Skies Light Up - Cork Celebrates Science

Dublin wasn't the only place in the country celebrating science this evening. As the RDS heaved with students, parents and teachers for the BT Young Scientist award ceremony, Corkonians were celebrating the achievements of a pioneer of scientific education in Ireland.

As part of the North Monastery 200 celebrations, the memory of Bro. James Burke was celebrated with a series of talks and presentations as well as a spectacular laser display. The display was planned to commemorate a corresponding light display which Bro. Burke arranged in 1877 to demonstrate the impact electricity could have on the lives of the citizens of the city of Cork.

Remember, this was two years before Edison invented the light bulb. One speaker this evening noted the extreme levels of poverty prevalent in the city at the time. Public lighting was by gas and domestic lighting was by candle light. The massive light display organised by Burke must have been an awesome sight for the people of Cork.

This was typical of a man who truly believed that education, and science in particular, could be a force for good and a beacon of light in the world. He believed that science and technology could lift people out of poverty and give them a role to play in a new, technological age.

But what of this evenings events? It had a lot to live up to. If we recall where the city and citizens of Cork were at in 1877 (not least, in darkness) the huge beam of light that Burke produced much have been something to behold. To achieve the same effect in 2011, a demonstration of nuclear fission would be required!

Nevertheless, the organisers put on a poignant ceremony and exciting laser display which captured the spirit and imagination of Bro. James Burke. As the bust of Burke, sitting atop the building which bears his name, looked down over the city he made his home for most of his adult life, the sky was once again lit up just as he imagined it would be and proved it could be. He would have been proud.

James Burke Remembered - Cork skies to be lit up

The skies above Cork will be lit up in January as the city remembers a pioneer of scientific and technical education.

As part of the 'North Monastery 200' celebrations in the city, the work of Brother James Burke will be remembered with a modern-day laser re-enactment of a spectacular 1877 light-show which Burke created to demonstrate the potential of this new technology - electricity - for the city of Cork. [Details of the event at the bottom of this post]

James Burke was born in 1833 in Limerick City and attended the Christian Brother's School at Sexton Street in the city. He entered the Christian Brother novitiate aged 18 and was posted to the North Monastery, Cork in 1852. He eventually made his perpetual vows, aged 25, in 1857.

One of his colleagues at the 'North Mon' in the late 1850's and early 1860's was John Philip Holland. Holland was the man who invented the modern submarine based on experiments and research he did while in Cork. Burke was undoubtedly a huge influence on Holland during his time at the North Monastery.

Burke pioneered vocational and practical education in Ireland, basing his pedagogy on lessons learned throughout Europe at the time. He introduced subjects like trigonometry, navigation, physics and astronomy to the North Monastery for the first time and his methods were replicated across the Christian Brother Schools in Ireland.

This was at a time when even third-level education was reliant on the lecture rather than on practical experience for students. Burke's invitation to students to experiment for themselves with the large range of equipment and apparatus collected at the school was revolutionary for its time.

Despite suffering from medical problems throughout his adult life - he suffered from partial to near blindness and painful eye problems, he continued his work becoming Sub Director and eventually Director of the school and began to organise Sunday Science Lectures for the general public at the school and lectures in the Crawford Gallery in Cork City centre.

Through his friendship and contacts with industrialists throughout the region, Burke acquired funding for equipment and materials for the science department in the school - electric dynamos, gas engines, steam engines, lathes, agricultural equipment, geological, botanical and zoological specimens, etc.

By the time Burke died, educational authorities in Ireland were just beginning to realise the importance and influence of Burke's pioneering work in practical education. He had become internationally recognised for his excellence in scientific education and was locally acknowledged as being a man with the well-being and success of his students at heart.

Burke died in March 1904, having been struck by a horse and carriage in a tragic accident as he was crossing St. Patrick's Street, near its junction with Bowling Green Street. His death was met with a huge public outpouring of grief, with public bodies throughout the country expressing condolences. His funeral procession was described as being "like a king's" and he was buried in the grounds of his beloved North Monastery.

After his death, a marble bust of Burke was sculpted by John O'Connell (which is now positioned atop the building named in his honour).

Unfortunately, over time, much of the equipment and specimens which made up the bulk of Burke's collection at the school has been sold or disposed of. With the onset of World War 1, much of the industrial machinery and radio equipment was removed by the British Army.

Some material remains, including some excellent zoological specimens. It would be wonderful to see all of this material collected in one place within the school, to form a museum in Burke's memory. Perhaps in 2011, when the North Monastery celebrates 200 years in Cork, Brother Burke's memory can be honoured in such an appropriate fashion?

Brother Burke Ceremony

To celebrate the jubilee of Pope Pius IX ,in 1877,  Burke connected a battery of 120 callan cells to a massive lamp that he had mounted to the front wall of the Monastery (now sadly demolished) and he flashed beams of electric light into the sky from the grounds of Our Lady's Mount. This was two years before Thomas Edison was credited with inventing the light bulb.

To celebrate the work of Brother James Burke, the North Monastery Past Pupils Union, in conjunction with the 3 schools on campus will hold a Bro. Burke Commemoration event on Friday January 14th, starting at 4.30pm in the North Monastery Secondary School Hall.

Brother Donal Blake and Kieran McCarthy will give talks on Bro. Burke's contributions to education and science and his work in Cork.

The event is sponsored by John Mullins, CEO of Bord Gais and a past pupil of the school.

A flag-raising ceremony will be held on the night with the school's oldest past pupil and the highlight of the night will be a re-enactment of Bro. Burke's 1877 lighting display using modern lasers. According to a spokesperson for the organisers, "Weather depending, (the display) should be visible from all over Cork City and surrounding areas".




Much of the biographical information in this post is taken from a more complete biography available here (pdf).
Thanks to the North Monastery Past Pupils Union for use of images from their extensive archive.

North Mon 200 & Cork Scientists

This evening marks the launch of a publication to mark the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the North Monastery CBS in Cork City.

The book, entitled North Mon 200 is available to purchase in all good bookshops and online at : http://www.localbooks.ie/shop/product_info.php?products_id=6903

The school is the alma mater of a long list of distinguished past-pupils including former Taoiseach Jack Lynch and former Cork Lord Mayors Terence McSwiney and Tomas MacCutain.The 'North Mon' also has an impressive scientific track record and teachers who have worked there include Br. James Burke, the renowned educationalist and science teacher and John Philip Holland who developed one of the first ever submarines.

Burke was a Christian Brother who taught at the North Monastery in Cork City and was renowned for his work in developing practical scientific and technical education in Ireland during the late 19th century. Amongst his achievements includes bringing electric light to Cork in 1877, two years before Thomas Edison invented the electric bulb. He was a pioneer and advocate for practical, scientific education in Ireland and represented Ireland at the World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri in 1904.

Writing in The Glamour of Cork, Daniel Lawrence Kelleher (1919) describes an aging Burke as:

"This big, slow-footed, heavy, smiling, half-blind old man [who] has put into practice the most enlightened methods of education.
"Behold him in his class, a combination and anticipation of Montessori, Pearse and a hundred others, a curious wheedling old fellow, the father, uncle and guardian of his pupils, and no master at all in the narrow sense; or another time at the Trades Hall talking to workers back to childhood by his overflowing interest.
"A teacher out of a million, his lesson a preparation for life rather than for any examination test, his shining spirit a light always for any who saw the flame of it, alive".

Holland, a Christian Brother colleague of Burke at the North Monastery, is credited with developing the first submarine to be commissioned by the US Navy (USS Holland), and the first Royal Navy submarine- the Holland 1.

Many thanks to North Monastery Past Pupils Union for the use of images from their collection.



In Search of Greatness

There has been much debate in Irish scientific circles lately as to why no scientists had made it into RTE's much hyped list of the Greatest Irish People. I've made the point that instead of bemoaning the fact that the public have snubbed us scientists in favour of some worthy and some (arguably) less worthy individuals, Irish science should be asking itself why it has come to this?

Why don't the general public consider Irish scientists worthy of this title? Do they know enough about them? Do they really value their work?

On the back of this assault on our collective egos, Science.ie launched a poll to find the Greatest Irish Scientist. Robert Boyle (of Boyle's Law fame) was the most popular with almost two thirds of the vote (32.2%). William Rowan Hamilton (21.2%) and Ernest Walton (17.8%), a mathematician and nuclear physicist respectively, came in next.

The full top ten is as follows:

Science.ie poll results – top 10 Irish scientists:

1. Robert Boyle, who turned chemistry into a science
2. William Rowan Hamilton – the algebra he invented in 1843 helped to put a man on the Moon more than a century later
3. Ernest Walton, whose pioneering work began the atomic era
4. Kathleen Lonsdale, the X-ray crystallographer who revealed the structure of benzene and diamond
5. Dorothy Price, instrumental in the fight against tuberculosis, introducing the BCG vaccine to Ireland in the 1930s
6. John Tyndall, the first person to answer the question “Why is the sky blue?” successfully
7. Harry Ferguson, who revolutionised farming when he invented the modern tractor
8. Sir George Gabriel Stokes, for his important contributions to fluid dynamics, optics and mathematical physics, including Stokes’ theorem
9=. Fr Nicholas Callan, who invented the modern induction coil, still used in car ignitions
9=. Charles Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine
9=. William Thompson, who formulated the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics

No room it seems for George Boole, Br. James Burke or Br. John Philip Holland.

Boole was the first Professor of Mathematics at Queen's College Cork (now UCC), where the library is now named in his honour. He invented Boolean logic which formed the basis of modern computer logic and makes him, in hindsight, a founder of modern computer science.

Burke was a Christian Brother who taught at the North Monastery in Cork City and was renowned for his work in developing practical scientific and technical education in Ireland during the late 19th century. Amongst his achievements includes bringing electric light to Cork in 1877, two years before Thomas Edison invented the electric bulb. He was a pioneer and advocate for practical, scientific education in Ireland and represented Ireland at the World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri in 1904.

Writing in The Glamour of Cork, Daniel Lawrence Kelleher (1919) describes an aging Burke as:

"This big, slow-footed, heavy, smiling, half-blind old man [who] has put into practice the most enlightened methods of education.
"Behold him in his class, a combination and anticipation of Montessori, Pearse and a hundred others, a curious wheedling old fellow, the father, uncle and guardian of his pupils, and no master at all in the narrow sense; or another time at the Trades Hall talking to workers back to childhood by his overflowing interest.
"A teacher out of a million, his lesson a preparation for life rather than for any examination test, his shining spirit a light always for any who saw the flame of it, alive".

Holland, a Christian Brother colleague of Burke at the North Monastery, is credited with developing the first submarine to be commissioned by the US Navy (USS Holland), and the first Royal Navy submarine- the Holland 1. The first image in this post shows Holland standing at the hatch of a submarine.

Thanks to North Monastery Past Pupils Union for permission to use photos from their collection. Expect to hear much more about both Burke and Holland in 2011 when the North Monastery schools celebrate their bicentennial.