William Dargan (1799-1867)

An Honourable Life

THIS IS THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH BIOGRAPHY OF THE GREAT RAILWAY ENGINEER WILLIAM DARGAN (1799-1867), WHO CHANGED THE FACE OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY IRELAND. The son of a County Carlow farmer, he began his career in Wales on the Holyhead Road, working under the famous Scottish engineer, Thomas Telford. He went on to build roads, railways, canals and reservoirs, developing hotels and the resort towns of Bray and Portrush, and laying out Belfast port. In addition, he ran flax and thread mills, reclaimed vast tracts of land in Derry and Wexford, operated canal boats and cross-channel steamers and constructed several canals and railways across England. In 1834 he built Ireland's first railway from Dublin to Dun Laoghaire. He alone funded and constructed the 1853 Art-Industry Exhibition on Dublin's Merrion Square as a boost to a country recovering slowly from the effects of the Great Famine five years earlier, during which he employed upwards of 50,000 men. The National Gallery, raised largely in tribute to him, has a Dargan Wing and his statue stands in its grounds. Despite these achievements William Dargan was a modest individual, declining a peerage, a seat in parliament and the baronetcy offered by Queen Victoria when she visited Mount Anville, his south Dublin mansion. His papers did not survive the death of his widow in London in 1894. This fascinating book, with over ninety illustrations and photographs, many previously unseen, draws upon a wide range of original archival material. It reveals a dynamic, engaging, bibulous figure, whose formidable abilities created the infrastructure for modern Ireland, where there is scarcely a town untouched by his genius. William Dargan's story is that of a true patriot and an honourable man.