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  • Connolly Motor Group Celebrate 85 Years in Business

Connolly Motor Group Celebrate 85 Years in Business

Connolly Motor Group was founded in 1939, when Neil and Kevin’s grandfather, Thomas Connolly, opened a Fiat dealership and forecourt in Ballina, Co Mayo. Kevin Sr, Thomas’s son, and Neil and Kevin’s father joined the garage as a 15-year-old apprentice mechanic and worked there until the 1960s. With not much going on in the west of Ireland, in the mid 60’s Kevin went to America and started working as a mechanic.

When back in Ballina, Kevin Sr set up a dealership three doors down from his father's garage. Running a business in rural Ireland in the 1980s was no easy feat, but Kevin Sr's work ethic and American-style approach to customer service helped him stand out from the competition.

Neil says - "In the booming American economy, Dad had learned that if you didn't look after the customer well, a rival would do it for you. He instilled into us that the customer was always right, but that profit wasn't a bad word." Kevin Sr's tenacity paid off and in 1987 he was appointed main Volkswagen and Audi dealer for Mayo.

In 1991, Kevin Jnr joined the business. Keen to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother, Neil went straight from secondary school in Ballina to work in the dealership every day. In 1996, half an hour after finishing his Leaving Cert, Neil started working for the family business full time. The years spent working alongside their father proved to be bitter-sweet because in 1999 his father died at the age of only 56.

In 2016, Connolly Motor Group opened their Mercedes-Benz dealership in Collooney, Sligo and opened the Galway counterpart a year later in 2017. In 2019, Connolly’s was appointed the main Hyundai dealership in Galway and acquired the Volkswagen dealership from J.J Reid’s in Letterkenny. In the last 18 months, Connolly’s took on 2 more brands – Volvo which opened in Briarhill Business Park, Galway and the MG brand, opening it’s doors beside Mercedes-Benz in Collooney, Sligo.

With 14 sites now situated across the West of Ireland, Connolly Motor Group continues to grow as a family, and currently employ 326 staff across all sites.