TradeNames: A small iron work business has survived and prospered through some difficult and demanding times. Rose Doyle reports.

Foley's Forge has occupied its spot on Main Street, Dunshaughlin, long enough to observe the expanding march of the Co Meath town through most of the 19th century, all of the 20th and, ever expanding, onwards through these early years of the 21st century.

Specialists in hand-forged wrought ironwork and retailers of a host of allied arts, crafts and necessities, Foley's Forge began life in the place it's made its own in 1845.

Christopher (Christy) Foley is the third generation of talent and craftsmanship to run things. He's lived all of his 77 years in Dunshaughlin and wouldn't live anywhere else. "It's part of my body and soul. It's where I was reared."

He tells the Foley story with energy, digression and style. In the telling it becomes a history of blacksmithing and farriery, of education, amateur boxing and the much harder times that were in it until not all that long ago.

He sets the scene thus: "The whole thing started off with Foley's Forge and my grandfather, Christopher Foley, who was a farrier/blacksmith," he says, an eye through the window onto Main Street. "This was a farriery rather than a wrought iron works, a forge on the side of the road where we are now. The Foleys, before 1845, came from Kilnessan.

"My father was known as Gah Foley. I don't know where the name came from. He was a top class farrier/blacksmith and a fluent Irish speaker. He was attached to the Gaelic League and was the one of the family that remained in Dunshaughlin. He had a brother, Christy, who was a blacksmith and set up in Ratoath, four miles away.

"My mother died when I was seven and my father married again. I've four brothers and two sisters.Podger joined the Royal Navy and Benny and Joe were in the horse shoeing business. Joe eventually became a priest and is now retired in Florida. Benny died and his son, Niall, is now carrying on the blacksmith/farrier end of the family business in Dunshaughlin.

"I inherited the Forge, which was only a little, small area off the footpath. There was no electricity, just a bio-Aladdin lamp and duck lamps that used to spurt flame and worked on paraffin."

Gah Foley serviced a very different world to the 21st century one in which his son and grandsons do business.

"He mainly shoed thoroughbreds, race horses, brood mares, stallions," Christy explains. "He worked mainly for Lord Dunsany of Dunsany Castle, Lord Fingal of Killen Castle, for Corbalton Hall and Tara Stud. I was the eldest, born on July 23rd, 1927 and taken out of school to help my father at a young age - thankfully because I hated school. You couldn't get proper coal at the time and I was blowing the bellows trying to get a fire going to heat the shoes. It was a killer to get it to light and I heard language and prayers out of my father I've never heard since."

Gah Foley, deciding his eldest should have "a bit more education", got him a bike and sent him off to the De La Salle brothers in Navan. "I hated that too," Christy says. "I would cycle the 12 miles to Navan and home, then do homework and work in the forge as well. I wasn't long there when my father sent me to Connemara, to the Gaeltacht for six weeks. That was a great break for me!"

Christy Foley's early passion for life never diminished. "I'd a great life," he remembers, "apart from when my wife died. Boxing, ballroom dancing and my work were the things that kept me on my toes from 12 years of age."

Boxing, at one stage, almost took over his life. Between 1946-'53 he won army championships, Dublin league championships and boxed for the Republic of Ireland in Milan, Rome and Trieste. He had an audience with Pope Pius XII. His brothers were no slouches either; on a memorable night all five Foley boys - Benny, Podger, Joe, Seamus and Christy - boxed and won their fights in the National Stadium. Life in the Forge went on all the time.

"From about 1941 I was working with my father shoeing horses," Christy explains. "When an offer came for me to become a professional boxer my father said he needed me, as the eldest, to help him. But I had an urge to expand the business and myself and do something I thought worthwhile so I went to Bolton Street Technical School in Dublin on the bus to learn wrought iron work during the war years. I made it up to my father by working at night."

Later, his father arranged for him to serve time with Joe Breen, a master craftsman in Leixlip. "I cycled there every morning to open the forge. He was gifted but very hard to work with. He used go with the stuff he made to The Country Shop on Stephen's Green, firescreens and items like that. I loved, loved wrought iron work. Still do. I stuck with him for about nine months. Then I won a scholarship to Ardee Technical School for Blacksmithing and Wrought Iron Work. I came home most weekends."

He worked, danced and boxed through the years to 1951 and the An Tostal celebrations of Irish culture. He made a firescreen and won the national An Tostal shield for wrought iron work.

"I got no wages working for my father. I don't know how I lived. I'd been drifting out of horse shoeing and was developing my own iron work," he explains. "The shield gave a great spur to my business. I was married in l954 to Mary O'Flaherty from Castlegregory, Co Kerry. I met her in Maynooth, through the dancing. She was a marvellous woman, marvellous. She had charm and charisma and was a great asset to the business."

Mary (O'Flaherty) Foley died on November 5th, 1975. "We had 21 years of blissful happiness," her husband says. "She helped me build the business in every way."

Foley's Forge, in those early days, made mostly wrought iron gates, railings, outdoor and indoor furniture for private individuals and stud farms. In time, and success, Christy Foley decided to open a showroom - "to display our wares. We used go to the RDS Craft Show too but these days we're too busy for that."

Christy and Mary Foley had three sons and a daughter, Avril. "My three lads are in the business," Christy says, "and Avril found and developed her own talents in another way. Alan ran the showrooms for 10 years but now works here part-time. Mark is a draftsman/designer. He's the buyer, too, for the showrooms, along with Carmel Byrne who is our wonderful PA. Paul is the works manager in the forge. Over the years we've had great staff. I was always lucky with PAs from my wife, Mary, to Vera, Karen and Carmel. The business wouldn't be what it is today but for them. Doing a good job, giving quality service and taking pride in the work - that's what I've tried to instil."

They do restoration work in Foley's Forge. They also make and design their own chandeliers, balconies, grilles and lamp fittings. They make garden seats, Baroque and Rose gates, curtain rails and candle holders. And more. Twelve people work there, full and part-time. Paul and Mark Foley are directors.

Christy Foley is MD and says he doesn't "work so much anymore. I'm involved but not directly all the time anymore. Fifty-two years on I still have the firescreen that won me the An Tostal shield. We're going to put the shield into a set of gates for the entrance. We've been making that gate for years now but one of these days we'll finish it."