We have convinced ourselves that Ireland can no longer compete in traditional manufacturing. Our clothes, shoes and furniture factories have shut down, sacrificial lambs to the slaughter of globalisation. The received wisdom is that while we may excel in the lab-type production needed by the pharmaceutical and computer industries, in traditional, labour-intensive sectors we haven’t a hope. Magee of Donegal now has its tweed suits sewn in Morocco. And most sliotars are made in Pakistan. Despite everything, one plucky industry is managing to beaver away in the heart of Ireland: bed manufacturing. Go into any homeware shop and amidst the swathe of imported goods there will be a little bastion of Guaranteed Irishness in the bedding section, with companies such as Respa, Briody and Odearest all producing arguably better beds than their foreign competitors. How can this be? And, what, if anything, can we learn from it? I turn towards the golden triangle of bedding on the Meath-Cavan border, a stretch of drumlin-rolling greenness between the Neolithic passage tombs of Loughcrew, Co Meath, and Lough Sheelin, Co Cavan.
I’m expecting to see factories as bulky and sprawling as the mattresses themselves, but I find only patchwork fields knitted by tiny lanes. I show the list of factories I plan to visit to a farmer who comes upon me, lost, down a track: Briody Beds in Ballymacad, Pocket Spring in Ballinarink and Spring Air in Ballinacree. He looks at me strangely. “They’re all the one place. Ballymacad, Ballinarink and Ballinacree are different names for the same place. There’s just one company.” He must be wrong. You can’t have a thriving hub of just one company. Yet, when I track down David Briody of Briody Beds, he tells me they are indeed the same. It’s just that retailers like to have a range of different names on the same beds. So there’s no thriving hub? Briody says there is, and points up the road to Oldcastle, where Respa and Kelletts have been making beds for 70 years (although they too are a single company). How has the bedding industry survived? “Because mattresses are bulky,” says Briody, whose parents, Benny and Bríd, founded Briody Beds in 1974.
This is not the revelation I am after. I point out that there are other bulky items that can no longer be made competitively in Ireland: furniture, garden ornaments and cars. “But mattresses are very bulky,” he insists, “and there are so many different types: open coil, pocket sprung, latex, memory foam, and all with various fillers and fabrics. And all these come in different sizes: 3ft, 4ft 6in, 5ft . . . That’s before we even start on the divans: high or low? With drawers or not? How is the retailer meant to know which to stock? And even if he guesses right, where is he going to store them all? I pose the same question to James Hayes of Natural Sleep. “It’s a bulky product,” he says. “A retailer could order a container of cheap, low-quality beds from Turkey or China, but he’d have to order 400 different ones to have the full range. Whereas with us, he just needs to make a call and we’ll make what he wants within five days.” Hayes started making beds in 1984 with just one sewing machine.
Now his company produces 700 pieces a week, many of them own-brand labels for big retailers. The factory is in Limerick, a county that had its own bedding hot spot in the past, after the O’Dea family in 1893 established what would become Odearest. That company is now in Kilcullen, Co Kildare, where KingKoil, Kaymed and SleepSpa are also based. A new Golden Triangle of mattress manufacturing, perhaps? No, these are all part of the Kaymed Group, founded in Dublin in 1898 by Zorach Woolfson. I return to Meath to meet up with the largest bed manufacturer in Ireland, Kellletts, founded by Jack and Joan Kellett in 1947 and now run by their grandson Darren. Kelletts/Respa make 85,000 mattresses a year; that’s 1,800 a week, which surely must be enough to service the entire island. I ask Seán Browne, Kelletts’ financial operations director, how they manage to remain competitive, not only within Ireland but also producing 400,000 spring units for companies in Ireland and the UK.
“We’re not competitive,” he replies. “Not in spring manufacturing, anyway. A 3ft spring unit for a mattress costs 20 lira in Turkey. That converted to £8.80 in 2011; James Hayes from the Natural Sleep Company says something similar: “No bed manufacturer has made money since the recession. We are surviving, but only surviving. At times I said to myself: what are we doing this for?” Have they any advantage over foreign competitors? “Speed,” says Seán Browne of Kelletts. “It takes five or six weeks to get springs from Turkey and even longer from China, whereas we can take an order on Wednesday and have them made and delivered by Friday. So when there are spikes in the market, we top up orders for the big manufactures in Britain.” This isn’t quite the vision of bed-making colossuses bestriding the market; it seems more like wily foxes exploiting niches. But still, Kelletts manages an impressive feat: selling 400,000 spring units a year and keeping up to 190 people working in the heart of Oldcastle.
Do customers rate Irish beds? “Certainly, during the recession people became particularly interested in buying Irish,” says Marius Reilly of Lakeshore Homestore in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath. “I could assure them that the quality of Irish beds was superior. They are more robust with better-quality fillings and fabrics.” Other than the fact that mattresses are bulky, I’m not much clearer as to why bed manufacturing has survived the canker of foreign mass production. Perhaps it’s the sheer tenacity of a few family firms, or their just-in-time manufacturing production model. It’s certainly not due to investment in high-tech automation: while the springs are coiled and fabric quilted by machine, the rest of the mattress is hand-assembled in a manner not too dissimilar to how the O’Deas were working in 1893. What is clear is that, for the moment at least, we can rest assured on an Irish mattress. > Kingsdown Mattress Reviews Kingsdown Innerspring Mattress Review, Ratings and Comparison
Based on 154 Actual Consumer Experiences THE GOOD: A diagnostic system is available online and at select retailers that creates a personal profile to help you select a proper mattress. Several Kingsdown models have advanced features, high coil count, and luxurious, conforming materials. THE BAD: At least 20% of owners report sagging and or the development of body impressions occurring within three years of ownership (a rate similar to that of innerspring beds in general). Some models are pricey and heavy. Customer service is no better than fair. THE COMPETITION: Kingsdown's main competitors are Sealy, Stearns & Foster, Simmons and Serta. See how Kingsdown compares to these and others in the innerspring mattress reviews – summary and the mattress THE COMPANY: Like most of its main competition, Kingsdown (headquartered in Mebane, North Carolina) was founded over a century ago. In addition to innerspring mattresses (Passions, Tradition, Haute Couture, Sleep To Live, Diamond Royale), the company sells foam-based mattresses (Sleep Haven, Miro).
) and Sit n' Sleep. In several markets, Kingsdown mattresses may be difficult to locate. The ratings – based on owner experience data collected using an unbiased, accurate methodology – show how Kingsdown beds overall compare to the average mattress. Kingsdown innerspring mattresses have 64% owner satisfaction overall. Kingsdown's below-average satisfaction is due mostly to the fact that 20%+ of owners report sagging / body impressions occurring within the first 3 years – a rate similar to that of innerspring beds overall. Thick pillow-top models tend to be most troublesome. Two-sided Kingsdown models, however, likely have at least average durability / longevity. $400-$4000+ depending on size and model not including a foundation. The average Kingsdown queen costs around $2000. When the mattress is new, consumers generally report that their Kingsdown has strong comfort and pain-relief potential. But within the first three years, at least 15% of owners report pain, including back pain, due to sagging / loss of support.
(See mattresses and pain.) Most models have an average to above average coil count which tends to be helpful for support. Support for sleeping or sitting near the far edge of the mattress appears to be at least average for most models. at least two inches of memory foam and or latex tend to rate above average on this issue. Consumers tend to report the availability of firm and soft models, but limited middle firmness model options. Models with individually wrapped coils offer above average effectiveness in isolating a person's movement so that another person is not disturbed. Models with open coils do not perform as well. About 6% of owners report off gassing which is a chemical-like odor a mattress can give off when it is new often due mainly to its foam content. (See mattress off gassing for general analysis.) About 5% of owners report that their bed sleeps hot enough to be uncomfortable. Soft models with at least two inches of memory foam likely have the greatest potential to sleep hot.
(See mattress heat retention for general analysis.) Most owners of innerspring mattresses give their bed a positive evaluation on this issue. (See mattresses and sex for analysis). The mattresses can make noise under certain conditions, but the problem is not common. Some models have a two-sided design which can be flipped and rotated to extend mattress life. But most Kingsdown models have a no-flip design requiring only rotation 1-3 times per year. Easy to lift, handle, move Models over 12-inches thick especially can be heavy and therefore difficult to move, handle and maneuver. The ratings below – based on consumer experiences and the evaluation of Sleep Like The Dead – show how Kingsdown compares to the average mattress manufacturer. Depending on the model, Kingsdown beds come with a 10-20 year warranty. For a company of its size, Kingsdown has a fairly high number of Better Business Bureau complaints regarding warranty issues. The company appears to perform about average in regard to customer service and similar to its main competitors.
Materials and in some cases layer thickness are provided but details such as foam density are often not. Marketing claims are essentially factual but can contain hyperbole. The company started in 1904. Kingsdown has a stable "A+" rating with the Better Business Bureau. (Learn more about BBB ratings and what they mean.) Number of BBB complaints 51 complaints have been filed against the company in the past 3 years, almost all of which are warranty related. This number is somewhat above average for a mattress company of Kingsdown's size. SLTD (Sleep Like The Dead) company rating of "B-" for Kingsdown is determined by averaging the above company ratings. Kingsdown innerspring mattresses overall have 64% owner satisfaction. This rate is about average compared to all innerspring mattresses (63%) and below the average of all mattresses (72%). About our unbiased Kingsdown mattress review and research Ratings are based on 150+ consumer reviews of various current or similar discontinued Kingsdown innerspring models.