{"id":621054,"date":"2026-08-05T03:31:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T03:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/621054\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T03:31:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T03:31:17","slug":"tributes-paid-to-mayo-businesswoman-who-cofounded-leading-grasslands-machinery-firm-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/621054\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes paid to Mayo businesswoman who cofounded leading grasslands machinery firm \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Businesswoman Martina McHale, who cofounded a Mayo machinery business that now serves as a big employer in the West of Ireland, has died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Galway native, who established McHale Engineering in 1986 alongside her husband Padraic and brother-in-law Martin, served as a director of the company for more than 40 years. She was 71.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cFrom the early days, Martina always worked hard across the business,\u201d McHale Engineering wrote in a statement on Monday, \u201cdoing whatever needed to be done to make the business successful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cHer attention to detail was immense and she often picked up on things that no one else would have seen and made sure those details were addressed.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The company employs about 250 people in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McHale died on Sunday, according to her death notice on RIP.ie, \u201cin the loving care of her family and the wonderful staff at Galway Hospice.\u201d Her funeral is to be held on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She was originally from Clonbur in Co Galway and later of Kilmaine in Co Mayo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McHale is survived by her husband Padraic, sons Paul and Pat and her six \u201cadored grandchildren\u201d and other family members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McHale Engineering continued in its statement that \u201cshe was involved in every important decision and her input was invaluable, especially in the early years where she was involved in the selection of key personnel\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Her \u201cinfluence is seen across the team who built McHale into the company it is today. She treated everyone as part of the family and made sure they were all looked after, like one of her own\u201d, the company added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McHale Engineering is a global leader in the manufacture of grassland equipment and machinery such as bailers, wrappers, feeders and handlers. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Over 90 per cent of its machines are exported through a dealer-importer network across 55 countries, according to its website. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Under a Facebook post announcing McHale\u2019s death, a Normandy-based agricultural equipment retailer, ETC Gu\u00e9rard, wrote \u201cit is with great sadness that we learned of this news\u201d and shared its condolences. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A north Wales farm machinery supplier, Emyr Evans Tractors, also offered its condolences to the McHale family and company, as did a contractor based in Christ Church, New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Businesswoman Martina McHale, who cofounded a Mayo machinery business that now serves as a big employer in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,2354,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-621054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mayo","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}