A short history lesson. In 1744, a pact between Muhammad ibn Saud and Islamic religious leader Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab took place in what’s now Riyadh and the first Saudi state was formed. The family settled in the citadel of Atturaif to the north of the city and built Salwa Palace.
All was going well until the Ottamans invaded in 1818 and destroyed the palace and its surrounding buildings. There it lay in ruins until their descendants – who remain in power today – decided to rebuild it. And in 2010 the largest restoration project on the planet began.
The 58-acre Unesco World Heritage Site is expected to cost more than €180 million to rebuild and should be completed by 2016. It will take more than 1,000 men from all over the world to finish and that's where Seán O'Sullivan – a civil engineer from Cork – comes in.
"I had been working in Libya under the Muammar Gadafy regime and was based in Tripoli. When Libyans began protesting in February 2011 during the Arab Spring, the initial violence was mainly in Benghazi so didn't really affect us. But while I was at home in Ireland on holiday, things really kicked off so it wasn't safe to go back.
“We had to leave our transportation and our villa behind, because it wasn’t worth the risk to return.”
Finding himself suddenly unemployed in an Ireland still struggling from the recession meant the father-of-two quickly had to find work. He did a brief stint with an Irish solar development company in the UK, but that folded too, forcing Seán to once again look for opportunities abroad.
Within a few months he had landed a job with engineering firm Buro Happold.
“I wasn’t really worried about moving to the Middle East. Despite what people think, Saudi is a very safe country.
Religious police
"The downside can be things like censorship. A lot of websites are blocked and social networking sites as well as phone reception can be unreliable, which is annoying if you are trying to call home for special occasions.
“Religious police patrol the streets, making sure that Muslims go to mosque five times a day. All women must be covered up and western men can’t have tattoos on display and must dress modestly.”
Despite the restrictions, Seán says living in Saudi has its positives.
“Obviously the weather is good most of the year round, with the exception of a few extremely hot months in the summer. It’s also tax-free and you can live fairly cheaply.
“When I miss home, I have a great bunch of Irish friends who I can turn to. We have a men and women’s Gaelic football club called Naomh Alee or Saint Allah. We travel to other countries in the region such as Qatar and the UAE to play other clubs.
"The Irish Embassy hosts events for us, so at least men and women can mingle and the girls don't have to wear the traditional abayas. It's also the only place you can have a drink. Some people make their own home brew, but I don't think it's worth it. If you really need to let off some steam, it's an hours' flight to Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha, so it's not that big a deal. I usually tend to wait until I come home every couple of months so I can have a decent pint of Murphy's."
Despite, having lived and worked everywhere from Johannesburg to Chicago, Seán says his current project is definitely on track to be his most fulfilling. “I’ve worked on many projects ranging from motorways to shopping centres and skyscrapers before, but working on this is totally different.
History heaven
"I love history, so it's amazing to think about how old some of the ruins are. Because it's a Unesco World Heritage Site, there are very strict rules about how it must be constructed. All the materials have to be locally sourced and the 2.5 million mud bricks must be produced and laid by hand using traditional methods.
“This is obviously very labour intensive and time consuming. Sometimes I don’t appreciate the work we are doing until the Saudi royal family brings VIPs to visit.
“We’ve had British prime minister David Cameron and Prince Charles on site, as well as French president François Hollande.
“We also had 140 astronauts stop by, which was organised by Prince Sultan Bin Salman – the only Arab ever to have been in space. It was great to see how impressed they were; especially when you think some of these guys have literally been to the moon.”
