There was a while back there, in the mid-1990s, when Barry O'Connor was despairing of his luck. All around him in the Irish corporate world, companies were getting the kind of lucrative breaks that marked the foundations for the Celtic Tiger but his own business, McInerney Properties, was mired in problems. Una McCaffrey reports

He had joined the troubled property company as treasurer in 1988, just before, he says, it "went off the rails".

Between then and his accession to the managing director role six years later, the firm passed through a damaging slump in UK commercial property, receivership for a UK housebuilding operation, suspension of its shares on the Irish Stock Exchange, a loss-making exit from the Portuguese market and various other business delights.

Losses were mounting as time went on, with the group losing some £55 million (€82 million - more than it was worth) over a five-year period.

"We just weren't getting the rub o' the green," says Mr O'Connor, now safely perched at the helm of one of the Irish market's strongest performers. How times have changed.

He acknowledges that McInerney in its old form simply had too many fingers in too many pies - commercial, contracting and housing, both home and abroad - and was unable to manage them all effectively.

Upon becoming managing director, he took personal responsibility for all the "non-trading issues" and separated them from the other parts of the business.

At the same time, he pushed for expansion on the Irish housing side, with a presence on about 10 sites at any one time growing to operations on about 30 locations. First-time buyers and one-step-up homeowners quickly became the target market, as demographic trends worked strongly in the company's favour.

The problems suffered by the company were, however, far from over, with a major restructuring of its balance sheet still in the background and further losses and tough negotiations lying ahead.

A notable turning point came in 1996 when ICC Bank, Mr O'Connor's former employer, took a 28 per cent stake in the business (which it has since sold at a huge profit) as part of its restructuring. Three years after Mr O'Connor stepped into the managing director role, trade in "new" McInerney Holdings began at 45p per share.

Not too long afterwards, the firm was topping profit forecasts and luck finally began to turn in Mr O'Connor's direction. A well-timed move back into the UK followed after a few years and, a few blips later, McInerney was again finding huge favour with investors.

It has been in particular demand within the past year, with its shares having climbed by close to 140 per cent to €5.20 since February 2003.

Within this, Mr O'Connor's own holding of 5 per cent has risen in value from about €3.6 million to some €8.5 million.

Yet there is little sense with Mr O'Connor that he has lost any of the enthusiasm for his position that he demonstrated upon taking it in the first place. He speaks passionately about the McInerney brand, the quality of its housing and its expansion plans.

He is also an ardent admirer of the entrepreneurial culture that he sees powering the fearsome McInerney machine. He makes no excuses for believing that people work better when they are working for themselves and, as such, was strongly in favour of management building up a 17 per cent stake in the group last year.

"If people have their own money in it, they'll work harder. It gives them a feeling of ownership," he says.

The move prompted wild speculation in the market that a management buy-out was imminent but this was later officially dampened. Mr O'Connor says now that the 20 managers who bought in are still "comfortable" with their stake.

Attention on the firm's future refuses to go away, however, with a takeover move by smaller, Northern firm, Taggart Holdings the latest rumour to do the rounds.

The name of serial takeover-rumour subject, Mr Noel Smyth, has also been cited as a possible interested party by some commentators. For the record, he says the Taggart approach was "without substance".

"You get people talking to you in vague terms," is all Mr O'Connor will say, surrounded by the air of a man who has no fears for his position.

Originally from Greystones, Co Wicklow, Mr O'Connor studied nearby with the Christian Brothers before being packed off to Ring in Co Waterford to learn Irish. He later resurfaced in the English-speaking world of Blackrock College in Dublin, where he was a fan of rugby but did not play.

A business degree in Trinity College was followed by accountancy training with Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). He joined ICC in the early 1980s, where he worked with subsequent luminaries such as Mr Cyril McGuire of Trintech and Mr Aidan Brady, chief executive of Citigroup in Ireland.

While at ICC, he worked in lending and treasury, which he "enjoyed immensely".

It seems his current job brings even more satisfaction however, with Mr O'Connor's evident toughness shot through with generous touches of joviality.

He loves, for example, the fact that he spends little time in his office and much time on the road between McInerney sites and potential plots.

Each site is selected only after an extensive review process that usually involves at least one visit from Mr O'Connor himself. The business of choosing which piece of land to buy is, he acknowledges, "the hardest part". To help the process along, the company uses a strict set of criteria for each plot: it must offer a 15 per cent gross margin, it must offer the chance of exit within three years and it must offer a return on capital of 20 per cent.

"The sites that didn't work are the ones where we lowered the bar," he says. Given that the company generated a pre-tax profit of €28.5 million last year however (up 38 per cent on 2002), it seems the unsuccessful sites are few and far between.

Looking ahead, Mr O'Connor is not expecting the good times to keep on rolling without any effort on his part.

He says that in about five years the company will start catering for its current or past first-time customers as they grow out of their starter homes. He is also interested in mixed developments that include some retail and apartments also look like playing a bigger role.

He believes Irish housebuilding will continue to grow by 10 or 15 per cent, with Cork and greater Dublin still offering ample space for expansion.

This side of the business accounts for some 55 per cent of group profits at the moment, but it is moving at a more sedate pace than the company's English operations, where Mr O'Connor predicts annual growth of 30 per cent. Thus last year's UK profit of €7.7 million should be transformed into €10 million before too long.

The largest proportion of the firm's English target market is looking to trade up from a very small property to a larger, new place close by.

The price differential between the Republic and the UK is possibly the best indicator of the distance between the markets: the average English McInerney house sells for less than €120,000 while here it is more like €180,000.

For a man so enthusiastic about the McInerney brand, it is perhaps unusual that Mr O'Connor himself does not occupy one of his company's homes, choosing instead to stick with the Greystones coach-house home with his wife for the past 23 years. Given the choice of his company's portfolio however, he says that as a golf fan, something within a McInerney development close to the Druid's Glen golf course in Co Wicklow might fit the bill.