Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Builder, engineer and architect, of Dublin and Birr, Co. Offaly. Bernard Mullins was born in 1772 into a family which had lived for many generations in Co. Offaly. He was the eldest of five sons of Michael Mullins; his mother, Ellenor, was a daughter of James Crosbie of Ballaghmyler, Co. Carlow. While still very young he was employed as an overseer by Grand Canal Company as development of the canal was continued into west Co. Kildare and Co. Offaly.(1) At some stage after this he became a contractor and in about 1803 joined with DAVID HENRY  DAVID HENRY to take over the contract for the stonework for the Shannon line of the Grand Canal.(2) In about 1808 JOHN MCMAHON  JOHN MCMAHON joined Henry and Mullins to tender for the restoration and extension of the County of Kildare Canal for the Grand Canal Company. The three men were awarded the contract for the work, and the partnership of HENRY, MULLINS & MCMAHON  MULLINS & MCMAHON came into existence.(3) For the next two decades the firm was to be the leading building contractor in Ireland, undertaking many important Government projects. It was formally dissolved in January 1827.(4) Mullins became a director of the Royal Canal Company circa 1823,(5) while his involvement with the Grand Canal lasted until as late as 1849, when he was asked to inspect a breach in the embankment between Tickevan and the Blundell Aqueduct and contract for its repair.(6) He continued to run an office in Dublin until his death .

As well as having a house and an office in Dublin, Mullins owned property at Ballyegan (or Ballyeigan), near Birr, Co. Offaly, where he reclaimed thirty to forty acres of bogland in the early 1800s(7) and built himself a handsome house circa 1834.(8) He became a JP for Co. Offaly. St Brendan's Catholic church in Birr (1817) was built to his design(9) as was the former school house.(10)

Bernard Mullins died on 6 May 1851. He had married on 1 August 1807, Bridget Maria, daughter of Michael Hoey of Co. Westmeath. There were two sons and three daughters of the marriage. The elder son, MICHAEL BERNARD MULLINS MICHAEL BERNARD MULLINS , worked with his father as a civil engineer and architect. The younger, a midshipman in the Navy, died in 1828. The eldest daughter Catherine, married Michael Balfe of South Park, Co. Roscommon, as his second wife, but had no children; the second, Frances, married Francis Blake, second son of Sir Valentine John Blake of Menlough Castle, Co. Galway, by whom she had a son and a daughter; the third died unmarried. In 1852 JOSEPH ROBINSON KIRK  JOSEPH ROBINSON KIRK exhibited bas relief heads of Bernard Mullins and his wife, 'part of a monument latterly executed in marble and erected in Dublin', at the RHA.(11)

ICEI:(12) committee member, 1842-1844; vice-president, 1845-48; council member, 1849.
RDS: member by 1845.(13)

Addresses:(14) Work: 9 Mabbot Street, <=1837 until death. Home: 2 Mountjoy Square W, 1820-24; 17 Fitzwilliam Square East, 1824;(15) 1 Fitzwilliam Square North,1829-33; 1 Fitzwilliam Square South, 1834 until death; also Ballyegan House, Birr, Co. Offaly, from circa 1834 until death.

See WORKS, BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY . See also works of HENRY, MULLINS & MCMAHON. MULLINS & MCMAHON.



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the account of Mullins of Ballyeigan in Burke's Landed Gentry (1875), 959.

(1) Ruth Delany, A Celebration of 250 years of Ireland's inland waterways (1986), 80; although Delany's account implies that Mullins was employed as an overseer for the first section of the canal, which was begun in 1783, it is hard to believe that he would have held such a position much before the age of 18.
(2) Ruth Delany, The Grand Canal of Ireland (1973), 54.
(3) Delany (1986), 83-84.
(4) Peter Clarke, The Royal Canal: The Complete Story, (1992), 72.
(5) See not 4, above.
(6) Delany (1973), 178-9.
(7) W.Nolan & T.P. O'Neill, eds., Offaly History & Society (1998), 931-2.
(8) A working drawing for a cornice at Ballyegan on paper watermarked 1834 is in the IAA, Acc. 80/10.3; Lewis (1837) describes the house as a 'splendid residence'. The rough plan of a 'Villa for B. Mullen, Esqr' in the collection of Thomas Pakenham, Tullynally, does not resemble Ballyegan as built.
(9) C. Cooke, The Picture of Parsonstown (1826), 176 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44).
(10) Signed, undated plan and elevations in collection of Earl of Rosse, Birr Castle (photographs in IAA).
(11) Nos. 380,382.
(12) Jones transcripts from Thom's directories.
(13) Jones transcript from Thom's Directory (1845).
(14) From Wilson's, Post Office, and Thom's directories unless otherwise stated.
(15) Pigot's Directory (1824).


7 work entries listed in chronological order for MULLINS, BERNARD


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Building: CO. SLIGO, BLACK ROCK BEACON (PROPOSED)
Date: 1801
Nature: BM prepares elevation. (Old beacon washed away in storm in Autumn 1914; new beacon built 1819.)
Refs: Elevation from Henry, Mullins & McMahon collection in NLI, PF 34 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44); see Bill Long, Bright Light, white water (1993), 163)

Building: CO. SLIGO, SLIGO, RIVERSIDE, COUNTY GAOL
Date: 1801
Nature: BM prepares elevations. (Not executed.)
Refs: Elevation from Henry, Mullins & McMahon collection in NLI, PF 34 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44)

Building: CO. OFFALY, BIRR, CHURCH OF ST BRENDAN (RC)
Date: 1817-1824
Nature: Designed by BM. Completed 1 Aug 1824. '…a splendid edifice, in the later English style, having two minarets and a steeple, 150 feet high, with a fine bell' (Lewis)
Refs: T.J. Cooke, The Picture of Parsonstown (1826), 176 (IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc.2008/44); Samuel Lewis, A Topographical dictionary of Ireland (1837), II, 456; T. Cooke, Early History of Birr (1875), 104-5.

Building: CO. GALWAY, TUAM, CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION (RC)
Date: 1829
Nature: BM asked to act as consultant for completion of cathedral.
Refs: Patricia McCarthy & Kevin V. Mulligan 'Unfulfilled mediocrity: the hapless career of Dominick Madden in the west of Ireland', Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, 10 (2007), 104

Building: CO. OFFALY, BALLYEIGAN HOUSE (BIRR)
Date: 1834ca
Nature: Built by BM for himself, possibly to his own design.
Refs: Unsigned, undated working drawing for cornice at Ballyegan on paper watermarked 1834 in IAA, Acc. 80/10.3; S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), II, 456; Mark Bence-Jones, Burke’s Guide to Country Houses. Volume I, Ireland. (London, 1978), 21

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, RINGSEND, TIDAL BASIN (PROPOSED)
Date: 1846
Nature: Proposed new floating tidal basin and entrance to floating and graving docks designed by 'Mr McMullen' (i.e. Bernard Mullins?) praised in report of Sir John Macneill on proposed enlargement of Grand Canal docks.
Refs: Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 9 (1846), 353.

Building: CO. OFFALY, BIRR, JOHN'S PLACE, SCHOOL HOUSE (JOHN'S HALL)
Date: ?
Nature: Ionic temple design, for Earl of Rosse.
Refs: Signed, undated plan and elevations in collection of Earl of Rosse, Birr Castle (photographs in IAA); unsigned design for chimneypiece, formerly in Henry, Mullins & McMahon collection, in IAA, Acc. 80/10.

Author Title Date Details
Mullins, Bernard [Treatise on Inland Navigation] 1823
Mullins, Bernard Observations upon the Irish Grand Jury system 1831 Dublin: C. Hope, 1831.
Mullins, Bernard, & Mullins, Michael Bernard 'Origin and reclamation of peat bogs' 1846 TICEI 2 (1846-47), 1,28,33,35,37; also published separately by Oldham, Dublin, 1846 ( 8vo. 48pp., 5 pls.);  abridged version published in Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 12 (Jul 1849), 26`.
Mullins, Bernard, & Mullins, Michael Bernard 'Observations on the Sewerage and other sanitary improvements of Dublin' 1849 TICEI 3 (1847-49), 58-83. (Paper read to ICEI, 11 Apr 1848.)