1. William Dargan MRDS was arguably the most important Irish engineer of the 19th century and certainly the most important figure in railway construction.
18 Facts About William Dargan
1. 2.
William Dargan was a member of the Royal Dublin Society and helped establish the National Gallery of Ireland.
3.
William Dargan was responsible for the Great Dublin Exhibition held at Leinster lawn in 1853.
4.
William Dargan's achievements were honoured in 1995, when the Dargan Railway Bridge in Belfast was opened, and again in 2004 when the Dargan Bridge, Dublin a new cable stayed bridge for Dublin's Light Railway Luas were both named after him.
5.
William Dargan was the eldest in a large family of tenant farmers on the Earl of Portarlington's estate.
6.
William Dargan's father, possibly called William, was a tenant farmer, and there is nothing known about his mother.
7.
William Dargan subsequently worked on his father's 101-acre farm before securing a position in a surveyor's office in Carlow.
8.
In 1824 Telford asked William Dargan to begin work on Howth Road, from Raheny to Sutton in Dublin.
9.
Around the same time William Dargan contributed roads in Dublin and in counties Carlow and Louth as a surveyor.
10.
William Dargan served as assistant manager for about three years on the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal and the Middlewich Branch, two canals in the English midlands.
11.
When William Dargan came back to Ireland, he was occupied by minor construction projects, including rebuilding the main street of Banbridge and the 13 kilometers long Kilbeggan branch of the Grand Canal.
12.
William Dargan next constructed the water communication between Lough Erne and Belfast, afterwards known as the Ulster Canal, a signal triumph of engineering and constructive ability.
13.
William Dargan paid the highest wages with the greatest punctuality, and his credit was unbounded.
14.
William Dargan was offered a knighthood by the British Viceroy in Ireland, but declined.
15.
William Dargan offered him a baronetcy, but he declined this.
16.
William Dargan became a manufacturer, and set some mills working in Chapelizod, near Dublin, but that business did not prosper.
17.
In 1860, continuing his branching out into different business ventures, William Dargan brought the International Hotel in Bray from John Quin.
18.
William Dargan died at 2 Fitzwilliam Square East, Dublin, on 7 February 1867, and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery.