Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Land surveyor and engineer, of Ballinasloe, Co. Galway.  James Lynam was in practice as a land surveyor and engineer from circa 1830.   He acted as a land agent for a property near the Shannon for about twelve years in the 1850s and 1860s until demands on his time as an engineer compelled him to give it up.(1) He also farmed himself. He was resident engineer in charge of the Shannon Drainage Works in the 1870s and became an outspoken critic of the management of the river by the Board of Public Works.   He delivered a paper on the drainage of the Shannon to the Royal Dublin Society on 16 November 1874 (2)  and another at the Dublin meeting of the British Association in 1878.(3)  In 1879 ROBERT YOUNG  ROBERT YOUNG was appointed his deputy in charge of the Meelick district.(3) He was chief engineer to the River Suck Drainage Board.(4) at the time of his death in 1885.

James Lynam had at least four sons: William, a civil engineer (1848ca-1913), PATRICK JOHN LYNAM PATRICK JOHN LYNAM , FRANCIS JOHN LYNAM  FRANCIS JOHN LYNAM and Joseph Deighan Lynam.

Address: Boola (Co. Galway?), 1877;(5) also Raheen, Ballinasloe.(6)



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Brendan O'Donoghue and Glasnevin cemetery records.

(1) House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 3 Jun 1869, 84; B.O'D.
(2) IB 16, 1 Dec 1874, 329.
(3) Published in pamphlet form in London in 1878.
(4) IB 21, 15 Dec 1879, 387.
(5) Inst.CE records, courtesy of Mrs Carol Morgan, Archivist.
(6) B.O'D.
(7) Dundalk Democrat, 10 Aug 1912 (B.O'D.).