British engineer who gave the Irish a way out

I REFER to Noel Whelan’s column headlined ‘From Brian Boru to Bono: who was the greatest of us all?’ (Irish Examiner, Nov 28) .

In the BBC’s Greatest Ever Briton poll, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a well-known engineer, came second. Not as your columnist stated: “In third place was a guy called Robert Brunel, a little known civil engineer.”

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) is well known to any first- year student of civil engineering, of railway engineering and of shipbuilding. His genius was applied to building tunnels, bridges, railway stations, ships, docks and water towers.