Cyril Farey
Proposed Limerick Buildings
1939-1941
2015/106.2
Watercolour prepared by Cyril A. Farey for Limerick architect Patrick J. Sheahan. An architect by training, Farey was one of the best-known and most sought-after architectural draughtsmen of his day, charging one shilling per square inch for colour perspectives and reputedly earning an enormous £5,000 per annum at the height of his career. Aside from Sheahan, it would appear that his only other Irish client was Rudolf Maximilian Butler.
Dated 1941, this drawing shows Limerick Regional Hospital. Designed from 1938 as a 278-bed county hospital by Sheahan, with consultants Stanley Hall and Easton & Robertson, London, construction was delayed by the Second World War. Building finally commenced in 1949 and the hospital was opened by the Minister for Health, T.F. O’Higgins, in May 1955. The contractors were Murphy Bros of Cork and the cost was £900,000. The Irish Builder noted its commanding views, and ‘the cheerful colour schemes in the public wards, which have sun balconies’.
