There’s definitely a direct link between our farming background and our toy business, ‘The Field’. It’s what we are and where we’re from.

“I grew up on a mixed farm in Castlecoote, Co Roscommon. In my early days, my father milked cows, and then switched to rearing beef and sheep. My brother farms there today, but I still live here with my wife Anita and our two children, Tommy (eight) and Ava (five).

“A few years ago though, I bought land up the road because it had buildings that suited the space I needed to expand my business. That came with 13 acres, and so I keep a few sheep. It’s only a hobby; but it’s in my blood.

“I’ve been self-employed since I was 19. I was in plant hire originally, first in the UK and then back here. We did land reclamation in the early 90s, then moved into putting up street lighting and cable work, laying water mains, that kind of stuff. But the squeeze came at the end of 2009. The big boys in the business started doing the small jobs, so you just got completely priced out of the market.

People would say to me now, ‘When you started that, people were laughing at you’. But it’s a growing market and a market that definitely got us back on our feet again

“Around the same time, I was asked by a friend if I would go to Portugal and get involved in an artificial grass business. I spent a year there, learning everything there was to do with artificial grass, but my wife was still at home and home was where I wanted to be. Portugal is a lovely place to go on holidays, but it wasn’t a holiday being there on my own. I’m too much of a home bird for that craic.

“So I brought the idea back to Ireland, setting up Class Grass in 2010. People would say to me now, ‘When you started that, people were laughing at you’. But it’s a growing market and a market that definitely got us back on our feet again. One of the first things we started to do was put artificial grass on graves, but we also started putting artificial grass in back gardens and crêches and schools and gyms and display areas. It has many applications really. We deal with two companies worldwide – one in China, one in Holland – and there are seven people involved here in the business.

After I made a toy field for Tommy, we had requests from several local people who had seen it

“The idea for The Field toy came about when our son Tommy was three. He loved playing with farm animals, so Anita said, ‘Will you make some bit of a field for him?’ So I made a very basic mock-up and we still have it to this day, because we’re very proud of it now: it accounts for 25% of our overall business.

“After I made a toy field for Tommy, we had requests from several local people who had seen it, asking, ‘Will you make one for our lad?’ We then decided to take it more seriously, trademarked it, registered it and worked on the design to get a nice gate, a good floor and a very sturdy product, which we launched at the National Ploughing Championships in 2015.

What the customers want

“Today, we have six toys in total, and each one comes with its own ‘Certificate of Title’. We’ve listened to what the children want; for example, we developed ‘The Compound’ as they wanted somewhere to park their tractor, and ‘The Paddocks’ because they wanted a cornfield.

“At the moment, we are looking at adding another product with a brown grass floor to make it look like a ploughed field, because that request has been mentioned too often to ignore it.

It’s a great, creative, imaginative toy

“I think kids love the sensory feel of it. They always had the toy sheds and the animals; but they never had anyone that would make a proper field for them. Other people might say, ‘Ah sure, I could make that,’ and of course anyone can make anything, but it’s making it properly. It’s a great, creative, imaginative toy. Our caption says, ‘Opening the gate to your imagination’ and that kind of describes The Field fully.

It’s also very tough, because financially it’s very difficult to make money while you’re trying to build the brand

“While I don’t have exact figures on how many toy fields we have sold, it must be in the tens of thousands at this stage. You’d definitely do 80% of your business at this time of year, including orders to the North Pole. We brought it to Amazon in the UK, Spain, Italy, France and Germany, as well as the US and I’m fairly confident we have a new lead into Scandinavia.

“But while that all sounds very good, it’s also very tough, because financially it’s very difficult to make money while you’re trying to build the brand. When you go into bigger markets, you have to spend money to tell other people that you exist.

“But about two years ago, a woman rang me to say that her daughter was after going back to Ethiopia the day before and she had a field gone with her. She just wanted to tell me, ‘That’s how far your fields are going’.”

For more information, visit www.thefield.ie