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Building Services News l March/April 2018
A TRIBUTE TO SEÁN MULCAHY (1926 – 2018) In this tribute by Varming Chairman, John Purcell, we celebrate the achievements of Seán Mulcahy, whose impressive engineering career spanned almost the entire second half of the 20th century, from the post-war years right up to the early dawn of the Celtic Tiger era. Over that long period the practice and science of building services engineering in Ireland developed from its very humble beginnings to embrace a myriad of highly-sophisticated engineering applications. Seán played a major role in that transformation through his belief in providing sound engineering advice, embodying both a sense of design excellence and a spirit of innovation. To gain some insight into the influences that moulded this belief, it is necessary to factor in Seán’s family history and his early career experiences. Seán was born in 1926 into an Ireland that was still emerging from a turbulent decade of social upheaval, armed revolt and a highly-divisive civil war. Seán’s father was very active in these events and continued in a prominent political role for many years. Seán was the youngest of six siblings. While not blessed with robust health, as a child he had already begun to exhibit the characteristics of gentleness and
Sean Mulcahy Tribute.indd 2
creativity that would endear him to so many of his acquaintances in his later life He decided on a career in building services engineering as it seemed to him, back in 1947, that building services engineering might well be a rapidly-expanding field. Fatefully, his interest was drawn to a Danish building services consultancy practice, J Varming & Company, which had just opened a design office in Dublin. Seán’s decision to accept a position with this company was one which was to shape his engineering career for the following five decades. Jørgen Varming became Seán’s first “boss”, his mentor, business partner and a life-long friend. They went on to discover that they shared the same vision and values, not only for buildings and engineering, but also for art and music. Jørgen Varming shared offices with Michael Scott and Ove Arup in Scott’s Merrion Square Building in those early years and the newly-appointed young graduate was assigned some minor engineering design for the
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