It was slim pickings in the 90s educational system if you wanted inspiration from someone that wasn’t a poet. Especially if you were engineering focused.
Sure you had submarine guy and maybe wind guy, and that was about it.
This triggers me! Irelands cultural creation are important and vast, and I say this as outsider. Both can be true
Boole’s house in Cork is a facade covering over a derelict site. In any other country someone of his importance would have their house turned into a museum, or at least kept habitable.
It’s as important to call out why those feats of engineering and invention weren’t called out. And it’s because a significant portion of people, like Boyle, Joly or Rynd, came from the Protestant or ascendency rankings. And so even though they were born on the same sod as us, the nationalistic elements driving Irish history throughout the years made it seem like they were never really part of Irish history. On the other hand, many writers and poets were of a Catholic background and some were themselves often nationalist driven in their writings and actions. Hence why they got more attention.
Tell the people at home about our engineering history. Now’s your chance and I’d actually be interested to learn more.
well at least this is better than the post that comes up here every now and again saying that we need to recognise Seamus and Becky Lynch’s achievements more, lol.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet but [Ernest Walton ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Walton) won the Nobel prize in physics for “work on the transmutation of the atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles” (popularly known as splitting the atom)
A (great great great grand) uncle of mine John Richardson Wigham, designed the first ever gas light system for lighthouses. He was actually Scottish born but worked and lived in Ireland and the Bailey lighthouse in Howth was the first to use this design. A bit irrelevant now, as they moved on to electric lighting years ago, but it was much more powerful than the oil lamps they were using before, and his designs greatly improved maritime safety around the world.
One another note William Dargan, who was responsible for much of our infrastructure gets much too little recognition in this day and age. Especially considering he had the distinction of being a “conventional” Irishman who found his way into high society rather than originating from the 19th century Protestant elite.
Harry Ferguson was an awesome inventor from Dromore, County Down. He pretty much invented the modern tractor and was the first person in Ireland to build and fly his own plane. He also designed the first 4 wheel drive formula 1 car. There’s an aeroplane monument to him as you’re heading north past Hillsborough on the A1 heading to Belfast.
Yo W.B Yeats was such a good word engineer
You know why the sky is blue? It’s a scattering of light called the Tyndall effect, named for John Tyndall of Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow.
You’ve heard of an electron? The word was coined by George Stoney, from Birr Co. Offaly. If you’ve been to Dundrum in Dublin 14 you might have found yourself on Stoney Road, which is named for him (he lived there for a few decades.)
Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton discovered / invented Quaternions
As a method to rotate 3 dimensional objects in a 4d space
These are in use today in computer graphics systems. He has plaque on Broom Bridge in Dublin
So basically he invented video games
Induction coils, malaria vaccines, submarines. All small game.
An Irish man invented flavoured crisps. No other country can claim that.
Charles boyle was a fictional character and he was from new york
Where my boy William Rowan Hamilton at?
John Holland and his submarine
Brennan Torpedo, Irish/Australian inventor Louis Brennan. Always though that was pretty cool.
I always though we should do a trail like the wild Atlantic way and the ancient east. Something like scientific ireland.
The man who named the electron was George Stoney, a professor at NUIG. Lord Kelvin, one of the most influential scientists in history was born in Belfast. Robert Boyle is considered the father of modern chemistry, having defined what an element was amongst many other things. Ernest Walton is one the people who split the atom, basically founding particle physics in the process. Kathleen Lonsdale was a trailblazer for the science of crystallography, she proved the benzene ring is flat using x-ray diffraction. She paved the way for people like Rosalind Franklin.
Ireland has a powerful connection to the sciences, one has influential as that of our connection to the arts
I thought the same when I saw the Aer Lingus planes with photos of knuckle-dragging men who can run fast while carrying a ball.
Robert Boyle was Irish? I’m a bloody chemical engineer who uses Boyle’s Law in my day-to-day life. How am I just finding out he’s from Waterford?
Also some big hitters in modern times!
Prof Des Higgins
From Wikipedia “Professor of Bioinformatics at University College Dublin, widely known for CLUSTAL, a series of computer programs for performing multiple sequence alignment. According to Nature, Higgins’ papers describing CLUSTAL are among the top ten most highly cited scientific papers of all time.”
An interesting one is that Guglielmo Marconi was half Irish and a descendant of Jameson distillers. There should be some sites on the west coast where he experimented with transatlantic transmission, although I’ve never visited and I don’t know in what condition they are.
30 comments
It was slim pickings in the 90s educational system if you wanted inspiration from someone that wasn’t a poet. Especially if you were engineering focused.
Sure you had submarine guy and maybe wind guy, and that was about it.
[List of Major Irish Inventions](https://www.thinkbusiness.ie/articles/10-world-changing-irish-inventions/)
This triggers me! Irelands cultural creation are important and vast, and I say this as outsider. Both can be true
Boole’s house in Cork is a facade covering over a derelict site. In any other country someone of his importance would have their house turned into a museum, or at least kept habitable.
It’s as important to call out why those feats of engineering and invention weren’t called out. And it’s because a significant portion of people, like Boyle, Joly or Rynd, came from the Protestant or ascendency rankings. And so even though they were born on the same sod as us, the nationalistic elements driving Irish history throughout the years made it seem like they were never really part of Irish history. On the other hand, many writers and poets were of a Catholic background and some were themselves often nationalist driven in their writings and actions. Hence why they got more attention.
Tell the people at home about our engineering history. Now’s your chance and I’d actually be interested to learn more.
No one ever mentions [Peter Rice](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rice)
The inventor of the induction coil was Irish.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/sites/default/files/assets/document/VI_Callan_history_chem_0.pdf
Seismology and it’s instrumentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mallet
Waterford had Robert Boyle but also Dr. Ernest Walton, a Nobel laureate in physics for Atom splitting.
https://waltoninstitute.ie/about
well at least this is better than the post that comes up here every now and again saying that we need to recognise Seamus and Becky Lynch’s achievements more, lol.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it yet but [Ernest Walton ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Walton) won the Nobel prize in physics for “work on the transmutation of the atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles” (popularly known as splitting the atom)
A (great great great grand) uncle of mine John Richardson Wigham, designed the first ever gas light system for lighthouses. He was actually Scottish born but worked and lived in Ireland and the Bailey lighthouse in Howth was the first to use this design. A bit irrelevant now, as they moved on to electric lighting years ago, but it was much more powerful than the oil lamps they were using before, and his designs greatly improved maritime safety around the world.
One another note William Dargan, who was responsible for much of our infrastructure gets much too little recognition in this day and age. Especially considering he had the distinction of being a “conventional” Irishman who found his way into high society rather than originating from the 19th century Protestant elite.
http://builtdublin.com/diving-bell-sir-john-rogersons-quay-dublin-2/
William C Campbell, discovered a new class of drugs and Nobel laureate, originally from Ramelton Donegal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Campbell_(scientist)
Harry Ferguson was an awesome inventor from Dromore, County Down. He pretty much invented the modern tractor and was the first person in Ireland to build and fly his own plane. He also designed the first 4 wheel drive formula 1 car. There’s an aeroplane monument to him as you’re heading north past Hillsborough on the A1 heading to Belfast.
Yo W.B Yeats was such a good word engineer
You know why the sky is blue? It’s a scattering of light called the Tyndall effect, named for John Tyndall of Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow.
You’ve heard of an electron? The word was coined by George Stoney, from Birr Co. Offaly. If you’ve been to Dundrum in Dublin 14 you might have found yourself on Stoney Road, which is named for him (he lived there for a few decades.)
Irish mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton discovered / invented Quaternions
As a method to rotate 3 dimensional objects in a 4d space
https://youtu.be/d4EgbgTm0Bg
These are in use today in computer graphics systems. He has plaque on Broom Bridge in Dublin
So basically he invented video games
Induction coils, malaria vaccines, submarines. All small game.
An Irish man invented flavoured crisps. No other country can claim that.
Charles boyle was a fictional character and he was from new york
Where my boy William Rowan Hamilton at?
John Holland and his submarine
Brennan Torpedo, Irish/Australian inventor Louis Brennan. Always though that was pretty cool.
I always though we should do a trail like the wild Atlantic way and the ancient east. Something like scientific ireland.
The man who named the electron was George Stoney, a professor at NUIG. Lord Kelvin, one of the most influential scientists in history was born in Belfast. Robert Boyle is considered the father of modern chemistry, having defined what an element was amongst many other things. Ernest Walton is one the people who split the atom, basically founding particle physics in the process. Kathleen Lonsdale was a trailblazer for the science of crystallography, she proved the benzene ring is flat using x-ray diffraction. She paved the way for people like Rosalind Franklin.
Ireland has a powerful connection to the sciences, one has influential as that of our connection to the arts
I thought the same when I saw the Aer Lingus planes with photos of knuckle-dragging men who can run fast while carrying a ball.
Robert Boyle was Irish? I’m a bloody chemical engineer who uses Boyle’s Law in my day-to-day life. How am I just finding out he’s from Waterford?
Also some big hitters in modern times!
Prof Des Higgins
From Wikipedia “Professor of Bioinformatics at University College Dublin, widely known for CLUSTAL, a series of computer programs for performing multiple sequence alignment. According to Nature, Higgins’ papers describing CLUSTAL are among the top ten most highly cited scientific papers of all time.”
An interesting one is that Guglielmo Marconi was half Irish and a descendant of Jameson distillers. There should be some sites on the west coast where he experimented with transatlantic transmission, although I’ve never visited and I don’t know in what condition they are.