It's difficult not to be impressed and touched by the Lee Scheme - the images of transformation, the real–life stories, the infrastructure, the work, the effort, commitment, emotion put into the project by all involved. It's always an added incentive for the quality of research when one gets to chat to those who were physically involved in the research topic.

Sweeney Family at their dwelling on Coolcower House estate, Macroom during the Lee Scheme, mid 1950s, Maurice Senior and his wife Bridget and their sons, Maurice, Terence and Gary (picture: Sweeney Family collection)

I haven't lived the experience but I do deem it's important to tap into as many memories as possible before the memory fades to history and to the unknown. However, in the context of the Lee Scheme, the initiative has been well recorded at ESB archive level and in the contemporary newspapers.

However, perhaps one aspect that hasn't been focussed into is the more human side of the work. I was delighted when I came across the memories of the construction manager of the Lee Scheme, Maurice G. Sweeney. I was even more delighted especially when the memories were in front of me in the guise of Maurice, his son, who runs the property section of the Cork Independent.

Maurice G. Sweeney was born in 1917 in Oughterard, Co Galway. He was known to his family and close friend as 'Dev'. The name arose because he was born on the day Devalera was returned to power for Co. Clare (rather when he was first elected). He married Bridget ('Dilly') Pettit from Ballygar, Co Galway, who was a sister of Ted Pettit who founded the very successful Cork engineering firm E.G. Pettit.

Graduated as a civil engineer from UCG in 1942, Maurice worked with his father in Sweeney and Sheahan Engineers and then with Jennings Builders in Dublin as a chief engineer on the building of the sea wall in Dun Laoghaire. He took up a position as an engineer with Sociétè de Batignolles, the French company that had been given the contract to construct the dams for the Lee Scheme. After about a year, following some general difficulties with the progress of the dams, Maurice was put in overall charge. He was a tall man with a passing resemblance to Gary Cooper and was known as 'High Noon'. A determined man who never suffered fools gladly, he got the whole project back on track. Maurice Sweeney, junior notes that his dad was great at managing people and putting jobs together.

Maurice has fleeting memories of the dam. He was eight years old at the time. "I remember the blasting and taking shelter but mostly lots of parties, everyone learning French, I remember the pre-fabs as a child – the Christmas parties, the showing of movies. There was a great social aspect to the scheme, it was a big thing compared to other work some of the older men worked on. I remember Jim Irwin who played Santa Claus. He lived on Magazine Road in Cork City. My father was a great angler-fly fisherman. He fished on Lough Corrib and fished on the Lee when he came to the Lee Scheme. I frequently went with him on the Lee outings. I remember going out on Sunday outings and ending up in the dam and my mother being annoyed".

For the Lee Scheme, the Sweeney family rented a house in Coolcower, near Macroom. Maurice junior remembers the owners of the big house were the Williams, Sam Williams. The family moved to Orchard Road in Cork towards the end of the Scheme. Maurice went to school in the convent in Macroom and later went to Cobh when his dad began working on Whitegate oil refinery.

After the Lee Scheme, Maurice Sweeney was the chief engineer on the construction of the oil refinery at Whitegate. After that he spent some years in Iran, where he oversaw the construction of a major bridge in a town called Khorramshahr in the south of the country (the bridge was to become the site of one of the most ferocious battles in the Iran-Iraq war) and the building of a railway station in the holy city of Mashad in the north.

After returning to Ireland he joined Irish Engineering and Harbour Construction (IrishEnco), of which he soon became managing director. This company specialized in marine works and was responsible for many major projects in this country. The biggest project was the building of the oil terminal jetty at Bantry in the late 1960s, a job that he directly oversaw. After leaving IrishEnco in the earl 1970s, he worked as a consultant engineer until his death in 1983. He was predeceased by his wife by 10 months and was buried in Galway.

To be continued…

Any memories of the Lee Scheme? Contact Kieran McCarthy, 087 655 3389

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