TradeNames:Now 40 years in business and top of its trade, the Hooke & MacDonald agency has grown through good and bad times, writes Rose Doyle

Ken MacDonald is on the streets long before they're aired, in his elegant Baggot Street office long before most of the rest of us have given a thought to our working day. Being ahead of the posse has been his way of life for a long time now, certainly since 1967, the year he and Ronnie Hooke got together and set up Hooke & MacDonald, the auctioneers, valuers and estate agents which has become part of what we are.

The rise and rise of Hooke & MacDonald paralleled, in many ways, the rise and rise of the Celtic Tiger. The company story, as Ken MacDonald tells it, has all the trappings of a business and economy moving from rags to riches.

By mid-morning, when we meet over peppermint tea (his choice) and black tea (mine), he's got half an average working day behind him. He's courtesy itself, precise about accuracy as he tells his story, insistent always that it's been a team effort from the beginning. He's in reflective mood, too, proud of what's been achieved since 1967 and full of memories.

And, all the time, he's optimistic, convinced there's a "great future for this country", frustrated by doom-and-gloom commentators.

After brief childhood years in Bushy Park, Galway, the family followed his father to Dublin and a job with Dublin Corporation. Robert MacDonald was a civil engineer. His mother, Sylvia (nee Pringle), was a Galway woman. The family's first Dublin home was a bungalow on Woodbine Road, off the Stillorgan Road. Later they moved to Blackrock.

In those early years there was not, MacDonald remembers, "a lot happening in building terms but my father would bring me to building sites with him when I was at school".

The seed was thus planted: MacDonald became interested in property. He was the fourth of five children who, when he finished school, "trained as an auctioneer in a company in Sandycove; Albert Estate Agency".

But he was young, the suburbs were quiet, he "thought there would be more activity in the city centre" and, after a couple of years, he went calling on friend Ronnie Hooke, who had an auctioneering business in a room in Pearse Street. "I suggested we start up a company called Hooke & MacDonald and he agreed and we got going."

It was March 1967. Ronald Hooke, a northside Dubliner, was "40 years my senior. He was a great person to work with, a thorough gentleman." Ronald Hooke was 90 when he died in 2001.

MacDonald remembers, in those early beginnings, how "the phones didn't ring and nothing happened. Then we got a letter from a pilot saying he needed a house close to the airport. We typed up a letter, made 300 photocopies and I delivered them to the roads he was interested in. The following day a man who'd got a letter rang from Collins Avenue."

MacDonald made his first sale. "We sold his three-bed, semi-detached to the pilot for £4,000. I felt great, excited about getting the show on the road. We stayed in that Pearse Street room until 1975. Things got busy. TCD had started to take over property so it was a good city centre base. We had fun, generated a good amount of business, sold a lot of land and new home developments. I used go to places like Tallaght, go round asking farmers and landowners if they'd like to sell their lands. We sold 16 acres in Tallaght in 1971 for £57,000."

He reflects, a little. "You'd be talking about €5 million to €10 million per acre for such building land today. In 1970 we sold a house on Mount Merrion Avenue for £10,250. People will say that was cheap but it just proves that property is a very good investment. Today's prices will look cheap in 10 years."

He married, in 1972, after he met Sheila Murphy "at a ski club do in Balscadden". They had two children, Renagh (who is part of the company) and Donald (who is in Anglo Irish Bank). "You had to make things happen in the 1970s," he recalls, "generate activity. In sourcing the land we met developers. Once we'd built a relationship we ended up acting for them."

And so things grew. In 1975 they moved to 19 Clare Street; "still just myself and Ronnie and Ronnie's sister, Carmel, who worked part-time. In 1979 we launched Pilot View, Dalkey, technically the first apartments launched off the plans. This was before the benefits of marketing suites and it was literally sold out of the boot of a car! Prices began at around £58,000."

Pilot View was also, he says, "one of the first developments where architect, developer and selling agent sat down together at an early stage; I really enjoyed this. I love being in at the conceptual stage."

David Cantwell and David Lawlor came on board in 1982. "We'd three rooms by then. Both were about 20 at the time and proved to be great assets."

Being pro-active by now involved "encouraging the government to introduce tax incentives to help modernise the stock of rental accommodation. At the time this was dominated by fire-trap bed-sit accommodation. Section 23 incentives came in in 1981 and this has been the most successful property tax ever. We were the first people to market developments under Section 23."

Hooke & MacDonald, in the 1980s, "encouraged urban renewal, encouraged developers to derelict parts of the city centre, to Temple Bar, Smithfield, the Liberties and Dublin docklands. We worked closely with Temple Bar Properties and with Dublin City Council. We felt there was a great future for the city centre despite its then dereliction. We pioneered apartment living as a means of achieving urban renewal; this coincided with an increase in first-time buyers getting into the market."

The company "grew steadily" and in 1989 the firm launched Fisherman's Wharf, Ringsend, for Liam Carroll of developers Zoe. "We were aware of change around us. We'd felt that rejuvenation would bring hotels, shops, social infrastructure, encourage people back to live in the city centre - and that's what happened."

What began then has, he believes, "had huge consequences. Populations have increased in areas of the city which had been in decline. Some people on Dublin City Council did Trojan work in the area of rejuvenation."

He produces large, old-style ledgers in which precise, fountain-pen entries give evidence of his own Trojan work. Blue ink details how, in 1980, they sold two-bedroom apartments in Monkstown for £46,000, and Sheelin Homes two-bedroom apartments in Donnybrook for £42,000.

On November 11th, 1992, Hooke & MacDonald launched the Custom Hall development in Gardiner Street. "There were 172 apartments, interest rates were 18 per cent and a general election had been called. Not ideal times for a launch so, with Cosgraves, the developers, we decided to create a serious amount of noise. We got the Earl Gill band to come along. The street was closed and the minister for finance Bertie Ahern cut the tape. We'd closed sales and had people in their apartments by Christmas."

In 1990 the company moved to 52 Merrion Square. In that same year, with accountant Derek Maguire, Ken MacDonald set up the Irish Mortgage Corporation. Run by Maguire it today employs 110 people. From the mid-1990s the city's population began to increase "dramatically"; so did wealth and the appeal of property ownership, especially apartments as investments and "nest eggs". With the entire economic climate changing Hooke & MacDonald was at the coal-face.

"A lot of developers were starting to do mixed developments - residential and commercial - so we set up a commercial division. It's been successful and has sold over €1 billion in the last two years. We've a fabulous team of young people in the company: very talented and dedicated."

Given this, and with daughter Renagh a vital part of the team, will he be moving back any time soon? "Moving back?" great laugh,"no, I'm enjoying things too much. But I'm sharing responsibility a lot more than I used to. In many ways my colleagues are running the show. We've always had a great team spirit in the company."

He's convinced there's "a great future for the country and that Hooke & MacDonald, please God, will continue to prosper with it".