WATCH: Local entrepreneur behind ‘first ever’ drone food delivery to a céilí

THE WORLD’S ‘first’ drone delivery to a céilí took place last night when a drone delivered an Indian takeaway as those gathered played away.

The company behind the drone delivery is Manna, owned by entrepreneur Bobby Healy, whose mother Doris owns The Sisters shop in Tallaght Village.

Founded in 2018, Manna has developed aviation-grade drones that deliver everything from takeaways, groceries, coffees and ice creams using a speed of 80kph, delivering within a 2km radius in three minutes.

The drone delivery on Friday night was the first of its kind, as it delivered to a family céilí in the back garden of a house in Oranmore, County Galway, where Manna currently operates.

Bobby, who lives in Rathfarnham, told The Echo: “This family use the service all of the time and they were having a few drinks and contacted us and asked ‘have you ever delivered to a céilí’?

“You can see in the video they are all playing away, and the drone is arriving with the takeaway and it’s as mad as you could possibly expect.”

The drone delivered food from a local Indian restaurant in the town and was met with cheers as it landed in the back garden as its customers enjoyed the night.

“We are the only company in Europe doing drone deliveries so I’d say it would be safe enough to claim that it was the first ever drone delivery to a céilí”, Bobby said.

Speaking about the increasing popularity of drone deliveries, Bobby said that in Oranmore, over one third of people use Manna’s service regularly and the drones are doing between 60 and 100 deliveries a day.

“It’s huge – they are using it for coffee, which is very popular, the pharmacy, supermarkets and then all of the local restaurants use it here”, Bobby said.

“It’s all app based you just put in your order drop a pin and the drone arrives at where the pin is.”

Manna was recently granted licences to take the business across the European Union, and Bobby says that there are big plans in the pipeline to bring the company to Dublin.

“We are live now in Galway and we will be moving to Balbriggan next”, he said.

“Once we are happy with Balbriggan, I think the readers of The Echo can expect us to be coming to a town near them quite soon next year.”