Posts for junior engineers were advertised for the Lee Hydro Scheme. Forty to fifty civil engineers were interviewed. Many of the younger guys taken in were sent to work on the steam powered Marina site [Cork]. I was delighted to be offered the post especially as I loved Cork and was thankful to come home. Indeed from the age of twelve, I had a bike and used to swim in Hellhole at Inniscarra and by the ruined Inniscarra Church of Ireland and graveyard. The Lee was a part of my early loves and working on the Lee Scheme was a thrilling thought.

I worked on the initial stages of the dam. Jerry Mahony in the Marina [Cork] housed and looked after the young staff. Frank Clynch looked after the construction team. Seamus Ertin and I were in charge of setting out the dam works. I remember we came out in a baby Ford. We had to know the valley, know the history of the water flow, we carefully selected the sites of the dams. The completed surveys of the valley were important to the design of the stations. Sir William Halcro and partners, a huge international organisation had their head man visit Joe MacDonald on occasion. Joe was one of the men at senior level, making decisions regarding form and layout of roads and bridges.

I started my work on the Lee Scheme devising the geometry of the site, looking at the shape of the dam and the valley complex. I took accurate surveys on the ground and created drawings. In a sense, I created the basis to marry the ground and the foundations of the dam asking questions on how deep should we dig. I was briefed from the top on a day to day basis. Donal O'Leary was the section engineer at Inniscarra and he had great experience of maintenance at Ardnacrusha on the Shannon Scheme.

Donal made a great contribution to us, the junior civil engineers. Meticulous detail, resulting in maintenance free results, was important. He left me get on with the job and I was there for three years, 1953 to 1956. I was there from the beginning, the green field site and was there for the cutting of the first sod. I became a very good and efficient construction engineer. I married Claire whilst working on the Lee scheme and began a family during those years.

In 1956, I opted to leave the Lee Scheme and sent off CV's to a couple of design offices in Dublin. I had worked in the academic and practical side and wanted to get work on the design side. I got a job with British reinforced Concrete (BRC) Co Limited, Staffordm who had a Dublin office. They were highly specialised masters of the production of steel - cut, bent, fixed and drawings for re-inforced concrete construction. I subsequently went to England and joined the Nuclear Power Section of English Electric Co. Ltd at Whetstone, Leicester. I came back to Cork on the Innisfallen in September 1960 and taught in UCC in the Department of Engineering for 35 years till my retirement.

To be continued…

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

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