W. J. Barre

William Joseph Barre (1830, Newry – 1867) was a prolific Irish architect who built many well known buildings in Belfast in a Gothic Revival style, but was always overshadowed by his great rival, Charles Lanyon.

By the time he was thirty he had beaten numerous rivals to win the task of designing the Ulster Hall, Belfast.

This time, however, public outcry was sufficient to restore the original decision, leaving us with Belfast's best known, if somewhat skewed (it is out by over a metre at the top), Albert clock tower.

Barre built several other monuments, perhaps the most unusual being that to the Banbridge-born arctic explorer Francis Crozier, featuring polar bears poised on top of flying buttresses.

Barre died of tuberculosis at the age of 37, having completed several dozen major buildings, including private houses, schools, factories, and, above all, churches.