Proposal for new bridge at Salmon Weir to be named after Alice Perry
From this week's Galway City Tribune - The new pedestrian bridge over the Corrib could be named after a city woman who was the first female in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree back in the early 1900s.
Local historian William Henry told the Galway City Tribune that over recent weeks, the idea had been mooted that the new bridge alongside Salmon Weir Bridge could be called after Wellpark native, Alice (Jacqueline) Perry.
The daughter of James Perry – a co-founder of the Galway Electric Light Company – her graduation as an engineer was a landmark achievement for women in the early 1900s.
She held the position of County Surveyor (County Engineer) for Galway County Council on a temporary basis in 1906 following the death of her father (the incumbent) before moving to London in 1908 where she worked for the British Home Office.
“She was a Galway woman who was really ahead of her time, and she came from an academically gifted family. For a woman to graduate as an engineer in that era was unheard of and precedented,” Mr Henry said.
He said that he had been involved in the wording of a plaque at Newtownsmyth some time back to mark the life of Alice Perry, while in 2017, a ceremony was held at NUI Galway to mark the official naming of the Alice Perry Engineering Building at the college.
Ms Perry, who was born in 1885 and died in 1969, graduated with a first-class honours’ degree in Civil Engineering at the then Queen’s College Galway (now NUIG) in 1906 and was also featured in the Path-Breaking Women of NUI Galway exhibition in 2017.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story and more on the sod turning for the new bridge, see this week's Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.