My father had a farm, now it wasn’t a big farm, it was a wee 30ac farm. He had a few cattle. Anything to do with animals, I had no interest in. It was just the whole machinery end of it I loved. Shiny metal disease I think they call it.
I started driving a tractor... well I won’t say when. It was a wee Ferguson grey diesel. I started putting out dung with it, cutting up a bit of grass with it. We had a sickle bar mower at the time. That’s what started me off. I got the bug then and I started driving for a few local contractors. The machinery got bigger and bigger over the years and the love is still there.
A selection of Declan's machines at a show.
We live between Killybegs and Donegal town. I drive a loading shovel in a quarry for Roadstone. I’m obsessed with tractors and machinery. From when I get up in the morning to when I go to bed at night, it’s driving and machinery.
Father and son
The kids’ model farm machinery started back in 2007. I was helping out a contractor friend of mine baling one day. My wee fella Peter was three or four at the time, he happened to be sitting beside me in the cab for the day. We got home that evening and he asked would I be able to make him a baler for his wee toy tractor. I collect a lot of those machinery brochures and catalogues. Based on what was in there I made something that looked like a baler, but it was nothing compared to the stuff I make now. He pottered about on that for a while.
Another friend of mine said: “You should take that to the local show in Ardara that’s coming up.” We took it to the show and it was a massive hit down there. It started from that really.
I started putting the different machines I make up on Facebook around 2011. The page is called Declan Diver & Son – Model Farm Machinery. I don’t make them commercially. It’s a hobby and people enjoy looking at them.
Peter loved it when he was small. Everywhere you went he had to be sitting beside you. The years have gone on now, he’s a teenager and lost interest, but I kept at it. I’ve a wee girl too, my daughter Orlaith. She’s seven. She’s not really that into it, but if there’s a machine out in the garden, she has to be in the photoshoot. She saw how famous Peter got at the time, so she wants to be the next one.
The dribble bar made from a garden hose.
Myself and herself and my wife, Elaine, go to shows all over Ireland together.
Two years ago we did 32 shows and we turned down 18 because we couldn’t make them. They were overlapping with other shows and with work commitments. The shows are great craic. To tell the truth, it’s the man from his 20s to his 50s that it’s the biggest hit with.
It’s a hobby and I go to the shows to show off the models. When I wasn’t working way back a few years ago, we did consider it as a back-to-work scheme-type business, but it was going to cost an absolute fortune to get set up. So I said I’d keep it as a hobby. Once you make it a business, it’s not a hobby anymore and it’s no fun.
Innovation station
Over the years I’ve made everything; round balers, wrappers, low loaders, silage trailers, tankers and more. I made a dribble bar out of a garden hose and a bit of a golf cart. I’m working on a discharge dung spreader at the minute.
The dribble bar made from a garden hose.
It’s all made from recycled material, bar the odd bit or piece you’d have to buy new. Everything else is coming out of a skip. A friend of mine owns a recycling place in Killybegs, he lets me have a rummage around the yard and take whatever I want.
Scrap metal, plastic, it could be anything from a bicycle to an ironing board, I could use anything. Nothing’s safe. My mother’s still looking for two hanging baskets that were outside her door. They’re the spools for a haybob now. I turned them upside down and put a wheel inside them.
At the start nothing was motorised and it was just all static. It was getting a wee bit boring. It’s the same thing over and over again, so I thought I’d liven it up a wee bit by making some of them move. That made things an even bigger hit.
The class baler. Declan's favourite piece of kit he has made.
They’re all motorised now. It’s 12 volt motors that’s in them. Wiper motors from your car and the wee motor that puts up and down your windows, that’s what’s in them. They all work off a wee control pad I made myself. It’s just hooked up to the battery of the van at the shows and everything works through that.
I’m not a qualified engineer or anything by any means. I left school after my Junior Cert and I just scraped through that. I went driving straight from school. The models are a hobby now and I’m getting better, I’m trying to add more details.
I absolutely love it. Out in the shed is my safe haven, the workshop. You go there when the auld head isn’t in a good place or anything like that, you know, take you round again.
For more information, follow “Declan Diver & Son – Model Farm Machinery” on Facebook
Read more
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My father had a farm, now it wasn’t a big farm, it was a wee 30ac farm. He had a few cattle. Anything to do with animals, I had no interest in. It was just the whole machinery end of it I loved. Shiny metal disease I think they call it.
I started driving a tractor... well I won’t say when. It was a wee Ferguson grey diesel. I started putting out dung with it, cutting up a bit of grass with it. We had a sickle bar mower at the time. That’s what started me off. I got the bug then and I started driving for a few local contractors. The machinery got bigger and bigger over the years and the love is still there.
A selection of Declan's machines at a show.
We live between Killybegs and Donegal town. I drive a loading shovel in a quarry for Roadstone. I’m obsessed with tractors and machinery. From when I get up in the morning to when I go to bed at night, it’s driving and machinery.
Father and son
The kids’ model farm machinery started back in 2007. I was helping out a contractor friend of mine baling one day. My wee fella Peter was three or four at the time, he happened to be sitting beside me in the cab for the day. We got home that evening and he asked would I be able to make him a baler for his wee toy tractor. I collect a lot of those machinery brochures and catalogues. Based on what was in there I made something that looked like a baler, but it was nothing compared to the stuff I make now. He pottered about on that for a while.
Another friend of mine said: “You should take that to the local show in Ardara that’s coming up.” We took it to the show and it was a massive hit down there. It started from that really.
I started putting the different machines I make up on Facebook around 2011. The page is called Declan Diver & Son – Model Farm Machinery. I don’t make them commercially. It’s a hobby and people enjoy looking at them.
Peter loved it when he was small. Everywhere you went he had to be sitting beside you. The years have gone on now, he’s a teenager and lost interest, but I kept at it. I’ve a wee girl too, my daughter Orlaith. She’s seven. She’s not really that into it, but if there’s a machine out in the garden, she has to be in the photoshoot. She saw how famous Peter got at the time, so she wants to be the next one.
The dribble bar made from a garden hose.
Myself and herself and my wife, Elaine, go to shows all over Ireland together.
Two years ago we did 32 shows and we turned down 18 because we couldn’t make them. They were overlapping with other shows and with work commitments. The shows are great craic. To tell the truth, it’s the man from his 20s to his 50s that it’s the biggest hit with.
It’s a hobby and I go to the shows to show off the models. When I wasn’t working way back a few years ago, we did consider it as a back-to-work scheme-type business, but it was going to cost an absolute fortune to get set up. So I said I’d keep it as a hobby. Once you make it a business, it’s not a hobby anymore and it’s no fun.
Innovation station
Over the years I’ve made everything; round balers, wrappers, low loaders, silage trailers, tankers and more. I made a dribble bar out of a garden hose and a bit of a golf cart. I’m working on a discharge dung spreader at the minute.
The dribble bar made from a garden hose.
It’s all made from recycled material, bar the odd bit or piece you’d have to buy new. Everything else is coming out of a skip. A friend of mine owns a recycling place in Killybegs, he lets me have a rummage around the yard and take whatever I want.
Scrap metal, plastic, it could be anything from a bicycle to an ironing board, I could use anything. Nothing’s safe. My mother’s still looking for two hanging baskets that were outside her door. They’re the spools for a haybob now. I turned them upside down and put a wheel inside them.
At the start nothing was motorised and it was just all static. It was getting a wee bit boring. It’s the same thing over and over again, so I thought I’d liven it up a wee bit by making some of them move. That made things an even bigger hit.
The class baler. Declan's favourite piece of kit he has made.
They’re all motorised now. It’s 12 volt motors that’s in them. Wiper motors from your car and the wee motor that puts up and down your windows, that’s what’s in them. They all work off a wee control pad I made myself. It’s just hooked up to the battery of the van at the shows and everything works through that.
I’m not a qualified engineer or anything by any means. I left school after my Junior Cert and I just scraped through that. I went driving straight from school. The models are a hobby now and I’m getting better, I’m trying to add more details.
I absolutely love it. Out in the shed is my safe haven, the workshop. You go there when the auld head isn’t in a good place or anything like that, you know, take you round again.
For more information, follow “Declan Diver & Son – Model Farm Machinery” on Facebook
Read more
My Country Living: 'We have a lot of girl-power in the O’Leary family'
My Country Living: 'I had it carbon dated and it dates back to 4233BC'
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