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Private company

Coillte

Logo: Coillte, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons3

Irish state forestry company

Coillte (Irish pronunciation:; meaning 'forests'/'woods') is a state-owned commercial forestry business in Ireland based in Newtownmountkennedy. Coillte manage approximately 7% of the country's land, and operates three businesses: their core forestry business, a 'land solutions' division and a wood panel manufacturing business called 'Medite Smartply'.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1988Founded1
  • Industryforestry and logging1
  • HeadquartersNewtownmountkennedy1
  • Websitewww.coillte.ie

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Coillte (Irish pronunciation: [ˈkəil̠ʲtʲə]; meaning 'forests'/'woods') is a state-owned commercial forestry business in Ireland based in Newtownmountkennedy. Coillte manage approximately 7% of the country's land, and operates three businesses: their core forestry business, a 'land solutions' division and a wood panel manufacturing business called 'Medite Smartply'.2

Products and brands

The company was incorporated in December 1988 and commenced trading in January 1989 when it took over the forestry activities previously carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Shares are held by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Minister for Finance on behalf of the Irish Government. During 2016, the organisation had an average of 862 employees. The Coillte estate is 4,450 square kilometres of which 79% is forest; it manages over 50% of forested land in the country.

In its 27 years of operation between 1989 and 2016, Coillte had:

Grown its forest and land estate from 396,000 hectares to over 440,000 hectares

Increased operating profits from a loss of €0.4 million to operating profits of €64.9 million (2016)

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Grown turnover from €38.0 million to €287.7 million (2016)

Increased log sales from 1.5 million cubic metres to 1.6 million cubic metres (2016)

According to the Coillte website, 20% of its estate is managed with biodiversity as the primary objective. Other entities have however questioned Coillte's commercially focused practices and the amount of land afforded to native species.

From Wikipedia’s article on Coillte, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1988Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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