I made mention in a previous entry (The two Merrions) to my having been drying Irish timber at the time I was fitting-out the Cellar Bar at the Merrion Hotel.

The timber drying project (that became Clive Nunn Timber Ltd., briefly) is a long story, allbeit with a sad ending, that I may tell more fully some day, but here I recall just the bones of it.

Throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s I was perpetually frustrated that there was no reliable source of Irish-grown hardwood timber.

There I was, designing and making furniture for Irish clients to go into Irish buildings but I could not offer Irish timber.

And since, in the early years, my designs were heavily influenced by my interest in Irish country, or vernacular, furniture, the rain forest species which was all that was then readily available, were inappropriate for my pupose and their use was also beginning to raise eyebrows in environmental and ecological circles.
The now widely available North American, temperate hardwoods were only just beginning to come onto the Irish market at that time and the consumer would take a while to become familiar with blond maple, pink cherry and oak was still identified, by some, as a 'poor man's' timber.

So I hatched a plan to see if the situation could be addressed and redressed.

As I say, the full story is for another day but it was a fascinating journey to bring the idea of delivering Irish-grown, kiln-dried hardwood timber to the market through all the stages to its production. This involved, market research, feasibility studies, identifying the locations and volumes of standing, mature hardwoods that would attract felling licences, seeking and gaining funding, the selection of the most suitable drying method, the erection of the kilns and test sawing and test drying.

I met and was assisted by some wonderful people, not least my co-directors Michael Gabbett and Paul Sullivan who came on board at an early stage and Aiden Murray of, what was then, the Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry.

I went up many a blind alley, I learned the ways of the Irish bureaucracy, I ducked and dived between the various experts and consultants that come with government funding, I encountered the labarynthine ways of the Irish planning system and the fundamental disinterest of the banks in new and small business - some things never change, eh?

But we got there and produced some excellent material, as the Cellar Bar in the Merrion Hotel attests, even if the company did not survive commercially.

The heat and vent, steam kilns under construction at Ballaghtobin, Co. Kilkenny....

.. and now nearing completion

One of the fans being installed

The kilns were designed and specified by Peter Ebdon, a considerable international expert on timber drying and kiln technology

A kiln charge

My son, Naoise, with a beech log on the saw

A 'pippy' oak log

Rolling-up my sleeves in readiness for a day's sawing at Ballaghtobin

From time to time we hired-in mobile bandmills to saw to our specifications

Assessing the accuracy of the sawing of a beech log

In discussion with Mickey Gabbett

Mickey delivering a log to the saw

Mickey Gabbett was a director of the company and provided the space for the kilns on his extensive farm at Ballaghtobin, Co. Kilkenny which included considerable mature woodlands

In discussion with some of the aforementioned 'consultants' John McCabe (with the hat) and Kjeld Bulow

Richie Roche, Ian Crosby and Eddie Davitt, who, between them, ran the day by day operations

The first board from the first day's sawing!!

Mickey Gabbett, Paul Sullivan and myself, the three directors of the company, on the stand at Plan Expo promoting the product. It will have been 1998 or 1999

All the pictures of the 'day's sawing at Ballaghtobin' were taken by my daughter, Hannah