Breaking Ground: The Story of William T Mulvany

At the age of eighteen, William T Mulvany assisted in the first ordnance survey of Ulster and Connaught. He later supervised the drainage of the Shannon, and then planned the Shannon-Erne waterway. During the Famine, he directed thousands of workers in relief schemes. Then he set his sights on Prussia, leading the first and only Irish venture capital investment in the Rhineland, setting up 3 coal-mines in the Hibernia, Shamrock and Erin. The Kaiser awarded him a gold medal for his services to the Prussian economy. Four cities in the Ruhr have streets named after him. He laid out the first steeplechase course in Germany. “”It is a suggestive commentary on our system that long experience and abilities of high order, which should have been devoted to the amelioration of this country, and the development of its resources, were