William Dargan <small>MRDS</small> (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.