One way to get a glimpse into the rich history of Irish science, technology, engineering and mathematics is to check out the growing number of plaques that celebrate our scientists and inventors.
The locations of the plaques include:
- Ailesbury Road, Dublin – John Boyd Dunlop, inventor of the pneumatic tyre
- Ardnacrusha Power Station, Co Clare – Thomas McLaughlin, the “founding father” of the ESB
- Athlone East Station – the Athlone railway bridge, designed by George Willoughby Hemans is a short distance away
- Birr Castle, Co Offaly – Countess Mary Rosse, photography pioneer
- Buswell’s Hotel, Dublin – the building in which Anne Jellicoe founded the Queen’s Institute for Women, the first technical education institute for women;
- Conway Institute, UCD – Edward Conway, pioneer in the study of electrolytes
- Crow Street, Dublin – astronomer and natural philosopher William Molyneux, founder of the Dublin Philosophical Society
- Edgeworthstown country house, Co Longford – novelist and educationalist Maria Edgeworth, author of “Practical Education”, and her father Richard Lovell Edgeworth, engineer and inventor
- Marlborough Road, Dublin, – the former residence of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton
- Heuston Station entrance – railway engineer John Macneill
- Memorial Park, Leighlinbridge, Co Carlow – John Tyndall, the first scientist to explain why the sky is blue; and zoologist Nicholas Vigors
- Poulaphouca Dam, Co Kildare – engineer John Purser Griffith
- Roundstone Harbour, Co Galway – engineer Alexander Nimmo – some 30 piers or harbours were built under his direction on the Irish coast
- Stokes Building, Sligo Institute of Technology – mathematician George Gabriel Stokes, whose research revolutionised hydrodynamics
- Tinryland school, Co Carlow – Patrick J Dowling, Engineer-in-Chief of the Rural Electrification Scheme
- UCG’s entrance – George Johnstone Stoney, the man who named the electron
- Valentia, Co Kerry – Maude Delap, marine biologist specialising in plankton life
The National Committee for Science and Engineering Commemorative Plaques has erected over 50 plaques since 1996, celebrating people who have achieved national or international eminence in science, engineering, education or exploration.
A number of plaques have also been commissioned in association with WITS (Women in Technology and Science) to commemorate the contributions of women scientists and engineers.
Blue plaques for physicists
In addition, the Institute of Physics has erected blue plaques in various locations around Ireland celebrating physicists who lived or worked in the locality, including:
- Physics Department, TCD – Ernest Walton, the man who split the atom
- St Patrick’s College, Maynooth – Nicholas Callan, inventor of the induction coil
- Pure and Applied Physics Department, Queen’s University Belfast – John Stewart Bell, whose ideas led directly to quantum information theory and quantum computation
Learn more
Find out more about the project and the lives of Irish scientists
