The winds of change
March 01, 2010Windhoist has erected turbines on wind farms in locations such as Australia, France, Norway, Spain and the Falkland Islands as well as a host of projects all over Ireland and the UK. A team of turbine installation engineers provides a comprehensive range of specialist services to clients worldwide. State-of-the-art heavy lifting gear together with many years' turbine erection expertise combine to offer the optimum package for wind projects.
The seeds of Windhoist lie in McNally Crane Hire, a Monaghan-headquartered company (with a second depot in Dublin) which offers Ireland's most comprehensive range of heavy and specialist lift engineering services. McNally provides a range of all-terrain and truck-mounted cranes for all types of construction and installation work. This service is available worldwide. All cranes are new, employing state-of-the-art technology backed by in-house CAD and engineering services.
Shane McGorry, who plays his club football with Drumgoon Eire Og, has been employed by McNally Crane Hire / Windhoist since 2003. He works as a project manager on wind turbine erection contracts all over the world and was instrumental in the establishment of the company's Australian depot in Portland, Victoria. Away from the high-flying world of cranes and wind turbines, his goal is to help the Boyle Park outfit in their bid to secure promotion from Division Two of the ACFL in 2010. Drumgoon will also be hoping to make an impression in the intermediate championship.
Now 27 years old, Shane started out with the Drumgoon U12s at the age of nine. He has played through all the various grades with the club, enjoying his fair share of glory along the way, including county honours at U12, U14, U16 and minor level as well as a famous intermediate championship victory in 2002, which resulted in a taste of senior football for the Drumgoon men.
The crop of players that Shane came through the ranks alongside have all played together since National School level and also enjoyed success at Vocational Schools level. Five or six of those players now form the nucleus of the Drumgoon first team.
In 2009, Drumgoon finished third in Division Two, narrowly missing out on promotion to the top flight of the league. They went on to defeat Killeshandra in the Division Two semi-final before losing the decider to Kingscourt. What's a reasonable objective for the team in 2010? "We've been a bit unfortunate in recent years not to win any silverware. We've been pushing hard in Division Two for the past three years but always seem to just miss out on the top two. We'll have mostly the same group of players again this year and we've sat down to discuss what we're going to do differently.
"I believe we have a real chance of getting into Division One, especially with the extra promotion place up for grabs this year. We've been close in the recent past and we have a real chance this time. We'll hope to do ourselves justice in both the league and championship. (, but I'd say we'll probably focus on the league as a priority - remove) Even though there's no manager in place at the moment, we've all been training on our own since early January and we're extremely determined. Hopefully those efforts will be Rewarded later in the year."
McNally Crane Hire was established by Dan McNally in Monaghan in the early 'seventies. Dan retired in 1996 and his sons Hugh and Cathal took over the running of the family business. It was a modest operation at the time, with a fleet of four cranes. Today, the fleet comprises a total of nearly 40 cranes, which are deployed regularly at locations all over the globe.
McNally Crane Hire soon became involved in wind turbine installation and the directors quickly identified a niche market with vast growth potential. They branched out into the worldwide installation of wind turbines with the formation of Windhoist, which has developed into a thriving concern in its own right. Windhoist supplies both the cranes and the installation teams for these specialist installations.
"They got into the wind market early," Shane reveals. "While most other people were focussing solely on construction, the lads spotted a real gap in the market. They had started out as crane specialists but they saw a real opening in the wind turbine business. While everybody else jumped into construction, McNallys were working on top of mountains in remote locations and I'm sure a lot of people thought they were mad. But they knew exactly what they were doing and their foresight has really paid dividends in the last year or so. We're now working on wind turbine installations all over the world and it's a really good business to be in."
Of course, as project manager, Shane often finds himself travelling to these locations - which is hardly ideal for a footballer. But the company has always been very understanding and accommodating in this respect and the directors are fully supportive of his GAA career, trying to make his hours as flexible as possible so that he can squeeze in training and matches. McNally Crane Hire (also - remove) provides (some - remove) sponsorship to Drumgoon each year and last season stepped in to supply training gear ahead of the Division Two league final.
Shipping its superb fleet of specialist (mostly German-made) cranes to different locations around the world from its depots in Ireland, Scotland and Australia, McNally Crane Hire has adapted to the modern era brilliantly with the genesis of Windhoist. Millions are invested in the fleet every year and many of the cranes are especially-designed for turbine installation. Between the two companies, a grand total of 160 people is employed - a highly impressive and significant number in the current economic climate. Tweet
