Our Heritage

Having served a 9 year apprenticeship as a plasterer, John Sisk set up his own business in 1859 - two years before the American Civil War to place it in context. That same year, he married Kate Burke and they went on to have 6 children. One of them John Valentine, born in 1868, would go on to become an equal partner with his father and become a founder of John Sisk & Son Ltd.

Records of the early jobs John Sisk took on are incomplete, but the first known contract was to build the Cork Distillery in 1868. In those early days however, many of the building projects were for banks and religious institutions - the sectors who had money. Working mainly in stone and timber, many churches, convents, schools and banks built by Sisk still stand today.

The business grew stedily in the early 20th Century, including much repair and replacement work resulting from the Irish war of independence and civil war. But it was John Gerard Sisk, the third generation of the family, who led the company's move into Dublin, establishing it at the heart of the nation's future growth.

Yet it was the third John Sisk, who really grew it on a national and international scale. After graduating as a Civil Engineer, he joined his father on the building of the Cork City Hall in 1930 and moved to Dublin in 1937 to establish the company as a nationwide contractor. Thus the company secured many of the major public contacts of the period including the Industry and Commerce Government Buildings and Ireland’s first million pound contract, a hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis, the first of three.

During the slump of the late 1950’s, John G. Sisk established a branch in Africa, and the company later expanded rapidly when Ireland opened its doors to foreign investment in the 1960’s and 70’s.

Always responding to the market demands, the company has built up contract teams of experienced managers to “deliver satisfactory goods on time”, in the words of John G. Sisk. These include pharmaceutical plants such as Pfizer or Wyeth, or large shopping centres, such as Tallaght, Blanchardstown and Dundrum, or major manufacturing plants for Hewlett Packard and IBM.

More recently, the company has become proficient at “design and build” contracts, especially in the UK, where it has been operating successfully since the late 1980’s.

Similarly both civil engineering and residential construction are now major market sectors in which John Sisk & Son has a significant market share.

The company has survived many slumps and enjoyed several booms, most notably Ireland’s remarkable success of the past decade. Each phase posed different challenges but John Sisk & Son’s professional management has pro-actively coped and thrived in the markets conditions.

Despite its position as Ireland’s largest and oldest construction company and one of Britain’s top 20 such companies, John Sisk & Son Ltd remains a family owned business, true to its origins in Cork in 1859.

People who work in the construction industry generally look forward to the next contract, the next challenge. They are not retrospective and so John Sisk & Son’s long history and traditions lie mainly in the background. What matters is how you can do the job today. And in that context John Sisk & Son is confident that it has the people and the resources to survive and prosper for the next 150 years!

In recent years, the Group has diversified its interests to include a growing number of other businesses, a strategy it will continue to follow.