A pair of Donegal schoolboys who began making wooden pens from their garden shed has reached an online watershed. The online interest reflects the ongoing growth of the business run by Ronan and Conor McGarvey from Loughanure since nearly 2011. Back then Ronan was just 14 and Conor only 10 but they were already producing pens made out of bog oak, ash, yew, elm and beech which they then shipped all over the world. They persuaded their parents to allow them to use the garden shed which was then converted into a workshop in the evenings and weekends after they had finished their homework.
This year has been a sterling one for the boys, now aged 16 and 13, as they appeared on the junior version of the entrepreneurship show Dragon’s Den securing a €2,000 bursary and an order for €2,000 within minutes. Their donegalpens.com website has now had over one million page views since 1 January 2013.