200 Years

The building of Killarney House was the most extensive project undertaken by the firm for a private client in the late nineteenth century. The Earl and Countess of Kenmare decided in 1872 to replace their existing family home in south Kerry with a much more impressive aristocratic residence on a nearby site.

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The construction of the Cavan and Leitrim Light Railway between 1885 and 1888, laying down the track and bridges for the railway, which extended for thirty-two miles from Belturbet to Dromod.

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The firm secured a contract in 1895 with the Great Southern and Western Railway Company to build a new railway hotel at Mulranny, near Westport, working from the designs of Sir Thomas Deane & Son, a well-known architectural practice based in Dublin

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The company maintained a flourishing commercial relationship with the British army in the period leading up to the First World War. Collen Brothers played a central part in the rebuilding of the Curragh camp, which began before 1900 and continued through the first decade of the new century.

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Collen was given responsibility for providing a new frontage to the RDS. This involved the demolition of the original red brick frontage of the hall constructed in 1880. Instead Collen constructed new granite faced buildings of a neo-Georgian style flanking the main entrance, which was faced up to bring it into harmony with the surrounding structures.

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Collen was awarded the contract in May 1935 to build ‘a new hospital for communicable diseases’ at Naas. The design of the hospital incorporated separate accommodation and facilities for patients with different illnesses, along with several isolation rooms to facilitate the observation of patients where a diagnosis of their condition was unclear.

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Collen Brothers undertook its first project for the flour milling industry during the Second World War, building a new grain silo for the Dock Milling company in Barrow St. between 1941 and 1942. The project involved the construction of a reinforced concrete silo, containing twelve storage bins with a capacity to hold about 70 tons of grain each.

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Collen Brothers provided a new stand and Tote for Fairyhouse racecourse in 1947; the new stand was designed and built within eight weeks. The company provided Tote facilities for race meetings throughout the country, including traditional venues such as the Curragh, Punchestown and the Phoenix Park.

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Collen Brothers undertook a new building project at Croke Park for the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) at the beginning of the 1950s.

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The project was undertaken by the company in the late 1970s was an unusually complex civil engineering job. Collen Brothers won a contract with Dublin Corporation in 1976 to construct a new main lift pumping station at Ringsend, to replace the old pumping station commissioned at the same location in 1906.

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The development required a deep-water marine terminal on the island to import raw materials and export alumina. Collen joined forces with Christiani & Nielsen, a UK subsidiary of a Danish civil engineering company, to undertake the project. The Irish company provided several key management staff, while their Anglo-Danish counterparts supplied the project manager, technical staff and almost all of the necessary plant.

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