Think of watches, and Switzerland - certainly not Ireland - comes to mind. But not all watchmaking happens in the valleys of the Swiss Jura. The green fields of the Irish Midlands are home to John and Stephen McGonigle, the brothers who are putting Celtic haute horlogerie on the map.

To track them down, though, I had to go to Switzerland. In the throng of the watch industry gathered at the annual BaselWorld watch fair, there would be no mistaking the McGonigles for Swiss with their gentle manner, lilting accents and ability to make the most technical watchmaking explanations sound like a chat over a Guinness. Though they are foreigners in the land of watchmaking, their credentials are impeccable, even by rigorous Helvetian standards.

Tucked away in a corner of the fair is where fledgeling independent watch brands have their booths. The Irish brothers have a display window and use of a small room with a Formica table and three wobbly stools. Coffee comes in plastic cups. Since they began their business they have completed just five watches, but each one is made with mind-bending attention to detail and decoration. In John’s hands is the fourth McGonigle original, representing two years’ work and with a price similar to that of a luxury car.

The platinum watch they are showing me is the bee’s knees in terms of technical achievement. The initial appeal of the elegant timepiece is evident, but look closely and a cutaway dial reveals a whirring tourbillon, one of the greatest feats of watchmaking. Invented in 1801 by Abraham-Louis Breguet, the Michelangelo of watchmaking, a tourbillon compensates for the effects of gravity on the pulsating heart of the watch. The ticking escapement is placed inside a rotating cage that turns a full circle every minute, offering an anachronistic delight of mechanical poetry. John turns over the watch and on the back in Celtic-style script is engraved “Made in Ireland”. He and Stephen can’t resist smiling.

Since 2004 they have lived out the watchmaker’s dream: making their own timepieces in their own particular way. They have sold three so far. John says: “When we set about making our first watches, our priority was to come up with something beautiful, rather than Irish. We want subtle clues that would say ‘we are not Swiss’, but we absolutely do not want Riverdance on the wrist.”

He continues: “A tourbillon is not a very complicated device. What is more difficult is to make a very light tourbillon finished to a high standard.” By this he means polishing, bevelling and even decorating the 70 or so miniature components of the tourbillon. In fact there is not a surface in the entire watch, with more than 200 components, that is not treated, be it grained, bevelled or polished. This is a feat that only a few dozen watchmakers are capable of achieving to such a degree of perfection. Screws and cogs tucked away inside the movement are decorated even if they are not seen.

Despite their modesty the McGonigle brothers are the crème de la crème of watchmakers, courted by the most prestigious Swiss watch houses. Both studied watchmaking in Dublin’s now defunct Institute of Horology. Their father thought that micromechanics could lead to work as an aviation instrument technician for Aer Lingus. “But I was more fascinated with watches than he had planned,” says John, who has since made prototypes for Audemars Piguet and Christophe Claret.

Stephen has worked with Breguet and Franck Muller as well as Christophe Claret, but was not as keen as his brother on a life at the workbench. “At first I was against it as when I was younger I used to help my dad who loved repairing clocks, and they were big, dirty things. But when I saw John working on a small, clean watch, I changed my mind.”

Today the brothers are freelance and earn their money by making complicated mechanisms such as minute repeaters, automated miniature figures and sapphire bridge tourbillons for watch houses. John works from his studio near Athlone, while Stephen is based in Neuchâtel, 125 miles north of Geneva. But leaving their day jobs behind, they come together in Ireland to work on their McGonigle watches.

“We make it all ourselves, which is part of the attraction for the collector,” says Stephen. It was two American collectors who in 2004 got the brothers on the path to making their own watches when they commissioned a pair of tourbillons. “We thought it would be easy,” says Stephen. “But it is very different when you are putting your own name on the dial. One of us would not be satisfied with a detail and, to the collectors’ great credit, they gave us all the space in the world as we went through our growing pains.”

Never having created a complete watch from conception to final product, the brothers called in their sister Frances, an artist. Inspired by ancient Celtic Omagh rock carvings, she created a special font for the lettering and designed details such as the grip around the winding crown and the contemporary interlaced engraving on the back of the watch. The presentation box is made from 5,000-year-old Irish bog oak. “I am proud of my culture but not blindly patriotic,” says John. “But it is nice to be able to show to people something from our country, and, most importantly, the watch reflects the person who made it.” www.mcgonigle.ie