“You grow up with mechanics and you want to be mechanically minded anyway,” he says. “We’ve spent our lives building and breaking things. You were brought up around welders and your own shed and had the mindset of ‘if you break it, you fix it’.”

In the winter of 2018, Michael and Séamus began restoration work on the first of three projects to date — their 1961 Massey Ferguson 35.

“We had the 35 for years,” Michael says. “My father bought it in 1978. It would never be sold. Because we live beside the Atlantic Ocean, you either leave it there with rust falling off it or you do it up.

“So we got a notion and spent six months between the two of us at weekends and any evening we could get and stripped it down to the bare minimum.

“There was a curiosity to see how something built in 1961 actually worked and knowing the absolute ins and outs of the likes of a 35 because before that tractor came to this road, it was all horse and plough and rakes. It changed the world.”

Michael says he and Séamus have complementary skills, but the projects take a long time.

“The 35 took six months: two days of the weekend, eight hours a day per person. Going only on weekends, across six months that’s 830 hours for one project and two people,” Michael says.

“That includes an awful lot of research and around 100 hours searching for parts online. Two people, over 800 hours for a six-month project. People don’t see it — mind-blowing time goes into it.

“Séamus is a trained aircraft mechanic — he’d be very mechanically minded. All the spraying and all panel work is left to him.

“With big jobs, you don’t do the same thing as someone else. I did all the mechanics and wiring.”

Considering the scale of deconstruction and reconstruction and the number of parts involved, Michael always photographs parts as they are removed.

“I’d say between the three tractors I have over 2,000 photos. Half the reason for that is for putting them back together. You will be going to put stuff back on and usually you don’t do that until three or four months after you take it off — you won’t remember where it goes.

“With the 290 [Massey, from 1987], I spent 20 hours the first weekend taking apart the engine. Everything comes off. Hours and hours filling an entire bench full of bolts, washers and springs.

“That was going to be a short job; do the engine and see after that. I finished it six months later with all new parts and €8,700 gone into it.”

The restoration on the 290 was helped in no small part by their knowledgeable neighbour, Tony.

“The 290 was split four times,” Michael says. “The whole engine was redone, the whole clutch in the middle too. Every single thing was done on it.

“I got a neighbour, Tony Shannon, in — he’d be the local encyclopaedia when it comes to Massey Ferguson.

“Even if you’ve all the books and YouTube in the world, unless you’ve someone with you that’s done it before, you’re done for. There’s too much. If someone’s seen something 100 times, they just know it.

“If you don’t do everything you need to when the tractor is split, it’ll cost you a couple of days.

“We know a lot about it now, but without someone who has seen and done it all… I once took the tractor apart only because a pipe burst.

“Then when you split it… change the clutch, when you do that, you’ve to change the release bearing, then change all springs and bolts that came with it.

“That cost over €1,000, but when someone has seen a thousand clutches, they’ll say ‘change it now or change it in six months’.

“I rewired it from scratch. I had wires and a crimping tool. I took three to four nights to draw it out on an A3 sheet until I got it right.

“I probably spent more time cable-tying wires than wiring because you actually spend so much time figuring where to put wires so that they’re tidy. There’s 130-140 metres of wires in the 290 — you spend so much time hiding them.”

Finding the right parts can be a tough task.

“You’d find parts in the UK and they’d be massively overpriced,” Michael says. “I found some parts up North; massively overpriced, but you’ve no choice because they don’t make them any more.

“We’ve also had to remake some stuff ourselves, particularly for the 290. A lot of the frame, a lot of the panels, certain bars for linkages can’t be got and have to be made.

“A lot of new parts are of extremely poor quality. For the 290, Séamus made the wings from scratch. He bought sheets of galvanise and made the wings ad hoc each one by one.

“The same goes for the doors — they’re from scratch completely and fitted to the tractor and then galvanised.”

The three Masseys restored to date — the 35, a 1963 35X and the 290 — have varied levels of usage, Michael says.

“The 290 is a full workhorse — she’s been drawing the trailer for three weeks and I put in 160 bales with her the other day. She’ll be driven till she drops.

“I’d like to upgrade, but even if I do, I’ll never trade because there’s an awful sentimental value to something you work at yourself for six months.

“The small 35 is a bit of both: she will get a bit of work as I don’t believe in parking it in and doing nothing with it either.

“The most I’ll ever do is a small bit of rolling and I’ll put a hayshaker on it now and again, but she’ll mainly be kept neat and tidy as a showpiece.”

Between restoring the 35 in the winter of 2018 and the 290 a year later, the brothers worked on the 35X for their neighbours PJ and Tony Killeen. Like their own 35, it takes on a small bit of work, but there’s no arduous tasks for the one that fled the nest.

“That’s half and half too. It’s used for slight jobs, but minded and polished as well,” Michael says.

“It’s funny, it’s like having a child. When you call over to them, if anything is dirty or missing, you’d kind of be looking at them or giving out telling them to mind it.

“It’s a natural thing — you just look at every single inch of it.”