Actor reaps rewards after change of career plan

A YOUNG man has reaped a reward for foregoing an acting career to take on an engineering degree.

Laurence Barry was one of the young stars of Ken Loach’s award- winning movie The Wind that Shakes the Barley, filmed in Cork when Laurence was just 17.

In the opening scenes of the film, his character Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin is killed by Black and Tans after refusing to give his name in English.

But opting for a more ‘stable’ career than acting, he enrolled on a mechanical engineering course at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), where his heat-transfer system for domestic chimneys yesterday won top prize in an innovation competition. “I came up with the idea when my three sisters were building houses in recent years and we were thinking of ways to heat homes better,” explained Laurence, now 22.

His Hydrostack invention takes advantage of the fact that 80% of heat from a domestic fire disappears straight up the chimney. By running the heat exchange system through the chimney flue, 60 litres of water can be heated at up to 60 degrees celsius.

“With this in place, a fire lighting for an hour could give enough hot water for two hot showers or heat two bedrooms,” he said.

Although the only prototype is in a chimney he built in an outhouse at home in Donoughmore, Co Cork, the idea and his business plan won him the €4,000 top CIT Prize for Innovation 2010.