DARGAN

William ( son of Mr. Dargan of co. Carlow, farmer ). b. co. Carlow 28 Feb. 1799; employed by Thomas Telford in constructing Holy head road 1820; contractor of the first railway in Ireland, from Dublin to Kings town 1831, of the Ulster canal, of the Dublin and Drogheda railway, of the Great southern and western, and the Midland Great western; found the capital nearly £100,000 for the Irish exhibition 1853 and bore the deficit of £20,000; declined a baronetcy offered him at close of exhibition; the Irish national gallery on Leinster Lawn was erected as a monument to Dargan with a fine bronze statue of him. d. 2 Fitzwilliam sq. east, Dublin 7 Feb. 1867. The Irish industrial exhibition of 1853 by J. Sproule (1854) ix-xiv , portrait ; Irish tourist’s illustrated handbook (1853) pp. 12, 41, 148, portrait .