John Sisk facts for kids

John Sisk (born September 20, 1837 – died October 21, 1921) was a famous builder from Ireland. He started a construction company called John Sisk & Son. Over time, this company grew to be one of the biggest construction businesses in Ireland.

John Sisk's Life Story

Growing Up in Ireland

John Sisk was born in 1837 in Cork, Ireland. His childhood was a very tough time for Ireland. A terrible event called the Great Famine caused many people to die or leave the country. Because of this, Ireland's population dropped by two million people.

When John was 11 years old, he became an orphan. His parents passed away during a widespread illness called cholera. John's parents were buried in St Joseph's Cemetery. Many people who died during the famine were also buried there. John Sisk was later buried in the same cemetery when he passed away in 1921. This was just before Ireland became the Irish Free State.

After his father died, John became an apprentice. He learned the trade of a plasterer from a Quaker family. An apprenticeship is like a training program where you learn a skill from an experienced person. John lived with this family. Later, when he had his own business, he even hired his old teacher, Richard Martin. Back then, it was often hard to get an apprenticeship unless you were related to someone in the trade. John's father, Patrick, was also a plasterer. It's thought that his grandfather, Nicholas, might have been in the building trade too. This means John's family might have been builders for a long time.

Starting His Own Business

In 1859, John Sisk married Kate Burke. In the same year, he also started his own business as a builder. Most of his early projects are not written down. The first official record of his work is from 1874, for building a school.

However, when he passed away 62 years later, his obituary (a notice about someone's death) listed many things he had built. It said he had constructed at least 30 churches. He also built many large schools, libraries, and bank buildings. For example, in the mid-1880s, he built the tall spire of the Catholic Church in Clonakilty. At the same time, he also built Donovan's Hotel on the main street. Like Sisk's company, this hotel is still owned by the same family today. Many other business projects like this were not officially recorded.

Building Across Ireland

John Sisk's company was always based in Cork. But they also worked in other parts of Munster, a region in Ireland. They had projects in north Tipperary, west Cork, north Kerry, and Waterford.

For instance, in 1896, John was building a very large church in Nenagh. This town was almost 100 miles from Cork. While working on that big project, he also took on a smaller job. He built a small church in nearby Cloughjordan. To finish this smaller church, John found and reopened a local stone quarry. A quarry is a place where stone is dug out of the ground. He hired skilled workers from all over Munster. He also made all the wooden parts for the church either at the building site or in his own workshop in Cork.

George Sisk, John's great-grandson and the current chairman of Sisk Group, talked about how hard it was to travel back then. He said that many skilled workers would move to the towns where they were building. He saw this when he was young, on one of his first projects at Donamon Castle. Even then, there were still signs of workers who traveled to different towns for building jobs.