How Martin Hurls Started

When people see Martin Hurls now, they see a workshop, a website, a growing brand and a business that has been built up over a long number of years. What they do not always see is how it all started.

Martin Hurls started when I was 15 years old. At that stage, I was repairing broken hurls for local players and teams around Randalstown. That was the start of it really. I would fix hurls, put them on eBay for £5, £6 or £7, and slowly started getting a few sales. At school, lads started buying hurls off me too, and one of the early names I remember was James McNaughton, who went on to play for Antrim. At the time, those small moments meant a lot. I got a great buzz from it and started to think maybe there was something in this.

A lot of my early memories are tied to the summer holidays. I would take a break around exam time when I was 16 and try to focus on the books, but once summer came, I was flat out again making and repairing hurls for local players and clubs. There was always a great thrill in people calling to the workshop. Even back then, that side of it meant a lot to me. It made the whole thing feel real.

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I was lucky from the start because I had support around me. My mother and father backed me fully and gave me anything that was needed to try and make the business a success. My schoolmates supported me, local players bought hurls, and my teachers helped me along the way too. Mrs Burns from St Louis was especially good to me and gave me a lot of advice and encouragement. That support mattered because when you are starting young, your confidence can go up and down quickly.

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I also learned early that there is no shortcut when it comes to quality. Some of the first hurls I made were not up to the standard they should have been. That is one of the downsides of starting a business at a young age. You are still learning, still improving and still trying to figure things out. Looking back, I can admit that honestly. But over the last 12 to 15 years, I have improved year on year, got better advice, got support and training, and kept pushing to make the best quality hurls I possibly can.

There were a few big turning points along the way. I left St Louis after fifth year and went to the local NRC to study Business Studies. That gave me more flexibility and more time to work on the business. As the years went on, my marketing and advertising improved, and so did the awareness around the Martin Hurls name. We got a large order from the Ulster Council in 2015, which was a big lift. In 2017, we exported to Australia and America, and I spent five weeks in America going city by city to help launch the business there. In 2018, we went back again for the CYC tournament in Boston and had great success there too.

At the same time, Christmases were getting busier, the website became properly ready for online sales, and by the time I was 24, I knew the business could stand on its own two feet. That was the stage where it stopped feeling like just a side passion and started feeling like this could be my full-time job and my future.

Of course, it has never all been plain sailing. One of the hardest parts of the business has always been sourcing good quality ash. That is still a challenge today. There are still good suppliers out there, but the price of wood has risen sharply, and the cost of living has gone up too. That puts pressure on everything. It makes it harder to provide a really good quality hurl at a fair price, while still keeping enough margin in the business to survive. We have had to adapt all the time by bringing in new products, different price levels and side ranges that help keep the business strong right through the year.

In 2021, I took the step of going full-time and setting Martin Hurls up as a limited company. It was exciting, but it was daunting as well. I knew I was being thrown in at the deep end and had to make it work. At the same time, I had already been making hurls for nine years, so I knew I had a good background behind me. At that stage, it was all about scaling up, making more hurls, bringing in more products, getting more sales, and most importantly getting and keeping customers.

Looking back now, Martin Hurls did not start with a big plan, a big budget or some polished setup. It started with repairing broken hurls, making the most of summer holidays, learning as I went, and trying to get a bit better every year.

That is still what the business is built on today — hard work, local support, honesty, and a real passion for making hurls properly.

And in many ways, that is the part of the story I am proudest of.

Written by Emmet Martin, founder of Martin Hurls