‘Only as good as your last day’

‘When I look back, how we got into glass is unimportant, really. How you get into anything is unimportant. But – are you able to make a success of it?”

The Carey brothers certainly were. Theirs is a success story stretching back 60 years to a time very different to today, even if the principles upon which they built their globally renowned glass business remain largely the same.

Casting his eye back to those early days in the mid-60s, William Carey maintains that he, Jim and Gus always had ambition, always wanted to become international. But he adds: “We didn’t have big heads by any means. My father was always a very humble, nice guy, postman. We brought that with us. Don’t ever boast, because it’s dangerous.”

‘WALKING GENTLEMAN’

Their father, Bill, certainly was a formative influence on the Carey brothers, even though he wanted them to get into farming, not glasswork. Described by William as a “walking gentleman”, Bill Carey was a postman, but he also rented land.

“He had all sorts of things going. He was a great man to make money.” Bill instilled in his sons a desire to earn money at an early age, and William relates how they used to hunt rabbits near their home at Templederry in their national school days, selling their bounty for a half-crown a piece.

Their mother, Delia, was “the boss” of the family and good with managing money. She implored her three sons, and their younger sister Mai, to “look after each other – and we always did,” William says.

SCHWARTZ GLASS

Gus got a job with a glass outfit in Templemore. He became the driving force in the brothers’ decision to set up a glass business of their own. William also had some experience of working with stained glass on churches. He will never forget being up on scaffolding working in the middle of winter, his hands going numb from the cold and the slow, painstaking attention to detail that the work required.

He went on to get a job with Erin Foods in Thurles, quickly earning a management position, and he was quite happy there. It took some convincing for him to leave that job, but Gus had seized upon an opportunity that arose when a glass manufacturing business became available in Thurles. He had come to know the owner, Schwartz, a veteran of World War II, who wanted to sell up and go back to Germany.

Jim had spent eight years working overseas on luxury cruise liners, travelling the world on the SS Canberra and later the SS Oriana. He had written home to his brothers, telling them that he wanted to go into business with them. He returned, and they started the business.

Schwartz did not have big staff numbers in Thurles and his machinery was quite easy to move, so the Templederry brothers went with their preference of moving his operation to Nenagh. William talks at length about the great support they got from the people of Nenagh at the time, and this was a key factor in their move, one that would become a recurring theme throughout the history of Carey Glass.

‘DELICATE WORK’

The brothers established their business on Silver St in 1965. They rented the premises from Paddy Walsh, the paper merchant. Their base was a former coal yard – Ryan’s – and, long before that, a Wesleyan church.

William describes the processes in those early days, and the amount of concentration required, mixing expensive chemicals for days in order to make mirror. They did it by hand, a process known as “silvering”. “It was just delicate work from start to finish,” he says. “You couldn’t afford to be making mistakes and losing money, so it was seriously disciplined. We worked a long day.”

They had a staff of no more than five to ten men. Even at that, the workplace was crowded given its confines and the heat they needed in order to work with silver.

They did this in a room called the sacristy. None of them ever really understood why it was called that until a pipe burst one day, washing all the coal stains off the wall to reveal beautiful designs from the old church. William recalls builder Jack Madden – whose family owned Maddens pub on the opposite side of the street – telling him about the history of the church, which was built about 1782 by Nenagh's Methodist congregation.

Much of the Careys’ early trade came from publicans around the country wanting fresh mirror placed on the old mirrors they had hanging in their pubs, usually carrying a design relating to a whiskey distillery. But within two years they were making insulated glass units

“We knew that was the future from looking at Europe,” William recalls. “That was the future – to insulate windows.”

LIMERICK ROAD

The Careys quickly outgrew their Silver St base and went in search of a new home, a search that led to them establishing their factory on the Limerick Road on Good Friday 1971. The site was owned by North Tipperary Co Council. While the council’s original plan was to open an industrial estate accommodating three companies, the Carey brothers were allowed to take all of the site for themselves.

As their operation expanded over the years that followed, they acquired more land around the site from local landowner Michael Gleeson. William stops to contemplate how small the fledgling factory was back then compared to the massive, and much safer, operation that is there now.

The homegrown Nenagh business expanded rapidly as the three brothers eyed market potential in Cavan and Monaghan, where furniture manufacture was big industry at the time. The factories there were using a lot of glass.

Gus – described by his brother as a gifted artist – began adding artistic designs to furniture cabinets, which became much sought-after throughout the country. This gave the Careys a national renown, one that by 1975 saw them having operations in Dublin, Monaghan, Thurles and Tralee, employing around 50 people in total.

‘WE ARE GOING TO BE VERY PROMINENT’

They were soon trading with factories in the UK and working their way into the market in Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles. “But we paid no attention to it,” William says, going on to talk about how the Careys conducted business dealings with people of both nationalist and unionist persuasion north of the border.

“I’d sit down and I’d tell them: ‘We’re in business, me and my two brothers, for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to make money. And if the conservation changes to politics or religion, I’m out the door and the book is closed…

“We can and we are going to be very prominent in the glass business. Ye mightn’t believe that, but we are’.”

And of course, he was right. The Careys continued to expand into new markets and diversify their product, winning some major contracts along the way, among them bus shelters for Ireland and telephone kiosks for Holland. By the 1990s, the Nenagh company was supplying glass for commercial projects in Ireland and the UK. Twenty years later Careys moved into high-rise construction - skyscrapers - taking on major projects in the United States and Canada that could never have been done in Ireland or the UK due to building regulations.

Demand for Careys products is stronger today than ever before. William puts much of that down not just to the company’s advanced glass manufacturing capabilities, but also to the depth of expertise they bring to every project. From soundproofing and glint and glare control to fully thought-through design systems, there’s very little they can’t do when it comes to glass.

“We’re not just making glass panels — we’re solving problems. Because we control all of the processes in-house, we can respond quickly and tailor solutions to suit each project. Every building throws up different challenges, whether it’s performance, safety, aesthetics or compliance, and that’s where our experience really comes into play.”

‘ANYBODY CAN START A BUSINESS’

Known the world over as a leading name in glass, the Careys have often been asked about the key to their success. For William, it always comes back to the united drive that he and his brothers had to move forward together.

“Anybody can start a business,” he says. “How did you develop? How did you stay going? So many companies started up and just flopped after two or three years in the glass business…

“It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. How are you going to go further? It doesn't matter what you’re producing – it’s the quality and it’s on time. And you don’t start with the price. I never started with a price. I talked about delivering your product first of all.”

There were of course plenty of setbacks along the way, William remembering in particular the six-month bank strike of 1970. “It should never be allowed to happen again,” he states. “That put so many companies out of business. And we were at a delicate stage at that time.

“We were lucky to get through it.”

‘MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK’

William recounts how local businesses in Nenagh helped the company to keep going and pay staff by cashing cheques, while Nenagh solicitor Michael Black proved instrumental in dealing with the banks when they eventually did reopen. A much more recent stumbling block was the cyber attack of the present decade, a potentially devastating setback that shook the Carey group, as it affected all three of their factories (Nenagh, Lurgan and Chester).

“It’s so easy to go belly-up. We were lucky we got through,” William reflects. But he is quick to add: “You make your own luck - there is no question about that.” His advice was for people in business to take calculated risks but never to gamble.

“I don’t know what luck means. You live right and respect everybody as they are…

“You’re only as good as your last day… It’s an ongoing battle. There’s lots of opposition out there. It doesn’t matter what market you go into; there’s opposition.

“So you’ve got to be able to run your show really well and never drop back on that.”

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Considering the phenomenal growth over the last 60 years of the company that he co-founded, one wonders whether William Carey stops to enjoy a feeling of pride in all he has achieved. But the answer is a resounding No.

“I’m disgusted in what I didn’t do,” he answers. “I left some wonderful opportunities behind me, and I’m not blaming Gus or Jim; I did. You have to recognise and be able to talk about your mistakes.”

One big regret was the decision to drop IKEA as one of Careys’ clients. The multinational furniture giant was one of a number of major retailers that the Nenagh company was exporting clipped frames and mirrors to in the 1980s. William recalls that locally famed day when a Scandinavian rep visited the Nenagh factory by helicopter.

He described IKEA as a “wonderful company to deal with” but said their particular demands with regard to packaging and transport caused the Careys to believe at the time that they could do better with other clients. “That was silly because we put a lot of work into getting into them, and then we just said: ‘We can’t supply them anymore’,” he comments of the time.

But that was a time when decisions had to be made quickly. “We were too busy here, far too busy and that was our problem all the way through with getting success outside of here.”

While he often ponders what might have been, William always goes back to talking about the need to move forward in business.

“That’s why I always say: ‘Starting a business is the simplest thing you can do’. You can start a business in the morning. Good. But you have to be able to say: ‘Am I going to be able to get over the icebergs?'

“A lot of people open up a business and they don’t expand… it’s because of nerves, or confidence, or whatever, but we kept putting ourselves into trouble, all the time.

“We tried to always be ahead of the curve, sometimes too far ahead, so we had made the investment then often found ourselves under pressure as we waited for the market to catch up.”

‘SOME GREAT PEOPLE’

Speaking about his glass business for more than two hours, William Carey continuously comes back to people – the people who helped make it happen and who have kept it going to the present day.

He speaks very highly of the people of Nenagh and the mutual support that has existed between the town and company over the decades.

He especially praises all the staff that worked at his factories over the years.

He lists many people deserving of particular mention – far too many to include here – but if one man were to be singled out, it would have to be the late Denis Butler of William St, who served as head shop steward in the Nenagh factory for many years.

“He was a decent guy. He represented the staff properly, and he understood how the company was situated,” says William.

He still misses Denis, as indeed he does so many of those who have departed over the years, not least among them Gus – the man with whom he often fought but “always clicked” – who sadly left this world in 2007, and PJ Ryan of Clonoulty and Templederry, who passed away only last week.

“He was one of a kind, an incredible man with a serious brain and salt of the earth,” William said of him. “You’ll never see the like of PJ again.”

“We’re blessed with our management, our engineers and our general workforce,” William affirms. “There are some great people there, many of whom have been with us for decades.

“Denis Sherlock from Nenagh is one of those. Denis has been with us since the Silver Street days. He, Jim and myself are the only three remaining since those days.”

FUTURE DIRECTION

While he still visits to watch proceedings and impart advice, William is happy to leave the future direction of the company that he and his brothers founded in the capable hands of the next generation.

“Glass has changed so much since we started; what they can do is astonishing,” he contemplates.

“You have to recognise when your time is up and when technology is passing you out.”

2025 was a time for reflection on 60 years in business for Carey Glass. As a new year dawns, we wish many more good times ahead to an original Nenagh success story written by Jim, Gus and William Carey.