Roscommon contractor celebrates 50 years of lime spreading

They say contracting is a young man’s game, but Roscommon man Padraig Beirne has proved this theory wrong. Based just outside the town of Elphin, Padraig started spreading lime on hire in 1975, and continues to do so today.

The beginning of his new business coincided with Hanley’s Quarries getting into the lime business.

“Bertie Hanley opened Hanley’s Quarries in 1971, and he began crushing lime in 1975,” Padraig said. “He needed a few contractors to spread the lime for him, so I bought two secondhand Atkins spreaders and started at it.

“In 1976, we spread 16,000t of lime. The demand for lime from farmers was massive in those years. I remember spreading lime until 8pm on Christmas Eve in 1975. We started again on 15 January, and spread almost every day that year. It was a remarkable year, weather wise.

“Farmers weren’t spreading slurry, big volumes of fertiliser or reseeding in those years, and there was a great skin on the land.

“To be honest, lime was probably being overapplied to land in those years, we often spread 4-5t/ac to ground,” Padraig recalled.

When we caught up with Padraig, he was spreading lime within 10km of the quarry. When spreading within this radius, he often draws the lime directly out of the quarry with his Bredal K85, which he said is well capable of holding over 11t when loaded, if the ground is dry enough. When I called to the quarry, Padraig was reminiscing on old times with Bertie Hanley and his main man Alan Tiernan.

“There was a great subsidy for lime in the 1970s and into the early 1980,” Bertie said.

“As with any business, there was a lot of competition. When we entered the business, the price of lime dropped from as high as IR£3/t to as low as 60p/tonne in the mid- to late 70s.

“When we started at it, we would crush lime 24 hours a day, with the crusher powered by a diesel engine,” he said. “My house was at the front of the quarry, and when the engine stopped, it used to wake me up and we would go out to fix it and get it moving again.

“In those days, we were fit to crush around 300t/lime in 24 hours,” he said.

Lime price wars

Looking back on the early days, the three men laughed and joked about the goings on.

Each quarry had reps on the ground, selling lime direct to farmers. At the time, there were no mobile phones. They explained that the majority of business was carried out by meeting people face to face.

Alongside the official quarry reps, the contractors who were spreading the lime also worked as reps. Padraig recalled a story of one particular farmer he dealt with in 1976 in Tulsk.

A few days later, I heard he was going dealing with a neighbouring quarry, so I called to him again and we struck a new deal

“That year, was our second year spreading,” he said. “I remember we done a few big jobs that year, jobs that were around 400-500t. There was one job that none of us will forget. I remember doing a deal with a farmer in Tulsk for 400/500t of lime. A few days later, I heard he was going dealing with a neighbouring quarry, so I called to him again and we struck a new deal.

“Again a few days later, I heard he got a better deal with the same other quarry. So, I drove to Bertie Hanley, got a price off him, and drove to the farmer’s yard. For the third time, we struck a deal, on the condition that the lime would be delivered the following morning. The next morning, the first load of lime arrived and was tipped up in the field just inside the gate.

“Minutes later, the rep from the other quarry arrived into the field in his van, parked and went up the field to offer the farmer a last-minute better deal.

“It was the month of March in 1976, and lambing was in full swing. In the 20 or 30 minutes that the rep was gone up the field, more of Hanley’s lorries with lime had arrived, and tipped the lime in the field, which unintentionally ended up blocking in the competitor sales rep’s van in the field.

“There was no other way out of the field, and he had to wait there with his van until we had all of the lime spread. There was war that day, but we all — including the other quarry’s sales rep — looked back at those days with a smile,” said Padraig.

“For many years, lime accounted for the majority of the work I was at. I’ve spread lime all over Roscommon, Mayo, Galway, Sligo, Leitrim, Longford and Westmeath. From 1975 to 1982, there was a subsidy for lime, and every quarry was selling serious volumes. I remember Hanleys selling 150,000t of lime in 1982. You have to remember the lorries that time were only bringing out 10t loads in single-axle tippers.

With many local farmers in our area having entered organics in recent years, I think lime usage locally will grow again

“It probably accounted for 50% of the quarry’s business during them years,” Padraig explained. “In 1983, the subsidy was taken away and lime usage dropped big time. Lime usage is since very much weather dependent, and has been steady, except in years when there has been a subsidy. The grant on applying lime over the last two years saw a resurgence of lime usage in the west of Ireland.

“With many local farmers in our area having entered organics in recent years, I think lime usage locally will grow again,” Padraig added.

Spreaders over the years

In 1975, Padraig, with the help of his brother Timmy, began his lime-spreading career with two two-tonne Atkins spreaders, which were pulled by a Massey Ferguson 165 and a 65. At the time, he recalls getting paid 75p to spread a tonne of lime. The following year, he upgraded to a new Bredal five-tonne spreader and he bought a one-year-old 80hp Deutz 80-06 two-wheel drive tractor.

“The Atkins spreaders broke my heart. The gearbox and spinners at the rear were very low to the ground, and they weren’t protected. If you went into a field with a low-lying gap, it would pull the spinners off the machine,” Padraig said.

“They were made out of sort of a cast material, and it was awful hard to weld. We modified one of them machines from PTO to hydraulic drive in the early years. The move to the Bredal in 1976 was a game changer — we were able to carry over twice the load and had much more comfort. We converted that Bredal spreader from PTO and belt drive to hydraulic drive also, and it never looked back.

“We made other alterations such as adding wider flotation tyres, reinforcing the body and adding extensions for it to carry more. It was the best machine I’ve ever had and we still have it today,” said Padraig.

Around 20 years ago, Padraig added a new AgriSpread trailed spreader to the fleet, which was used solely for spreading fertiliser. He recalls having designed this spreader with the original AgriSpread business in Drogheda, Co Louth, and having to alter the machine’s spreading pattern from outward to inwards so it could handle fertiliser in more windy conditions.

Other Bredal spreaders were added and sold on over the years, and he has settled on a K85. Padraig noted that he made adjustments to every spreader he’s had in order to suit his business. He noted that all spreaders were converted from PTO to hydraulic drive. On his current K85, he added a sprung drawbar and a central grease bank. Padraig is that fond of his Bredal spreaders, that he often buys secondhand machines, and refurbishes them and sells them on again.

More contracting services

Padraig developed his business from spreading lime to cutting silage, and spreading slurry. He recalled that in the 1980s, Kerry Co-op began importing machines for reseeding, and sold one into every county in Ireland. Padraig purchased one for Roscommon, and recalled that it was like a rotavator with a grass box. From here, he developed his reseeding business.

He also recalled buying a Pottinger forage wagon in the early 1980s, and pulling it with his two-wheel drive Deutz-Fahr 80-06, and picking 5ft6in swaths of grass, and pushing it up on the pit with a Massey Ferguson 165. In the years that followed, he ventured away from silage cutting and slurry spreading, and developed a waste and recycling business.

However, he always stuck at the lime and fertiliser spreading and the reseeding work. Now 77 years of age, Padraig has no plans to retire, and is intent on sticking to spreading lime and reseeding.

He estimated that he spread a couple of thousand tonnes of lime and reseeded a few hundred acres of grassland in 2024.