Sand martins are small birds, looking rather like their relative the house martin, who usually nest in colonies, in burrows which they excavate in sandy cliffs. This year, we were amazed to see that a flock of them had made their home in a pile of limestone dust at our quarry.
At McKeon Stone, we are very pleased to be associated with a new tribute to a hero of the sporting world. Michael Cusack (Mícheál Ó Cíosóg), the founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association, is being commemorated with a statue carved from our beautiful Kilkenny Blue Limestone, which will stand at the entrance to Cusack Park in Ennis, County Clare. The Park is the home of the Clare Gaelic Athletic Association.
Richard Scott is a well-known Irish independent curator and cultural entrepreneur, based in Cork, who organises exhibitions of works by sculptors as well as a wide range of other events. We at McKeon Stone are honoured to offer him our support with his annual exhibition in the grounds of Ballymaloe House in Shanagarry, County Cork.
We were very pleased to see a strong showing from Irish firms at the recent Natural Stone Show, held at Excel in London’s Docklands. This show takes place every two years, and is the only trade show which concentrates exclusively on natural stone, so it’s an important event for our industry. Five of us from McKeon Stone spent a day at the show, where some of our Kilkenny Blue Limestone could be seen on the stand of our London distributor, the CED Stone Group. (That’s our MD, Niall Kavanagh shaking hands with our machinery supplier Julio, of Benetti Machine, Carrara, Italy, on the CED stand.) One of our customers, McMonagle Stone from Donegal, had their own stand at the show.
The outstanding quality of our Kilkenny Blue Limestone was acknowledged when it was chosen for an award-winning traditional chapel, recently built by architects Craig Hamilton in the south of England.