County surveyor for Co. Kilkenny, 1923-1938. Richard Francis Bowen, third son of Patrick Bowen, of Ballyorban, Monkstown, Co. Cork, 'one of the leading and most extensive farmers in that great county', and a younger brother of JOHN KINGSTON BOWEN JOHN KINGSTON BOWEN , was born in Co. Cork on 29 September 1895. He was educated at the Christian Brothers' School, Cork, and University College, Cork, receiving the BE degree in 1918. After being 'engaged on various important engineering undertakings in England and Ireland', he was appointed county surveyor of Co. Kilkenny in August 1923. He was also borough surveyor for Kilkenny City from 1930 until 1933 or later. An extract from his report sumitted to Kilkenny County Council in 1933 after ten years as county surveyor was published in the Irish Builder. He was widely admired for his abilities, but was dogged by ill-health in the last few years of his life. He died on 15 May 1938, when he was aged only forty-two. He was buried in St Kieran's Cemetery, Kilkenny; according to the Kilkenny People, the funeral cortege was of 'impressive proportions and 'representative of the professions in the southern counties and of all classes in Kilkenny city and county'. In 1930 he married the only daughter of ALEXANDER MITCHELL BURDEN ALEXANDER MITCHELL BURDEN , his predecessor as county surveyor, and had at least one daughter and one son.
ICEI: elected member, 7 December 1931.
Addresses: Castle Hill, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford; Sheestown, Kilkenny, <=1934-until death.
See WORKS.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 104-5. A photograph of Bowen was published in the Kilkenny People, 21 May 1938.
Irish Times, 23 Aug 1923; IB 65, 25 Aug 1923, 653. At the time of his appointment he was resident in Enniscorthy.
IB 72, 5 Jul 1930, 599.
IB 75, 12 Aug 1933, 704.
IB 75, 18 Nov 1933, 970.
Irish Times, 25 Sep 1930.
TICEI 58 (1931-32), 42.
See note 1, above.
Lists of ICEI members in Thom's directories for 1934 and 1937.
