AN IRfs-H CHANNEL RAILWAY 339 



AN IRISH CHANNEL RAILWAY 



Bv HENRY GRATTAN TYRRELL, C.E. 



CONSULTING ENGINEER, CHICAGO 



IRELAND does not seem to have ever enjoyed so great a degree of 

 favor and prosperity as other parts of Great Britain, notwith- 

 standing the continuous efforts which, for centuries, have been spent 

 in its behalf. This may be due to some extent to its isolated position 

 and the presence of the Irish Channel which unfortunately separates 

 it from England and Scotland. Money and lives have been freely given 

 to secure political union and better conditions, and enormous energy 

 lias been expended to improve the social and commercial standing of 

 Ireland and its inhabitants. 



In the light of modern industrial development, the question may 

 reasonably be asked : '' Are there not other and more modern and 

 rational ways of bettering Ireland, which, for centuries, has given and 

 is still giving to the world many of its greatest leaders ? " Viewing 

 the problem of social and commercial betterment from the standpoint 

 of the constructor or industrial engineer, it would seem that the policies 

 which have been so generally successful in building up and uniting 

 parts of other countries, should also meet with success here. Since the 

 days of the Roman Republic, the building of roads and the linking 

 together of separated states and provinces has proved to be most effi- 

 cacious, and almost essential to commercial greatness. Realizing the 

 need of road development, the Romans introduced their great policy of 

 highway extension as their best and surest means of developing and 

 uniting their great dominion. It is almost needless to say that the 

 same policy of building roads and other channels for commerce has, for 

 a century or more, been the most successful of all the means adopted 

 for opening up new territory in America, Africa, Australia, China and 

 other countries. The great railway systems of Canada and the United 

 States, the canals at Suez and Panama and the systems of roads and 

 inland canals in Great Britain itself, are evidences of profitable com- 

 mercial extension due to the opening up of highways of transportation. 



Considering the problem from the viewpoint of the engineer and 

 builder, rather than from that of the politician or statesman, it would 

 seem that a positive railway connection between Ireland and England 

 should be of great advantage. The western island, with its population 

 of five million people, still remains separated from England by a sea 



