About Us

Jack Barry left his post of County Engineer in South Tipperary to set up the consulting engineering practice JB Barry and Partners in 1959 in Elgin Road, Dublin. We were originally founded as a partnership to provide water and wastewater consulting engineering services.

One of our first projects was the design and construction of the Grand Canal Tunnel. In the early days we worked with developers who we continue to work with today. In association with Consumers Gas of Toronto we were part of the Kinsale to Dublin gas pipeline project and worked with Dublin Gas on the conversion from coal tar gas to natural gas.

In the 1970’s we moved into Tramway House in Rathmines which became synonymous with Barry’s. Some of our  prominent projects from this time include the West Clare Regional Water Supply scheme, which provided water to the power station at Moneypoint, and Bray, Greystones and Wicklow Main Drainage projects. The Cork office was opened in 1979 under the leadership of Frank Jordan and is now managed by Maurice O’Donoghue.

Through the 1980’s we expanded our services to include flood protection, site development and structural consulting engineering services.

In the 1990’s when Niall McDermott joined us, we expanded overseas in East Africa and southern Africa and found markets in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Our main focus being the EU pre-accession countries, such as Romania and Latvia, and more recently in Lesotho, Croatia and Turkey.

In the 2000’s there was an upsurge in the transportation sector following the formation of the National Roads Authority.  We took advantage of this market expansion by collaborating with the Halcrow Group and forming the company Halcrow Barry.  Our projects included the M3 Navan to Dunshaughlin and N52 Mullingar to Belvedere schemes.

We were successful on the Limerick Main Drainage and Mullingar Main Drainage schemes throughout this decade with Director Ken McIntyre and Des Barry as our Managing Director. In 2008 we opened an office in Castlebar led by Eamon Daly and our organisation transitioned from a partnership to a limited company.

We moved from Tramway House to Dundrum Business Park in 2013 and we continued to expand our portfolio with major clients such as Irish Water, established in 2014 and TII established in 2015. The Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade project and the N17/N18 Gort to Tuam PPP Scheme are some of our flagship projects.

We expanded our services to meet the challenges of managing assets and operational costs with a particular focus on decarbonisation, energy efficiency and energy optimisation.

In the late 2010’s we developed our services to include sustainability and climate change adaption, while extending our responsibilities and capabilities in the environmental and planning sectors.  Our office in Limerick opened in 2019, with the start of the N/M20 Cork to Limerick scheme.

We celebrated 60 years of excellence in 2019, with a number of events and gatherings to mark this milestone..