A railing installed in 1856 is still standing in Longford. It survived a cathedral fire. It was studied, copied, recast in sand moulds, and used as the basis for new work on one of the largest restoration projects in Europe.
That is an unusual story. The principle behind it is not.
Steel fabricated correctly, finished correctly, and fixed correctly does not get replaced. It does not rust out after twelve years, corrode at the base plate, or start to look like a liability on a development that cost millions. But that outcome, steel that holds its structural integrity and its appearance across decades, only happens if the right decisions are made before anything goes into the ground.
“They’ll just have a railing sitting on top of a wall and no detail of how it’s going to stay there,” says Shane Winters, Managing Director at Irish Fencing. “And when you point that out on the site, the answer is: what do you mean it can’t be done?”
It can be done. But it costs more, takes longer, and the result is never as clean. The version that works, structurally, aesthetically, within programme, is the one where those questions were asked before anything was built.
This matters beyond programme and cost. A fence and railing is usually one of the most visible elements of a building or public space. When it fails, when it stains, when the finish lifts, when the posts move, it is the first thing a visitor or resident notices. On a heritage streetscape, a residential development, or a public bridge, an installation that degrades quickly pulls everything around it down with it. Specification is a long-term asset decision.
From public infrastructure to historic city-centre development, the brief and the client are different each time, but the approach shouldn’t be, the results are still standing because of it.
Public projects: process is the product
Public procurement rewards demonstrated capability, documented compliance, and the kind of track record that survives a tendering committee. For a fabricator, that means certifications that are current, processes that are auditable, and a fabrication standard that does not vary between a small local authority job and a complex infrastructure project.
The ISO 3834 welding standard, held by fewer than a dozen companies in Ireland when Irish Fencing first achieved it, governs everything from how steel is welded to how process is documented, traced, and verified. Every weld has a certified operator. Every material has a traceable origin. When a public body needs to sign off on a perimeter installation, that paper trail matters as much as the finish.
It also matters on site. On publicly funded infrastructure, there is rarely a second visit to fix something that was measured or manufactured wrong. The programme does not flex for fencing.
St Dominic’s Bridge
St. Dominic’s Bridge was built in 1863, closed to motor traffic in the 1970s, and refurbished as a key pedestrian and cycle route.
The initial concept used stainless steel wire infills with wide spacing. The problem, as Shane saw it immediately, was that the line wires had 300mm gaps between them.
“Kids could climb through it and fall into the river,” says Shane. “So they said, what can we do? I said, look, we’ve previously done a small bit of railing for Dublin Port. We can downsize that and give you what you need.”
That Dublin Port design became the starting point. Irish Fencing reviewed it with Jons Civil Contracts Manager Eugene Murray, produced a sample, and adapted the design to the bridge’s specific requirements. Height was raised to 1,400mm. The upper section was tapered inward for anti-climb performance without changing the visual character of the rail. The coved handrail and the profile of the uprights came from the Port design, with the infills changed from stainless steel wire to mild steel round bars at tighter centres.
“The actual cost of that railing could have been less than if you went the way of the one that wasn’t going to work,” says Shane. “Plus the fact that one looks a whole lot better too.”
Panels were fabricated in Dublin, hot-dipped galvanised to BS EN ISO 1461:2009, and powder coated to BS EN 13438:2013 in RAL 7040.
Installation was completed by a three-man crew in five working days.
Private projects: specification must meet craft
The same principle applies differently on private developments and heritage projects. Here the driver is not a compliance committee, it is an architect with a visual intent and a main contractor with a programme. The question Irish Fencing is most often asked is a variation of: we know what we want it to look like, can you make it work?
The answer is usually yes, but not always with the spec as written.
An architect might design a fence once every ten years. Irish Fencing does it every day. The gap between those two positions is where problems get caught or don’t.
“I could save them thousands with fifteen minutes on site,” says Shane.
At the Distillers Building in Smithfield, Dublin, Burke Kennedy Doyle had a concept for gates and security railings in the original stonework elevation on Bow Street. The concept was clear. The manufacturing detail was not yet there.
“We had to go down, measure up the specific site details, all the logistics, and come up with the manufacturing details that would actually work,” says Shane. “We took their concept and turned it into reality.”
Shane and Sisk Contracts Manager Des Abid worked through the design process together. Irish Fencing produced workshop drawings for sign-off by the consultants, contractor, client, and Dublin City Council before steel was cut. The gates and railings were fabricated at Inchicore, less than six kilometres from site, and finished in Plasgalv powder coat over hot-dipped galvanised steel.
The same principle held at St. Mel’s Cathedral in Longford. When the cathedral was devastated by fire on Christmas morning 2009, the restoration that followed was widely described at the time as one of Europe’s largest restoration projects (before the Notre Dame fire). It received the Irish Building and Design Awards Building Project of the Year in 2015.
Irish Fencing’s scope covered two distinct problems.
The first was matching railings originally installed in 1856. The castings and bosses were handmade. Nothing available off the shelf came close. The solution came through Irish Fencing’s long-standing relationship with Athy Co-Op Foundry, copies were made from the original castings, recast individually in sand moulds using methods that have not changed materially in 160 years. Fabrication was completed at the Dublin plant.
One improvement was made to the original: a Plasgalv powder coat finish over hot-dipped galvanised steel, specified to require no maintenance for approximately 50 years, and then only cosmetic. The original railings had been repainted countless times. These will not need it.
“You basically won’t get a railing as heavy as the one at the front because that would cost a fortune,” says Shane. “And you don’t need it either. So we came up with the modern-day railing that would match it, proposed the detail, produced a sample, and that’s what’s on the sides and back of the church.”
The second problem was a 15,000mm wide automated sliding gate designed to travel across the tiled forecourt. A 35-metre track was laid within the forecourt before tiling. The gate was delivered in one piece, with automatic reversal on obstacle contact and infrared beams to prevent closure on a person or vehicle.
What gets missed when fencing is left to tender
“Section sizes,” says Shane, when asked what Irish Fencing most often has to correct in a spec. “Either the post size is too big or too small, the centres are wrong, or if there’s a wall involved, there’s no detail of how the fence is actually going to be fixed to it.”
The fix is not complicated, it is a conversation at design development stage, before the wall is poured.
Shane has been part of the Irish Fencing team since 1991. Guard rails, pedestrian barriers, mesh perimeters, boundary railings, bespoke gates, automated commercial gate systems, hot-dipped galvanised or Plasgalv powder coat as standard, he has seen most of what can go wrong with a fencing spec, and most of what fixes it. If you are at design or pre-tender stage, browse the full product range here and talk to Shane directly before the brief is locked and potentially save your project or development a good amount of unnecessary cost.