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Donegal Pens

Ireland’s youngest entrepreneurs succeeded in securing funding thanks to the support of Expert Hardware.

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After failing to secure state grant funding or bank loans to expand their successful start-up business due to their young age, Expert Hardware offered to fund the development of a new workshop and equipment upgrade.

Donegal brothers Ronan aged 14 and Conor aged 11 set up Donegal Pens in September 2010. Since then they have successfully etched out a market for their hand crafted wooden pens, their pens are individually turned, polished and waxed in their workshop at Loch an Iúir. With plenty of sales they set about expanding their business, but unfortunately were too young for any state grant support or bank loans to enable them upgrade their equipment and build a new workshop to continue growing and expanding their business.

But as luck would have it, on hearing the young entrepreneurs funding difficulty on Morning Irelands radio show, Alan Grant of Expert Hardware contacted Eoin McCarvey, the young brothers father to offer financial support to allow them build their new workshop and upgrade their equipment. The team at Expert Hardware have not only offered their funding outright, they have also offered to provide marketing and mentoring support to the young brothers and entrepreneurs.

You can buy the pens in your local Expert Hardware Store. For store locations click here.

Recommended By Expert Hardware

We are asked on a daily bases by our customers to recommend products that we would use ourselves. So we have launched the New Recommended by Expert Hardware sticker.

If you see this sticker on a product in one of our stores it means the following.

The store owner has tried and tested the product.
The product delivers great results.
It is made to the highest quality.
The product meets all industry standards.
Good value for money.

Chimney Balloons

Can I do something to stop these losses and save myself money? Is there an affordable solution? The answer to both questions is YES. Simply fit Chimney Balloons to all your fireplaces and start saving money on your heating bills by chimney20balloon20crop1 stopping heat loss and reducing the amount of fuel and energy you use to heat your rooms.

Such a simple solution to an age old costly problem. They will save energy and reduce your CO₂ emissions by considerably reducing the amount of energy you use to heat your home, thus helping you make significant savings on your home heating bills. They are a safe, easy to use, inexpensive and highly efficient way of solving all the problems caused by having a chimney. Being an all year round product, they are designed to be left in place for long periods of time and are expected to last for a number of years if not mistreated so you can save money all year round on an on-going basis. Simple.

Expert Hardware Now on Twitter

We Are Now On Twitter Too!

We probably should have been tweeting a long time ago as we always have loads of news, from new products, latest offer and new stores opening around the courntry.

So to be the first to hear the news Join Us On Twitter

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Our Preferred Charity

The Irish Blue Cross

Expert Hardware are a sponsor of the Irish Blue Cross for the past two years. Expert Hardware stores work very closely with the Blue Cross to raise valuable funding for this worthy charity. By using in-store collection cans and by utilizing a number of creative ideas, so far Expert Hardware stores have raised €3,104 for the Irish Blue Cross. SAOIRSE20RONAN20SUPPORT20THE20IRISH20BLUE20CROSS1

The Irish Blue Cross, founded in 1945, is a registered animal care charity. It provides a long established volunteer based mobile clinic small-animal service. Last year, the Charity opened the doors of its own new small-animal clinic at its headquarters in Dublin, where hundreds more small animals have received care and have had operations and procedures carried out. During the charity’s sixty-four years existence well over half a million small animals have received care.