Friday 9 December 2016

Past Presidents of Engineers Ireland

PAST PRESIDENTS


The Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland
Presidents
1835    Sir John Fox Burgoyne
1845     John Radcliffe
1846     Lt Col Harry D Jones
1850     Sir Richard Griffith
1856     George W Hemans
1858     Michael Bernard Mullins
1861     Sir Richard Griffith
1863     Charles B Vignoles
1865     Robert Mallet
1867     William Anderson
1869     John Ball Greene
1871     Bindon Blood Stoney
1873     Charles P Cotton
1875     Alexander McDonnell
1877     Robert Manning
1879     John Bailey
1881     Parke Neville
1883     William Hemmingway Mills
1885     Sir John A F Aspinall
1887     Sir John Purser Griffith
1889     Spencer Harty
1891     Thomas F Pigot
1893     John Chaloner Smith
1895     James Price
1896     James Dillon
1898     Wesley W Wilson
1900     Edward Glover
1902     John H Ryan
1904     Robert Cochrane
1906     William Ross
1907     Joseph H Moore
1909     George Murray Ross
1911     Peter Chalmers Cowan
1913     William Collen
1915     Mark Ruddle
1917     Walter E Lilly
1918     John O Moynan
1919     Patrick H McCarthy
1920     Francis Bergin
1921     Joshua Hargrave
1922     Pierce F Purcell
1924     James T Jackson
1926     Arthur Hassard
1927     Alfred D Delap
1929     Michael J Buckley
1930     Joseph Mallagh
1931     Stephen G Gallagher
1932     Laurence J Kettle
1934     Nicholas O'Dwyer
1936     Frank S Rishworth
1938     Joseph Albert Ryan
1940     Henry N Walsh
1942     Thomas J Monaghan
1943     Thaddeus C Courtney
1944     Patrick Joseph Raftery
1945     Norman Albert Chance
1946     John Purser
1947     Joseph MacDonald
1948     Joseph Phelan Candy
1949     Michael A Hogan
1950     Thomas A McLaughlin
1951     William Ian Bloomer
1952     Patrick G Murphy
1953     Henry Nicholls
1954     Henry Nicholls
1955     Stephen W Farrington
1956     Cornelius John Buckley
1957     Edward Joseph Francis Bourke
1958     Jeremiah A O'Riordan
1959     Vernon Dunbavin Harty
1960     Jeremiah Gerard Coffey
1961     Thomas A Simington
1962     Thomas J O'Connor
1963     John Lane
1964     Thomas Kelly
1965     Richard E Cross
1966     Daniel Herlihy
1967     Patrick Raftery
1968     James C I Dooge

Cumann na nInnealtóirí (The Engineer's Association)
Presidents
1928-1936        Micheal O Buachalla
1937-1938        Felix E Hackett
1939-1940        Nicholas O'Dwyer
1941-1943        D Coffey
1944                 P Cormac
1945                 Stephen W Farrington
1946                 Thomas A McLaughlin
1947                 D W O'Neill
1948                 H N Walsh
1949                 T S Duggan
1950                 P G Murphy
1951                 N A Chance
1952                 G Lee
1953                 T C Courtney
1954                 M Maguire
1955                 T P Flanagan
1956                 R A Jackson
1956-1957        C Warren
1957-1958        W H Prendergast
1957-1958        P J Byrne
1959-1960        Thomas Simington
1960-1961        T Kelly
1961-1962        P Byrne
1962-1963        A J Litton
1963-1964        John B Barry
1964-1965        S Merry
1965-1966        J H Harbison
1966-1967        J P O'Donnell
1967-1968        C P Blair
1968-1969        J Silke

In 1969 The Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland and Cumann na nInnealtóirí amalgamated to form The Institution of Engineers of Ireland

1969-1971        James C I Dooge, Chartered Engineer
1969-1971        John H Harbison, Chartered Engineer
1971-1972        Michael A Lynn, Chartered Engineer
1972-1973        Robert C Cuffe, Chartered Engineer
1973-1974        Hugh A Delap, Chartered Engineer
1974-1975        Finbar Callanan, Chartered Engineer
1975-1976        John D Barry, Chartered Engineer
1976-1977        John Donovan, Chartered Engineer
1977-1978        William Wright, Chartered Engineer
1978-1979        Lucas Collins, Chartered Engineer
1979-1980        Morgan Sheehy, Chartered Engineer
1980-1981        Liam O'Brien, Chartered Engineer
1981-1982        Peter O’Keeffe, Chartered Engineer
1982-1983        Eoin O’Cionna, Chartered Engineer
1983-1984        Patrick J Lynch, Chartered Engineer
1984-1985        Oliver Feighan, Chartered Engineer
1985-1986        Robert N Hayes, Chartered Engineer
1986-1987        John F Lang, Chartered Engineer
1987-1988        Michael O'Donnell, Chartered Engineer
1988-1989        Pierce T Piggot, Chartered Engineer
1989-1990        Brian N Sweeney, Chartered Engineer
1990-1991        John E Wallace, Chartered Engineer
1991-1992        Michael J Higgins, Chartered Engineer
1992-1993        Richard P Grainger, Chartered Engineer
1993-1994        William A Fitzgerald, Chartered Engineer
1994-1995        Patrick O Jennings, Chartered Engineer
1995-1996        John J Killeen, Chartered Engineer
1996-1997        Phil Callery, Chartered Engineer
1997-1998        Gordon S Millington, Chartered Engineer
1998-1999        John A Kavanagh, Chartered Engineer
1999-2000        Prof Jane B Grimson, Chartered Engineer
2000-2001              Prof Gerald Byrne, Chartered Engineer
2001-2002              Liam Connellan, Chartered Engineer
2002-2003              Brian Kearney, Chartered Engineer
2003-2004              Peter Langford, Chartered Engineer
2004-2005              Paddy Caffrey, Chartered Engineer
2005-2006              Anne Butler, Chartered Engineer
2006-2007        John McGowan, Chartered Engineer4
2007-2008        Jack Golden, Chartered Engineer
2008-2009        Jim Browne, Chartered Engineer
2009-2010        Chris Horn, Chartered Engineer
2010-2011        Martin Lowery, Chartered Engineer
2011-2012        PJ Rudden, Chartered Engineer
2012-2013        Michael Phillips, Chartered Engineer
2013-2014        John O’Dea, Chartered Engineer
2014-2015        Regina Moran, Chartered Engineer
2015-2016        Bill Grimson, Chartered Engineer
2016-2017        Dermot Byrne, Chartered Engineer
2017-2018        Kieran Feighan, Chartered Engineer
2018-2019        Peter Quinn, Chartered Engineer

Friday 25 May 2012

Annual General Meeting and Goodbye

This is my last blog following the 2012 Engineers Ireland AGM. Last night I was pleased and indeed proud to pass the President's chain of office to Michael Phillips Dublin City Engineer as our new President.

It's been a great year to be part of Engineers Ireland and to work with the great people there - John Director General and Directors Fionnuala, Margie, Aiden, John and John and their lovely staff who do us proud on a daily basis.

I wish Michael every success during the coming year supported by Vice Presidents Dr John O'Dea CEO Crospon and Regina Moran CEO Fujitsu. In his Inaugural Address last night he set the tone for a year of positive engagement with the members at home and especially abroad who may come home someday. He also exemplified the spirit of public service towards society that he and others in the local authority and public sector strive to deliver to us all on a 24/7 basis.

To all the readers and followers of this blog a heartfelt thank you for coming on this special 'journey of discovery' with me during the past 12 months.

Goodbye and may your God go with you!

To read the full blog in pdf format click here: A Year the Life by PJ Rudden (President of Engineers Ireland 2011-2012).pdf

Thursday 24 May 2012

Exploring the Burren in North Clare

I spent a few days holidays hiking around the Burren just prior to the Engineers Ireland AGM on May 24th. I had never been there before and found it a terrific natural heritage resource with huge tourism potential.

PJ Rudden outside Aillwee Cave entrance

This resource is also managed sensitively by the public bodies and all of the stakeholders involved. This is because they understand its heritage value and the degree to which a sustainable tourism product can co-exist to suit local people and the unique heritage in their midst.


PJ Rudden at Poulnabrone Dolmen
on Burren Landscape

The Aillwee Caves are the result of water erosion of weak limestone rock and is now one of the main tourist resorts as is also the Poulnabrone Dolmen both of which were attracting busloads of foreign tourists even in the month of May. In fact Aillwee Caves was only discovered in the 1940s by a local farmer who lost his dog into a hole in the ground chasing a rabbit. The farmer went looking for his dog through the opening in the ground and some hours later managed to find not only the dog but the natural heritage feature which is now known as the Aillwee Caves. This story was told by Lorraine Shannon one of the local guides who is an archaeologist.

Lorraine Shannon local archaeologist and guide
and PJ Rudden in Aillwee Caves

Both the cave and the dolmen are beautifully illustrated on signs together with many hundreds of other interesting features. There is little doubt that the Burren in North Clare will probably become Ireland’s 3rd World Heritage Site after Skellig Michael and Brú na Bóinne.

Flora at the Burren

The limestone landscape is interspersed with a wide range of flora which are in abundance at this time of year. All in all a lovely way to spend my last few days as President.

Annual Conferring of Titles

Over the past few weeks I had a busy round of Conferrings of Titles around the Regions and finally in the Helix DCU last Friday. These Conferrings were to the Titles of Fellow, Chartered Engineer, Associate Engineer and Technician Engineer. Travelling with me in each case was Shirley McDonald our Membership Growth Manager who organised the events together with the local Region Chairmen.

PJ Rudden President Engineers Ireland, Shirley McDonald Membership Growth Manager
and Professor Padraic O'Donoghue Chairman of the West Region

In March I had the first Conferring of Titles in the North West Region in Sligo. Then in April we had the same ceremony in the Cork Region. In May, we commenced in Limerick with the Thomond Region on May 1st followed by the West Region in Galway on May 9th and the Midland Region on May 14th. The National Conferring for the East coast and other regions were then held in the Helix DCU in Dublin on May 18th. I was delighted to see the family event that these conferrings have become where increasingly partners and children attend.

The National event included the annual award of Fellowships by Presidential Invitation. These were awarded for outstanding achievement in building national infrastructure, research leading to job creation, balanced regional development in addition to long service to Engineers Ireland. The seven recipients this year were Gerry Campbell of Shell, Andrew Cooke of EirGrid, Orla Feely of UCD, David Kirwan of Bord Gáis, Michael Loftus of CIT, Liam Madden of Xilinx and John Quinn of the North East Region.

President presents Fellowship of Engineers Ireland to Gerry Campbell
Project Director of Shell E&P Ireland Ltd

President presents Fellowship of Engineers Ireland to David Kirwan
Managing Director of Bord Gáis Energy

The event in each region also coincided with the AGM where the new Chairman and Committee for each Region were elected. I therefore witnessed the 'changing of the guard' in each region. In the Thomond Region the Chairmanship passed from Kieran Horgan (Consultant Engineer ex ESB) to Peter Tiernan (UL), in the West Region from Padraic O'Donoghue (NUIG) to Christy O'Sullivan (RPS) and in the Midlands Region from John Jordan (Wirtgen Ireland Ltd) to Damien Grennan (Offaly County Council).


President welcomes the new Thomond Region Chairman
Peter Tiernan of University of Limerick

President welcomes new West Region Chairman Christy O’Sullivan of RPS Group

At each regional event, I was also pleased to present my Presidential Address which I originally gave in Clyde Road last September. The substance of the address had not changed but I updated it to give it greater relevance to each of the regions themselves in terms of my particular visits to that region during the years.

Eoin Greaney of Pavement Management Services being presented with Chartered Engineer title 
 in Galway by President PJ Rudden and Chairman of the West Region Padraic O'Donoghue
- Eoin is joined by his wife and 3 children
In Tullamore President and Midlands Chairman presents Chartered Engineer title
to Linda Parkinson of Laois County Council
I was able to strengthen the address also in terms where Government had heeded what I had said in September and had made policy changes in the meantime. This was obvious to me in two important policy areas.

1. I had called for the re-initiation of long term economic planning as we had in the early 1960s in time of TK Whitaker and other national greats who led us forward.

Only in recent weeks the new Secretary General in Dept of Finance John Moran  announced that a new economic unit was being set up to better plan not only our economic recovery but to look beyond that phase of national development in the future. John Moran had recently been recruited into the public service from the private sector where among other things he ran a series of juice bars in the South of France. He was thus bringing lateral thinking and a welcome business acumen to the work of Government. He also represents a shift from the past less regulated thinking that practically brought the country to its knees. Well done to Minister Noonan who appointed him and to Minister Howlin who appointed a man of similar background and calibre in Robert Watt as Secretary General in the new Dept of Public Expenditure and Reform.

2. In Education I called for a new 'joined up thinking' between primary and secondary education in all subjects but particularly in Maths teaching and learning.

The new Junior Cycle reform agenda being planned by Minister Quinn includes for reconfiguring that transition between 5th and 6th class in Primary school and 1st year in Secondary school. Previously as we pointed out in our 2010 Maths and Science Report there is no 'end of school assessment or report card' at the end of Primary to give any guidance  to the secondary teachers on their new pupils which I found to be odd in the extreme and not resource efficient in terms of teaching and learning. Happily the new Junior Cycle curriculum 'Innovation and Identity' recognises this failing and seeks to correct it. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that it is at Junior Cycle that most of the issue with Maths learning exists as the unqualified Maths teachers are usually sent into this cycle and those better qualified sent into the Leaving Cert classes. The sooner the better this whole Maths situation gets rectified as it will take at least a generation for the new learning processes to embed.

Visit to Limerick IT

Limerick Institute of Technology is in fact in Cratloe in County Clare north of the new Limerick Tunnel. I discovered this on a recent visit to the college organised by Thomond Region Committee Member Maria Kyne who is Head of School Built Environment.


Left to right – Seamus O’Sullivan (Lecturer), James Collins (Head of Department Built Environment Management), Paschal Meehan (Head of School Science, Engineering and IT), PJ Rudden President of Engineers Ireland, Maria Kyne (Head of School Built Environment), Pat Gill (Head of Department Construction and Civil Engineering), James Greenslade (Acting Head of Department Electrical and Electronic Engineering).

I met Maria and her colleague Paschal Meehan Head of School Science, Engineering and IT who kindly gave me a tour of the college where I met both staff and students. Indeed I was also glad to meet Seamus O'Sullivan and Gerry Ryan both former classmates of mine in UCD and both now lecturing at the college. Seamus was Limerick City Engineer for a period of major infrastructural development in the City prior to taking up a lecturing role at Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT).

Paschal Meehan in the Electronics Laboratory with PJ Rudden

Maria Kyne, PJ Rudden and Paschal Meehan in Solar Energy Laboratory

LIT specialise in civil mechanical and electrical engineering in addition to construction management studies. Both areas that are currently growing in the college are electronics and the whole area of studio sound and acoustics for music and theatre events which I visited to view some dress rehearsals. Firstly I toured the surveying, motor engineering and electrical engineering depts meeting various staff members and students.

Gerard Meagher (Lecturer) and PJ Rudden President of Engineers Ireland
in the Music Media and Performance Technology Department

Maria Kyne and Paschal Meehan in the Motor Engineering workshop with PJ Rudden

I then visited some of the music centres where students at various stages were testing their sound and acoustic talents in advance of gaining employment in radio TV stage and screen.


PJ Rudden President of Engineers Ireland and Peter Diffley (technician)
in the LIT Millennium Theatre

I was brought into the LIT Millennium Theatre where I was shown the equipment used to mix the sound and music effects of a full production.


Ger Hartigan and PJ Rudden President of Engineers Ireland
in the Surveying Department

I left LIT realising that every IT has its own set of specialist areas and service specific areas of the economy. LIT graduates have project management skills for construction and logistics management in industry generally and also specialise in producing graduates who are the engineers that make stage and screen events happen in Ireland and internationally wherever they go.