Your Partners in Delivering Excellence in Funeral Products and Services
1933 – Finlay is founded by Jack Finlay to supply coffins and wood products. Jack was a pioneer in the Funeral Products sector and a Master Craftsman who along with his son Colman built most of the buildings on the Tierney Street factory site.
1958 – Colman Finlay Snr. returned home from England with his wife Sheila, young Family and a secondhand truck loaded with woodworking machinery to join the business.
1960 – Company expands into sawmilling with the purchase of a Stenner sawmill (installed on the Tierney Street site) and two specially adapted Ford Supermajor 4wd tractors with trailers which were used to draw felled trees from the forest.
1962 – Purchased the Companies first articulated lorry which delivers coffins during the week and on Saturdays transports hardwood logs from Dublin and Belfast docks to the sawmill in Ardee.
1970 – Began veneering in house with the installation of a fist “daylight veneering press” which is later upgraded to a “automatic through feed veneering press line”.
1978 – A Kiln is built on the Ardee site for drying of sawmilled coffin boards.
1980 – Finlay becomes the first coffin manufacturer to supply coffins mounted and lined.
1987 – Expands product offering to include non-coffin Funeral Products.
1989 – Colman Finlay joins the business and begins an apprenticeship under company founder Jack
Finlay. Apprenticeship included forestry, sawmilling, machining, assembly and “getting up very very early in
the morning”.
1990 – Company Founder Jack Finlay passes away.
1990 – John Finlay joins the business.
1991 – Company commences exporting.
1992 – Company opens first wholesale Coffin and Casket showroom in Ireland.
1996 – Finlay wins the DHL Export award for development of overseas markets.
2005 – Colman Finlay Snr retires after 47 years with the business and is replaced as owner and Managing Director by son Colman.
2006 – John Finlay relocates to the United States to take up the position of Company President of Heritage Caskets/Legacy Tribute.
2014 (3rd March) –Devastating fire at Tierney Street takes the life of Ramunas Sinica and destroys the Raw Materials store, the Assembly shop, the Spray shop, the Finished goods store, the Dispatch building, the Showrooms and all of the contents and machinery.
2014 (8th March) – Company leases replacement premises and work commences to rewire and fit out / The first coffins were produced at these premises twelve days later.
2015 – Company purchases the new five-acre Kells road factory site.
2015-16 – Kells road factory building renovation work is undertaken including the installation of factory
sprinkler system and integrated dust extraction and briquette making line.
2017 – Factory relocates to the new Kells road site.
2018 – Company commissions the new “waste to warm air” environmental process which sees factory dust and wood waste converted into warm air to heat the factory.
2019 and on-wards – We are now producing more Coffins than ever before and we continue to work hard to continuously improve the Products and Services we offer to all Funeral Professionals. The trees we use in our process are only coming into their own after eighty-six years and we like to think that as a Company we are doing the same!