Engineer. Frederick Barry, a younger son of Robert Barry, Chief Commissioner of Military Accounts in Ireland, was born in Dublin on 15 April 1821 and educated at Clifton, Bristol, and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1841 he was articled to Tierney Clark, who was an expert in the construction of suspension bridges. In 1842 he went to Budapest with Clark to work on the completion of the Langhid suspension bridge over the Danube. While he was in Hungary, Barry was also employed on the Danube and Theiss Canal. After completing his pupilage he returned to Britain and worked for a year as resident engineer on the Blackburn and Bolton Railway. From 1847 until 1855 he was employed by the Board of Works in Ireland, first on a proposed scheme for the drainage of the River Suck, then on drainage schemes in Co. Mayo.
In 1855 Barry set up in independent practice, and was subsequently chiefly engaged in railway work. During the 1860s and 1870s he collaborated with JOHN FOWLER JOHN FOWLER on the construction of the Great Northern & Western Railway and was sole engineer of the Castlebar and Ballina parts of the system. In 1863 he prepared the first scheme for a Dublin junction railway, and in 1872 his design for a huge central railway station in Dublin was under consideration by a committee of the House of Commons. He was engineer to the Navan & Kingscourt Railway from 1872 to 1875. His last undertaking was the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway. Between 1877 and 1880 he was in partnership with Col. A.L. Tottenham, one of the principal landowners along the forty-mile line, and he carried out a large portion of the works both as engineer and contractor, including the bridge over Lough Erne, to the south of Enniskillen. Shortly afterwards his health failed. He was unable to work for more than two years before his death, which took place on 3 June 1885.
Inst. CE: elected associate, 6 April 1852; transferred to class of member, 28 April 1857.
See WORKS and BIBLIOGRAPHY. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the obituary of Barry in Min.Proc.Inst.CE 83 (1885-6), 430-432.
Drawing of proposed bridge across Westmoreland St in IAA, Acc. 2001/156; DB 5, 1 Oct 1863, 159. See also F. O'Dwyer, Lost Dublin (1981), 139(illus.).
B 30, 3 Aug 1872, 602.
Jones transcripts from Thom's directories.
The phrase used in the obituary is 'allied himself with Col. A.L. Tottenham'.
5 work entries listed in chronological order for BARRY, FREDERICK
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| Building: |
CO. MAYO, WESTPORT, QUAY, RAILWAY STATION |
| Date: |
1866/73 |
| Nature: |
For Great Northern & Western Railway Co.. With Edward Fowler. Builder: John W. Kelly. Estimated cost, £787. |
| Refs: |
IAA, PKS B03/31, B06/17, A03 (Jan 1866, p.103v), A06 (Jun 1873), L1 (p.915,930-32,935).
|
| Building: |
CO. MAYO, BALLINA, RAILWAY STATION |
| Date: |
1872 |
| Nature: |
For Great Northern & Western Railway. Estimated cost £4,453. (Station opened 1873.) |
| Refs: |
IAA, PKS B05/53, A06 (Dec 1872)
|
| Author |
Title |
Date |
Details |
| Barry, F., & Fitzgerald, M. |
Report...on the drainage of the flooded lands and the improvement of the navigation and mill-power in the district of Suck, counties of Galway and Roscommon
|
1849 |
Dublin, 1849.
|
| Barry, Frederick |
'On the discharge of Rivers in the County of Mayo, principally during 1850 and 1851' |
1851 |
TICEI 4 (1851) Pt 2, 44. |
