Luke Livingstone Macassey, a native of Carrickfergus, wanted to link Northern Ireland and Scotland via tunnel citing "order and prosperity"
Victorian-era engineer Luke Livingstone Macassey and his colleague William Scott explored the idea of a link between Northern Ireland and Scotland over 150 years ago, reports The Daily Mail.
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Macassey, who was one of the most sought-after engineers of his era, and Scott wrote in an 1868 report: "The distinction of races has been ever a curse to Ireland and no surer method exists for the complete amalgamation of the Saxon and Celt in the Briton, than easy and constant intercourse between the three countries.”
“Such a railway-led union would in turn tend to the consolidation of empire, so greatly desired by all lovers of order and prosperity.”
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Later in 1890, Macassey proposed seven different options for the cross channel link using train tunnels. The Carrickfergus-born engineer and barrister wrote: “There is one thing in which time has made no change in the public mind and that is the dread of sea sickness.”
“They would undergo the fatigue of a hundred miles' trip by rail rather than risk the horrors of 20 miles in a rough sea.”
The ambitious proposal had a cost of what would be about £455 million ($565 million) in the present day. Scottish Field reports that concerns about the project's cost were acknowledged in Macassey's prospectus: "No amount of traffic likely to arise would make the tunnel a dividend-paying concern… the tunnel must be constructed at the expense of the state. No railway company or body of speculators would ever venture upon an undertaking of so doubtful a character."
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Earlier this month, reports leaked from British government offices showed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had directed agencies to begin exploring the feasibility and costs of a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland.
The Prime Minister said the project would "only cost about £15 billion ($18 billion)."
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