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From organ transplants to rocketing revenues – how two brothers built Oliver Connell & Son

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From humble beginnings in rural Ireland to expanding into the UK construction market to emergency organ transplants to rocketing revenues decades later, the story of Oliver Connell & Son is one of ambition, hope, drama, and longevity.  

Let’s look back at where it all began and how the business has grown and developed through the years since… 

Oliver and Pat Connell. Credit: Oliver Connell & Son.

Brothers Oliver and Pat Connell started their working lives as humble farmhands, milking cattle, and ploughing fields with the aid of horses, at a farm in Cullion, County Westmeath, in Ireland.   

While farm life (and hurling) would remain a constant for them both throughout their young years and into adulthood, they also began to nurture a separate career as carpenters in a new industry, one in which their professional futures would ultimately lie.  

Developing in skill, they both began working for a traditional Irish horse and cart manufacturing business called Mick Reynolds Coaches, whose vehicles were used for general transport purposes as well as within the farming industry in which Oliver and Pat had each got their start. 

Having acquired more and more experience in the carpentry trade, the pair decided to branch into the Irish construction sector, providing carpentry services to contractors across a variety of projects in their home country. 

Oliver and Pat Connell. Credit: Oliver Connell & Son.

But their careers in the construction industry would not begin in earnest until the brothers emigrated separately to London from Ireland, with Oliver arriving first in 1964 followed by Pat in 1970, to found Oliver Connell & Son in 1974, having acquired work on various iconic construction projects in the capital since their arrival, a decade prior in Oliver’s case. 

Then, in 1975, tragedy struck. Oliver is hospitalised at 29 with a kidney disease and is in need of a transplant having previously spent several years on machine support. The local newspaper picked up the story – “Brothers in kidney transplant”, read the headline. That’s right! Pat, then 23, stepped forward as his brother’s organ donor.  

“The true value of friends, especially close relatives, was brought home to us when we heard of a story involving two brothers now resident in England,” read an article printed at the time. “Earlier this year doctors at the Hammersmith Hospital in London decided that Oliver would need a kidney transplant to enable him to live. In the end the doctor’s opinion was that [Pat], a brother of Oliver, would have the most suitable kidney for the transplant. The operation has now been carried out and we are glad to report it was a complete success.” 

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With Oliver back in the saddle, thanks to his brother, Pat, the Oliver Connell & Son business could continue trading at full gallop, acquiring more work on various construction projects in London and throughout the UK and diversifying its service offering down the years to include rail, civil and aviation, with a substantial part of its operation later based out of Heathrow Airport and HS2, the former being its flagship project and a testbed for the business’ innovations.   

As the business expanded so did the reputation of Oliver Connell & Son, picking up numerous industry recognised awards from Balfour Beatty and others for quality of work, health and safety, and wellbeing throughout its history, all the while striving to retain its connection and commitment to community and impact which it says is strongly rooted in its traditional Irish heritage – “The OC Way”. 

“The key to our longevity and success, we believe, lies in our working-class Irish roots,” says the business today. “Whatever we are doing, whatever clients we are working for, we focus on the wellbeing of our workforce and leaving a positive legacy within the communities we work in. Through local job opportunities, apprenticeships, and direct local projects. It is in our DNA to make a positive impact.” 

Three generations – Patsy (PM), Pat (founder), Tom (director) & Seamus (apprentice). Credit: Oliver Connell & Son.

Now, in its 50th year of trading, and with the third generation of the family steadily coming through the ranks, Oliver Connell & Son is one of the UK’s leading specialist contractors, helmed by Pat’s children, James (manging director), Tom (director) and Patsy since 2010, from its base in West London. 

Although growth has been steady since its inception, the last decade has seen a meteoric rise in turnover for the business, growing from £9 million in 2010 to £143 million in 2023, with Oliver Connell & Son also breaking into new sectors in the construction market.   

Tragically, the company lost Oliver at the start of the Covid pandemic back in 2020. He was a big force inside and outside of Oliver Connell & Son and a major influence alongside Pat on the new generation of leadership at the family business.  

To read more about the community efforts of Oliver Connell & Son, click here.  

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If you have a tip or story idea that fits with our publication, please contact the news editor rory@wavenews.co.uk 

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