William Dargan

William Dargan MRDS (28 February 1799 – 7 February 1867) was arguably the most important Irish engineer of the 19th century and certainly the most important figure in railway construction. Dargan designed and built Ireland's first railway line from Dublin to Dún Laoghaire in 1833. In total he constructed over 1,300 km (800 miles) of railway to important urban centres of Ireland. He was a member of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and also helped establish the National Gallery of Ireland. He was also responsible for the Great Dublin Exhibition held at Leinster Lawn in 1853. He also designed and oversaw the excavation of reclaimed land in Belfast known as Queen's Island, previously known as Dargan's Island. His achievements were honoured in 1995, when the Dargan Railway Bridge in Belfast was opened, and again in 2004 when the Dargan Bridge in Dublin, a new cable stayed bridge for the Luas light railway, were both named after him.

Biography

Dargan was born on 28 February 1799, The young Dargan earned the relatively large sum of £300 for his work on this road and this provided the capital for future public works investments.

In the late 1830s, Dargan was approached by the Belfast Ballast Board to address a maritime issues. Shipping navigation into Belfast was severely hindered because the mouth of the River Lagan consisted of shifting tidal mudflats, preventing large vessels from reaching the docks.

Between 1841 and 1846, Dargan executed a grand engineering scheme to rectify the river's winding route. He designed and oversaw the excavation of a massive, straight deep-water channel directly through the mudflats. Initially named the Dargan Channel in his honor, it was later renamed the Victoria Channel following the royal visit of 1849. The vast amounts of soil, clay, and silt excavated from the riverbed during the cutting of the channel were systematically deposited on the eastern side of the new trench. This massive land reclamation effort created a new, artificial landmass that was initially named Dargan's Island. The channel and Island were renamed after Queen Victoria's 1849 royal visit. Dargan Road, Dargan Drive, Dargan Crescent and Dargan House are named after him.

Although Queen's Island was briefly used by the citizens of Belfast as a public pleasure park, its strategic location next to the deep-water channel turned it into a prime territory for heavy industrial use, noted for a multitude of important docks, and companies such as Harland & Wolff and John Kelly Limited.

Other great works followed – the Dublin and Drogheda Railway, the Great Southern and Western Railway and the Midland Great Western Railway. By 1853 he had constructed over six hundred miles of railway, and he had then contracts for two hundred more. He paid the highest wages with the greatest punctuality, and his credit was unbounded. At one time he was the largest railway projector in Ireland and one of its greatest capitalists.

Dargan had a strong sense of patriotism to Ireland. He was offered a knighthood by the British Viceroy in Ireland, but declined. Following this, Queen Victoria visited Dargan at his residence, Dargan Villa, Mount Annville on 29 August 1853. She offered him a baronetcy, but he declined this also. Wishing to encourage the growth of flax, he then took a tract of land whose culture he devoted himself to, but owing to some mismanagement the enterprise entailed a heavy loss. He also became a manufacturer, and set some mills working in Chapelizod, near Dublin, but that business did not prosper.

In 1860, continuing his branching out into different business ventures, Dargan brought the International Hotel in Bray from John Quin. Another hotel named Hayes Royal Hotel in Kingstown was also subsequently bought in 1863 by Dargan with elaborate plans for extension. After attending the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, William Dargan proposed to the society with an extended exhibition, with an offer of £20,000 of funding.

As the committee of the 1853 Exhibition believed that this event would be self-financing, mainly relying on Dargan's contribution of £20,000, it was announced that there would be no cash donations taken. After the building costs had risen by the autumn of 1852, the committee was forced to make a public subscription, but Dargan offered another £6,000 as patronage. It eventually reached to the point that Dargan personally funded this exhibition with a considerable amount of £88,000. Dublin Exhibition received many visitors. Although there were only 400 people on the first two days, this number rose to 4,000 a week later, and to 5,000 on the following day. The British royal party arrived at Dun Laoghaire on 29 August 1853 at the purpose to attend the exhibition, and Queen Victoria personally met William Dargan.

Prince Albert commented both on Dargan and the Dublin Exhibition, "Mr Dargan is the man of the people. He is a simple, unobtrusive, retiring man, a thorough Irishman, not always quite sober of an evening, industrious, kind to his workmen, but the only man who has by his own determination & courage put a stop to every strike or combination of workmen, of which the Irish are so fond. All he has done has been done on the field of Industry & not of politics or Religion, without the Priest or factious conspiracy, without the promise of distant extraordinary advantages but with immediate apparent benefit. The Exhibition, which must be pronounced to be very successful, has done wonders in this respect. A private undertaking, unaided by Govt, or any Commission with Royal Authority, made and erected at the sole expense of a single Individual, & this an Irish Road contractor, not long ago a common labourer himself, who had raised himself solely by his own industry & energy, - it deserves the greatest credit & is looked upon by the Irish with infinite self-satisfaction as an emblem of national hope".

William Dargan ultimately lost £20,000 on the venture. At the close of the exhibition, the Irish National Gallery was built on Leinster Lawn, as a monument to Dargan, with a fine bronze statue of him in front of it, looking out upon Merrion Square.

Works MacNeill's Egyptian Arch Ulster Canal The Cut, Banbridge Kilnap Viaduct Cork railway tunnel