRFU chief executive, marking one
million accident-free hours on site
2
3
4
5
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SHOPPING CENTRES
The retail landscape in ireland changed hugely from 1990 to 2005 with the
development of out-of-town shopping centres and retail parks. Sisk played a
significant part in the construction of new shopping centres and Paul Hackett,
director in the eastern region, became the ‘retail expert’. Having worked with Brian
keogh on The Square in Tallaght (designed by BkD Architects) in 1990, Hackett
subsequently directed the Sisk teams at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre for
Green Property (designed by A+D Wejchert), Swords Pavilions for Flynn O’Flaherty
(designed by O’Muire Smyth), Liffey Valley for O’Callaghan Properties and Grosvenor
Estates (designed by Lyons, Sleaman Hoare), Whitewater in Newbridge for Ballymore/
Mountbrook (designed by Henry J Lyons) and Dundrum Town Centre (designed by
BkD Architects).
“There is a real buzz about building shopping centres,” says Hackett. “The opening
date is set, it cannot change, there’s a mad panic in the last four or five weeks and
then the relief and excitement and, hopefully, praise when it opens to the public.”
Opposite: Dundrum Town Centre, Co Dublin
Above: Whitewater Shopping Centre,
Newbridge. A good example of SiSk Group
companies combining well in overall delivery
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187
Dundrum Town Centre is the largest-ever commercial
development in ireland and one of the most
comprehensive suburban regeneration schemes ever
undertaken in either ireland or the Uk.
• 17 acre site
• 90,000m2 retail area
• 281,747m2 structure
• 12 screen multiplex
cinema
• 20,000 tonnes of steel
• 220,000m3 of overburden
removal
• 400,000m of rock
removal
3
• 23,000m2 office space
• 3500 space underground
carpark
• More than 30 restaurants
• 15,591 tonnes of
reinforcement
• 200 seat theatre
• 69,055m concrete to
foundations, walls and stairs
• Daycare centre
3
• 28,389m3 concrete to
suspended slabs
• Medical centre
• Adult education centre
The centrepiece is a town plaza, featuring an 18thcentury mill house and mill pond, restored to their
former glory.
The contract also included a section of the Dundrum
by-pass.
At peak Sisk provided more than 100 management
personnel, and there were 700 construction workers
on site.
Dundrum Town Centre under construction.
The largest contract to date for John Sisk &
Son, valued at €420m
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Dundrum Town Centre
1. Atrium at south end of the centre
Opposite:
2. View from Dundrum by-pass
5. Plaza lake and fountain at the centre’s
entrance
3. Central atrium of the shopping mall
4. Food court
6. Restaurant Precinct
3
1
2
4
5
6
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Left: Whitewater Shopping Centre,
Newbridge, Co kildare
Opposite: Scotch Hall Shopping Centre,
Drogheda, Co Louth
Bernard O’Connell, retired executive chairman of construction, and previously
construction director in the eastern region adds: “Project delivery is one of the great
strengths of Sisk. if we say we will do it, then we will. We can draw on the resources
of the company to supplement the team in the drive to the finish line.”
in 2000, work began on the State’s biggest shopping centre in Dundrum, Co
Dublin. When the €420m centre was completed in March 2004 at the height of
the economic boom, it opened with now legendary media attention and fanfare.
Developer Joe O’Reilly and his team travelled all over the world to research the best
retail experiences and used that knowledge in the creation of Dundrum Town Centre.
At the early stages, it resembled a giant quarry as 300,000 cubic metres of granite
were excavated to accommodate basement and underground parking. in the final
months, when Sisk had 1,600 people working on the project and a further 1,300
were employed by fit-out contractors, the village of Dundrum witnessed a daily
spectacle when almost 3,000 workers in their yellow safety vests would invade the
area at lunchtime for sustenance to carry them through the long evenings ahead.
Sisk’s project manager, Philip Howard, won a gold medal in the CiOB Construction
Manager of the year award for his role in the project. “Teamwork was key to the
success of the project. At times we held weekly principals’ meetings with Joe O’Reilly,
Pat Lafferty (of Lafferty Project Management), Paul Hackett and Tom Costello. Our
‘Spectacular Partnerships Bonding Sessions’, which included the key people for all
teams, were very timely and successful at key stages of the project,” says Howard.
in Drogheda, Douglas Wallace designed the Scotch Hall Project for Edward Holdings
and in the early 1990s Arthur’s Quay in Limerick, Merchants Quay in Cork and
Golden island in Athlone were built, along with the Crescent Centre in Limerick
for Clancourt. Just as Sisk had built religious buildings at the early part of the 20th
century, it was transferring its skills 100 years later to the new religion of shopping.
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Retail
1. The signing of the Blanchardstown
Centre contract as appeared in our
newsletter from 1993. Seated (l-r)
Michael MacCormac (chairman, Green
Property), kevin kelly (managing
director, John Sisk & Son Ltd), John
Corcoran (MD, Green Property). Also
included in the photograph are: J.
Mckenna, D. McDowell, S. Vernon,
B. Collis, k. Wylie (directors of Green
Property), and D. Grehan (financial
director, John Sisk & Son Ltd)
2. Fine Jewellery Hall, Brown Thomas,
Dublin
3. Clare Hall, Malahide, Co Dublin
4. Liffey Valley, Lucan, Co Dublin
5. The Square, Tallaght, Co Dublin
1
2
3
4
5
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Opposite: Athlone Civic Centre,
Co Westmeath
Top right and left: The Marine institute, built
for the Office of Public Works at Rinville,
Oranmore, Co Galway
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CIVIC bUILDINGS
One area in which Sisk built up a reputation was the building of civic offices. While
many developers took advantage of the boom years to create new buildings, public
authorities were also responsible for some remarkable structures.
Local county offices were built countrywide, many of excellent architectural design.
The bar was set pretty high early on and, luckily for ireland, most local authorities
strove to meet the design standards set.
An early scheme which Sisk built was the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown civic offices
designed by McCullough Mulvin and RkD Architects. The building was on a
corner site behind the Victorian town hall and post office and next to the former
harbourmaster’s house. The final building, completed in 1996, provides 8,500sq m
of office accommodation in three blocks.
The £13.6 million Fingal County Hall, designed by Bucholz McEvoy with BDP, pushed
out the boundaries of irish design. The building is naturally ventilated, uses lots of
natural light and it includes a curved glass facade that sweeps around a 150-year-old
cedar tree.
Bucholz McEvoy subsequently designed the Limerick County Council headquarters,
just outside Limerick city in Dooradoyle. The 7,100sq m building, completed in
2003, has a strong emphasis on eco-friendliness and an expressive facade; a 75m
long, 15m high timber screen hanging from curved steel beams, at an angle of 30°.
in the west, John Sisk & Son ireland, under the excellent stewardship of Noel Golden
and Jim Tuohy, gained a fine reputation for complementing innovative civic building
design with on time delivery and high standards of finish and workmanship.
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Civic Buildings
1. Laois County Council
2. North Tipperary County Council
3. Athlone Civic Centre
4. Limerick County Council
5. Civic Museum Galway, as seen
through the Spanish Arch
1
2
3
4
5
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198
Offaly County Council headquarters in Tullamore won an RiAi award for ABk
Architects for the Most Sustainable Building & Best Public Building in 2003. This
5,200sq m building also included a timber lattice around part of the building. it took
18 months to build and was finished in late 2002.
The following year Sisk completed the North Tipperary County offices, again with
ABk, which won an Opus Architecture and Construction Award. Soon afterwards Sisk
completed another civic centre in Athlone, by keith Williams Architects which won
two RiAi awards and an Opus Architecture and Construction Award for its splendidly
designed civic centre.
DUbLIN DOCKLANDS
There is nowhere in ireland where the built environment has changed more than
Dublin’s docklands.
in the early 1990s the international Financial Services Centre (iFSC) was developed
in the north docklands, and Sisk completed George’s Dock in 1996. Then Dublin
Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) carried out remediation of the south
docklands in 2001/2002. When a joint venture of Sisk and Park Developments
secured the job to develop the Hanover Quay site with the DDDA in 2003 there
was no development in the area from the Ferryman Bar to the Docks. This mainly
residential development set new standards in apartment design and specification
and included Diarmuid Gavin’s award-winning garden which was transported from
the Chelsea Flower Show.
The Hanover Quay development garnered awards for Residential Development
of the year 2004 in the Property Awards and RiAi Silver Medal for architects’ firm,
O’Mahony Pike in 2009. The partnership between Sisk and Park has been very
successful starting in Mount St Anne’s in Milltown where Sisk was contractor, likewise
Left: Legal Aid Board head office, Cahirciveen,
Co kerry
Right: Government offices, Dundalk,
Co Louth
Opposite: The Sisk/CMP Team at the
Convention Centre, Dublin
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3
1
4
2
5
6
Residential
1. Alto Vetro, a 16 storey glazed
residential block, Grand Canal
Dock, Dublin
2, 5. Award-winning Hanover
Quay apartments, Dublin. A
joint development with Sisk/
Park Developments. it includes
Diarmuid Gavin’s eclectic
design for the courtyard of the
Hanover Quay apartments, first
shown at Chelsea Flower Show
7
3. The Old Chocolate Factory,
kilmainham, Dublin
4. Cedarbrook Partnership
residential development,
Cherry Orchard, Dublin
6. St. Anne’s Milltown, Dublin
7. Greystones marina,
Co Wicklow
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202
Riverside One: McCann Fitzgerald
This page: Riverside One, offices of McCann
Fitzgerald solicitors
203
at Addison in Glasnevin. When Jim Barrett, former Dublin City Architect, moved to
build an affordable housing scheme at Cherry Orchard, Sisk/Park were the successful
tenderers. it was an imaginative scheme delivering high quality and affordability to
its residents. The next challenge for the Sisk/Park joint venture is Greystones Marina.
Left: Grand Canal Square offices. The ‘Wall
of Letters’ is an artistic expression of Daniel
Libeskind’s appreciation for James Joyce’s
work. The 100 letter words, known as
‘thunderwords’ are regarded as the essence
of Finnegan’s Wake
Right: Architect’s impression of the Grand
Canal Theatre entrance
Of all the docklands buildings, the office buildings of McCann Fitzgerald solicitors
stand out. Tim Bouchier Hayes managed the project on behalf of his partners. it is
well recognised that the completed building, finished to the highest quality with
attention paid to every detail, is a testament to Bouchier-Hayes’ vision and hard work.
The Scott Tallon Walker design is one they can be very proud of. Arup’s were civil,
mechanical and services engineers. “The job really went according to plan except for
a bit of panic carpet laying on the night before occupation. All hands were on deck
late into the night. The boardroom, which is located on the top floor, is a really fine
space with a wonderful aspect onto the River Liffey,” Tom Costello says.
Adjacent to the McCann Fitzgerald offices is the Grand Canal Square Development for
Joe O’Reilly’s Chartered Land. “O’Reilly is intent on leaving a legacy of some of the finest
buildings in the city and this is no exception,”says Costello. it comprises some 37,000 sq m of offices and a theatre designed by the internationally acclaimed architect, Daniel
Libeskind. The theatre, which fronts onto the Martha Schwartz-designed square, will
be a valuable addition to the Dublin cultural scene when it opens in March 2010. The
South Docklands has become home to many of the large legal practices, the most
recent arrivals are BCM Hanby Wallace and William Fry Solicitors as tenants of Grand
Canal Square.
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Opposite: An architect’s impression of the
magnificent auditorium at the Grand Canal
Theatre
Above: PwC’s spacious new office
accommodation at Spencer Dock
Following pages: The Spencer Dock site
including 60,000sqm office accommodation,
586 apartments, 27 penthouses, 110 social
housing units and a 40,000sqm conference
centre. Total cost of construction exceeds
€600 million
205
A prominent project in the Docklands regeneration is the Spencer Dock
Development. Sisk and Treasury Holdings had worked closely together since the
redevelopment of the Treasury Building on Dublin’s Grand Canal St, so for the Spencer
Dock Development, John Ronan and kevin kelly came up with the idea to form a
joint venture contracting company comprised of Treasury and Sisk to build Spencer
Dock – CMP (Construction Management Partnership) was founded. The overall
development, with a build cost of more than €600m, includes 60,000sqm of offices,
including PricewaterhouseCoopers with 21,000sq m, Fortis with 6,500sqm and the
Central Bank with 7,000sqm. The residential portion consists of 586 apartments, 27
penthouses and 110 social housing units.
Both office and residential elements of the scheme were designed by Scott
Tallon Walker with O’Connor Sutton Cronin as engineers. The fit-out of
PricewaterhouseCoopers offices was designed by Liam Mullally of Mullally Leonard
Partnership and was completed in an amazing 11 months.
206
207
208
Richard kiely, general manager of CMP, has spent five years on Spencer Dock. “The
success of the job was down to teamwork, and the CMP model of developer and
contractor working in partnership determined from the outset how the job should
be approached,” says Richard.
The landmark building in Spencer Dock, with its enormous glass drum, is the National
Convention Centre. Dublin Chamber of Commerce spent 30 years promoting the
idea of an international convention centre for Dublin. Designed by kevin Roche
John Dinkeloo & Associates, this PPP (public private partnership) scheme is the first
major public access building to be constructed since the foundation of the State.
Costello says full credit for the successful delivery of the Convention Centre must go
to Dermod Dwyer and his team, the CMP team and all the design team, who, with
Roche Dinkeloo also includes O’Connor Sutton Cronin, Bruce Shaw and McArdle
McSweeney Associates.
OTHER PUbLIC bUILDINGS
it might appear that Sisk abandoned its Cork roots during the boom, and focused on
the capital, but this was not the case. While much of the work done in the region is
in the pharmaceutical sector, the honour of building the new Cork School of Music
went to Sisk.
The Convention Centre, Dublin by night
Opposite: Cork School of Music. The sound
of music pervades every corner of the
building thanks to the magnificent
instruments made available
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210
The Cork School of Music and a bundle of five schools were some of the first PPPs
(public private partnerships) in ireland. Jarvis with Sisk as design build contractor
were the successful bidders for both.
The term ‘place making’ is sometimes used to describe the development of the
built environment in cities. The Cork School of Music is a major addition to the
‘place making’ of Cork City. The building, beautifully designed by Murray O’Laoire
Architects, has been universally welcomed, acclaimed and enjoyed by the people of
Cork. To mark the opening of the building Sisk and Murray O’Laoire commissioned a
work, Light Ensemble, by artist, Vivienne Roche.
“There is something really special about buildings which are used by the public,”
says Costello. “Hotels and shopping centres for example as opposed to offices or
industrial buildings are viewed, used and enjoyed by the public. Very few buildings
are genuine visitor attractions. The sports stadia and the national conference centre
will undoubtedly be much visited as indeed the Libeskind-designed theatre on
Dublin’s Grand Canal Square looks likely to be one also, while the most visited
building in ireland currently is the Guinness Storehouse.”
The original Storehouse was built in 1904 and remained in commercial use until
the late 1980s. Guinness had the idea of converting it to a visitor experience as
its millennium project. “RkD Architects drew on all its creative genius to design a
building, including the magnificent Gravity Bar, which has been a huge success for
Guinness and looks as good today as it did when it opened almost 10 years ago in
2000,” says Costello.
Above: Cork School of Music on the
banks of the River Lee
Opposite: The Ritz Carlton Hotel at
Powerscourt, Co Wicklow. A Treasury
Holdings Development
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HOTELS
Consumer demand and tax incentives fuelled the development of hotels in towns
and cities around ireland. Of the many hotels built by Sisk, two in particular stand out.
Enda O’Rourke led the Sisk team who delivered a project of the highest quality
for Ritz-Carlton and Treasury Holdings in the grounds of Powerscourt House in Co
Wicklow. “The only hotel of comparable quality is the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo,” says John F
Hogan, director of Ritz-Carlton Hotels.
Meanwhile Gerry Barrett’s glamorous g Hotel in Galway strongly reflects Gerry’s
vision, Douglas Wallace’s creativity and Philip Treacy’s style. The hotel has been
widely critically acclaimed for its inventive finishes and unique use of space.
OffICES
Commerce is the lifeblood of a city and as Dublin thrived, Sisk built hundreds of
thousands of square metres of offices.
As well as the Spencer Dock, McCann Fitzgerald and Grand Canal Square buildings,
Sisk also built the AiB expansion at Ballsbridge, Park Place on Hatch Street for
Clancourt, Church Street Development for John Byrne and Connaught House for
Treasury Holdings.
The €130m AiB building, designed by RkD working with Arup and Delap and Waller and
cost managed by Bruce Shaw, consists of more than 32,500sq m of new build, designed
to provide state-of-the-art accommodation for 3,500 people. The main atrium, some
30m high, and an open plan area of 50m by 70m is the focal point of the building. RkD
and Arup are justifiably proud of the sheer elegance of the steel roof design.
Relationships have played a big part in the Sisk success story. The relationship with
the kenny family, initially Charlie and now his sons, Conor and kevin, goes as far back
as 1974 when the first phase of the Crescent Shopping Centre in Limerick was built.
Costello remembers with fondness the first phase of Parkway in Limerick for Charlie
kenny. “i still don’t know how we did it but we built the centre [valued at the time
at about €6m] in 22 weeks from clearing the site on May 14th 1984 to opening the
centre on November 7th. i learned a lot from Dan Folan (general foreman for Sisk) on
that job and on several other projects after that.”
Clancourt’s Park Place is built on the ‘old Dunlop site’ on Dublin’s Hatch Street.
Designed by kMD Architecture, it has a great aspect onto the beautiful iveagh
Gardens. Declan kelly, Sisk regional director, and his team managed the project and
the fit-out of Hibernian Aviva, including facilitating the move of 2,300 staff. Engineers,
Michael Punch & Partners, and quantity surveyors, kSN, also played their part in a very
successful project.
As the growth of residential development continued, Sisk formed its own residential
division headed by Paraic keogh. As well as the projects for Park Developments
Opposite: The Pink Salon at the g Hotel in
Galway architecturally designed by Douglas
Wallace the interior was designed by the
world famous Galway milliner, Philip Treacy
Above: Lobby fireplace and McGills Bar at the
Ritz Carlton, Powerscourt, Co Wicklow
213
mentioned earlier, the residential division built the highest residential block in ireland
at Central Park in Sandyford for Lalco having earlier built the Old Chocolate Factory at
kilmainham for the same client. Henry J Lyons were architects for Central Park and at
kilmainham, keogh says, Tony Reddy’s office did a great job in designing the mixed
use development which also includes the Hilton Hotel and offices.
As John Sisk & Son celebrates its 150th year it also marks the end of the most incredible
construction boom the country had ever experienced. According to Costello: “Sisk
had the good fortune through this time to construct many of the finest buildings in
ireland, designed by wonderfully creative architects and engineers and built by some
of the best and most competent people in the industry.” ■
Above: AiB Bankcentre, Ballsbridge, Dublin
Opposite: Park Place, Hatch Street, Dublin
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150th Anniversary
Volunteering Programme
As SiSk Group considered the various options on how to commemorate its
150th year in business, giving back to the community was a theme embraced
by everyone and so the employee volunteering programme was created.
Through the careful and untiring work of the SiSk Group human resources
personnel a series of challenges was established against which volunteers
could ‘sign up’ to complete.
A high level of involvement was achieved with hundreds of employees
giving of their time and skills to help those less fortunate. The following is a
short account of some of the challenges completed.
CLUID DUbLIN
Cluid is a dedicated housing organisation which, through the provision of
housing, aims to facilitate the creation of homes and communities where
people want to live and settle.
This project included 17 staff members across the SiSk Group.
The overall goal of the project was to provide a ‘make over’ for the killarney
Court Community Hall and associated rooms based in Dublin City Centre
which were in need of painting and cleaning.
SCHOOL Of THE HOLy SPIRIT
HAbITAT fOR HUMANITy OVERSEAS
May 2009 saw the SiSk Group partnering with Habitat for Humanity (HFH)
ireland to work on its ‘Global Village: Orphans & Vulnerable Children’ project
in Mozambique. Ten SiSk Group staff members travelled to Mozambique for
eight days to help ensure that the most needy and vulnerable of society are
given the opportunity to grow up within their family units and communities.
Each team member far exceeded their target for fundraising and this was
added to by the SiSk Group. The overall total achieved reached over €46,000.
All the materials were supplied and sourced locally, from the cement and
blocks to the timber, stone and thatch, making the whole project sustainable
within the wider community. The volunteers started on two houses, which
they later learned were to house a family of nine; a widowed lady, with four
of her own children, and four grandchildren, who are now her responsibility
following the Aids-related death of her daughter.
1. Schools Business Partnership
2. Cork to Dublin cycle
3. Sensory Garden keyhole at School
of the Holy Spirit, kilkenny
4. Habitat for Humanity in
Mozambique
5. Cleaning coastline at Bray,
Co Wicklow
6. Cluid project at killarney Court
Community Hall, Dublin
School of the Holy Spirit is a special school which provides education for
children with ASD, Asperger’s Syndrome, ADD, ADHD and other special
needs in kilkenny and the surrounding areas. A school specifically designed
to meet the needs of these students was completed in August 2009.
its sensory garden provides experiences for multiple senses and contains
features such as sculptures; interactive water features designed to make
sound and play over the hands; different textures on pathways and walls, and
shapes to feel. Landscaping and planting create a variety of space settings
and sensory experiences. Elements of this garden include wind chimes,
water whispering tubes, button operated tape recordings, herbs and other
fragrant plants and magnifying and coloured glass lenses.
Other challenges undertaken by the Sisk volunteers were bag-packing in
Dunnes Stores in aid of the irish Hospice, School Business Partnership, Cork
to Dublin cycle, Bray coastline cleanup, refurbishment of a De Paul ireland
Hostel accommodation, and Habitat ireland house construction. ■
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4
2
5
3
6
217
conclusion
O VER THE PAST 150 yEARS, the SiSk Group has been involved in the construction
of some of the most famous and iconic buildings in the State, and it is today one
of the largest privately-owned companies in ireland. in 2008, turnover exceeded
€1 billion, with 2,300 people employed across its operations.
The story of the first 90 years of the SiSk Group is that of three John Sisks, each
owner-managers of a modest but successful family business, operating almost
entirely in the province of Munster. The size and scope of the company was limited
to what each could personally supervise and control. But the third John Sisk, John
Gerard (John G), took the business to a new dimension, and with strategic planning
and innovative technical and business methods, he created the framework of the
SiSk Group as we know it today.
The company’s survival into the third generation was a significant achievement,
because it is an internationally recognised phenomenon that only 4 per cent of
family firms survive this long. in Sisk’s case, it may have been helped by its unusual
practice of consolidating the overall ownership into one individual’s hands when
passing on to succeeding generations.
Group chief executive Liam Nagle has no doubt about the key reason for the
company’s success. “Sisk is a family business. This is vitally important as it allows us
to take a long-term view in terms of strategy,” he says. “Everyone working in the
business knows who the Sisk family are and understands the company and family
values. One of the areas where this has very visible benefits is in staff retention –
when you walk around any one of our offices or sites you’ll find people who have
been with us for 20 and 30 years – and more.”
Opposite: The Sisk/CMP Team at the
Convention Centre, Dublin
co NclU Si o N
219
220
co NclU Si o N
“There is a great sense of belonging and being together as a team,” says Jim Doyle,
commercial director of John Sisk & Son ireland. “There is always someone to rely on,
someone to help you and you are encouraged to help others. The family is very loyal
to its staff in difficult times, such as bereavement and sickness. The company’s ethos is
to follow the right practices and procedures and there is a strong sense of wanting to
do the best for clients and partners.”
Doyle recalls a client who went into receivership, owing Sisk about £6 million with
no likelihood of getting it. “We owed about £5 million of that to subcontractors
and were going to lose big time. The legal advice was that we didn’t have to pay
the subcontractors but George insisted, saying, ‘i will not be responsible for any
subcontractor going out of business.’”
it may be that because Sisk is a private family business, it is afforded the space to take
a more measured approach in its dealings. its long-term view is facilitated by an
ownership structure very different to that of companies quoted on the stock market.
“i would not for a moment criticise the plc model of ownership,” says Nagle. “But it
does help that we are not driven by quarter-on-quarter results. We are as aggressive as
anyone else in terms of growing the company, but we can afford to take a longer-term
view and i believe this gives us a competitive advantage.”
And long term means just that. “The business is now owned by the fifth generation of
the Sisk family and i am very much aware that our job is not just to deliver results this
year, or next year, but to continue building the business for future generations – that’s
a pretty awesome challenge,” Nagle says.
“Our vision is to create a diversified business built around our historic strength and
culture; a business that delivers results for all of its stakeholders, including the Sisk
family, our staff, our clients and our partners.”
The relative simplicity of this vision is reflected in the Group’s strategic plan. “Our
strategy is fairly simple,” Nagle says. “We will continue to do what we already do well
and continue to invest in the various businesses in the group. We will continue to
diversify into sensible areas. And we will start to behave more as the SiSk Group and
make our 11 companies greater than the sum of their parts.“
The last aim of behaving more like a group does not herald any fundamental change
in culture. On the contrary, this move is also driven by the long-held values of the
company. “We are very consciously not creating some kind of a corporate centre
which is distanced from the operating companies in the group. All of our people are
empowered to make decisions and grow their businesses.
“it is out there at the coalface that business is won and done and delivered. Whether
it’s selling a washing machine in Origo or tendering for a job in the construction
business, the expertise is out in those companies and we are very conscious of not
interfering with that.”
Opposite: SiSk Group Management Team.
Standing (l-r), Pierce O’Shea, managing
director John Sisk & Son international; Ger
Penny, Group finance director; Paul Wilson,
managing director John Sisk & Son Uk.
Seated (l-r), Donal O’Connor, Group HR
director; Liam Nagle, Group chief executive;
Tom Costello, managing director John Sisk
& Son ireland; John Osborne, managing
director Sisk Healthcare
Top left: kevin kelly (right), former managing
director of John Sisk & Son ireland, and Pat
Harrington, outgoing president, on the
occasion of kevin being elected president of
the Construction industry Federation in 1996
Top right: Bernard O’Connell (former
executive chairman construction)
221
222
co NclU Si o N
223
Sensory garden at the School of the
Holy Spirit, kilkenny. Constructed
by SiSk Group volunteers as part of
the 150th anniversary volunteering
programme, with materials
contributed by SiSk Group companies
Looking to the future of the group, Nagle believes that Sisk’s history holds the key
to its long term success. “The SiSk Group has managed its way through civil wars,
depressions, recessions and world wars and we have done this by diversifying
sectorally and geographically and continually looking for new and different things
to do.”
Overleaf: This wood carving was
presented to John G Sisk to mark the
25th anniversary celebration of Sisk
working in Africa
“We travelled abroad to the Uk in the 1980s, to Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, and to
Germany in the 1980s and 1990s when work was thin on the ground here.”
“in ireland, we constantly diversified and moved into different areas such as civil
works. For example, we recently moved into the road-building area and we were
part of the consortium responsible for the M8 from Cashel to Mitchelstown – and
we are currently involved in the construction of the Shannon Tunnel.”
“Over the decades, we have demonstrated the ability to change in order to win
work; we have a great reputation for the delivery of good-quality work, on time and
on budget, and that reputation is now standing to us in the tougher times.”
This ability to adapt is particularly important in the current environment, where tender
prices have dropped by more than 20 per cent over the past 18 months. “Even in
the good times, we were only earning profits of around 3 per cent of turnover so we
have to become even more efficient,” Nagle says.
“We are looking at everything we do to improve our overall competitiveness. in
addition, we aim to win a decent share of the business that’s out there; we will make
sure that clients know about Sisk, our longevity, reliability and financial strength; and
we will probably look at travelling again and looking for work abroad.”
This commitment to winning clients and holding on to them lies at the core of Sisk’s
ethos. years ago, and long before mission statements had become popular John
G formulated his business principles in simple and direct language: “We are vitally
interested in giving the best possible service to all our employers. This we do by
delivering satisfactory work on time. Anyone who seeks to work or do business with
us is entitled to just, courteous treatment.”
Sisk’s enterprising spirit means it will pursue all opportunities – to other countries if
necessary, embrace new construction techniques and expand into new areas and
sectors.
The natural extension of this “can do” approach has been George’s understanding
since he took over as chairman of Sisk that the company had moved from “building
buildings to building a business”. ■
224
g r e at o a k s f r o m l i t t l e a c o r n s g r o w

building a business

Transcription

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