The Specialist: footballer to furniture maker

In February a 12-metre container left Belfast for Liverpool for shipping to New York. In it were some 50 pieces of handmade furniture from Orior, in Newry, heading for a new Irish showroom opening in Brooklyn on May 7th. Ironically, the company, founded by Brian and Rosemary McGuigan in 1982, started life in a shipping container. It has since become one of the most successful on this island, with an extensive portfolio that includes leading hotels in Ireland, Scotland and the UK, many Dublin apartments, and private clients in Portugal, the US and Bermuda.

"Precision, passion and patience" has been Orior's motto. With a highly skilled workforce of more than 30, the company takes pride in its traditional manufacturing methods, being one of the few survivors of what once was a thriving industry in counties Monaghan and Meath.

The February container, however, was one with a difference, marking an ambitious new development. Behind it is the McGuigans’ son, 26-year-old Ciaran, a celebrated soccer star and arts graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia who, along with two collaborators – graduates like himself – has new ideas about international expansion.

With their help and that of his cousin Shane, a Berlin-based design consultant, he has created a new collection called New by Orior and has leased a 465 sq m (5,000 sq ft) showroom (the equivalent of Brown Thomas’s ground floor) in Williamsburg, New York, to show it off.

New York-inspired

“We wanted a collection that was New York-inspired, Scandinavian in shape and style, and if there was one person in this jigsaw whose knowledge, experience and aesthetics got us over the line in one of the biggest cities in the world, it was Shane,” Ciaran McGuigan says when we meet in the company’s spacious showrooms and factory outside Newry.

“What’s going on here is fantastic and I have looked at what our capabilities are. My dad, who trained as an upholsterer, has an instinctive and decisive eye when it comes to design. What I learned in Savannah is how important collaboration is. I was always intrigued by the work in the factory, but didn’t realise how hard it is to design and manufacture a product. I now want to continue the legacy and heritage for which my father and mother worked.”

The collection is called New by Orior "because it is about new ideas, new directions, new design, New York and Newry", and consists of a dozen pieces of furniture – sofas, chairs, tables and bookcases – with names, such as Cabbie (in yellow leather after New York taxis), The Thinker and Lofty, that relate to Stateside city living. The Thinker, for example, is a metal bookcase which can double up as a room divider, while Lofty is an armchair upholstered in Harris tweed and studded with shiny brass buttons handmade in Carlingford by metal fabricator Colm Clarke.

The New York showroom is a handsome brick and glass two-storey building at 199 North 8th Street in Williamsburg, which McGuigan has set out in three sections, the first to highlight the new collection, the second a studio and communal working space, and the third showcasing Orior’s corporate hotel and contract work. What makes it interesting is the way the new furniture line is displayed, more like an art installation than conventional room-setting presentations.

The Gansevoort Bench, for example, a rip- and stitch-covered leather bench, its name taken from the meatpacking area of New York, is presented under a chandelier of wooden benches, while the Wilder, a clean-lined grey plaid sofa, is set in front of a caged stone backdrop with medicine-bottle lights. The Lofty armchair is fronted by a swivel-windowed Eileen Gray-style screen. “We wanted to create themes for each piece and give a sense of seeing furniture as an experience,” says McGuigan.

Focused, fearless and immensely committed, McGuigan has a strong entrepreneurial streak that has already sparked not only a successful soccer career (he played professionally for Syrianska in Sweden and Drogheda) but also two e-commerce sites, one, called Laadmade, selling bags made from leather offcuts from the factory, another, called arttraffic.co.uk, selling artwork.

Film award

In addition, his film

Mo Chara

, about two Belfast boys, one Catholic, the other Protestant, united through sport, made for his thesis at Savannah, was accepted for the Savannah Film Festival and won an outstanding achievement award.

Talent runs in the family. He is a cousin of acclaimed cinematographer Kieran McGuigan, his sister Katie is a fashion designer now working with Marc Jacobs in New York, his cousin Phelim is production manager in the factory (with "a priceless knowledge of quality control"), while his aunt Gertrude is a top-class machinist.

His collaborators, both former soccer professionals like himself, are Karl Sjöström, a product designer from Sweden (and founder of Stick and Bindle shoes), and Richard Langthorne, another Savannah graduate.

In the factory, work is progressing on furniture made on solid beech frames with traditional coil unit spring systems, while, upstairs, leather and upholstery fabrics are being stitched on heavy-duty machinery.

“Nothing pleases me more than to go on to the factory floor and see how busy it is. It’s a team effort,” says McGuigan’s mother, Rosemary.

McGuigan is now in New York to mastermind the new showroom and oversee its progress. It’s a huge challenge for the 26-year-old, but he is confident.

“It’s nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he says. “But I think this project will be a success, because it is all about the quality of the materials and the design. We are respectful of our working-class backgrounds and Dad gave us the foundation.

“We work hard, but we also reach for the stars.”

See oriorbydesign.com