Cork event hails Irish inventor of submarine

A CO CLARE man who developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the US Navy was a genius in many fields who would have developed a flying machine only for a deterioration in his health, a conference heard over the weekend.

John Philip Holland was born in February 1841 in Liscannor, Co Clare.

After teaching in a number of schools in Ireland, including the North Monastery School in Cork, he emigrated with his family to America in 1872, where he began working on his submarine design.

At a conference in Cork on Saturday the Christian Brothers Congregation historian, Dr Donal S Blake, said Mr Holland was interested in the possibilities of flight but such was his passion in developing submarines that he allowed his other hobby to go on the backburner.

The conference at the National Maritime College in Ringaskiddy heard Mr Holland was chastised on occasions for his teaching skills arising out of his preoccupation with invention. He was encouraged in Cork by a like-minded Christian Brother but other schools complained that his creative mind distracted from his obligations as a teacher.

Dr Blake said Mr Holland found the teaching of ordinary subjects almost “intolerably boring.” While employed in Drogheda he constructed a mechanical duck that would walk across water and simulate swimming in the school pond.

The postulator for Blessed Edmund Rice told conference attendees that Mr Holland may well have taken his final vows as a Christian Brother only for a conflict with a member of the order.

His move to the US was also influenced by the fact that his brother Michael had become involved in the Fenian fight and had emigrated Stateside to avoid arrest by the British authorities.

Bruce Balistrieri, curator of the Paterson Museum in New Jersey, gave a presentation about Holland’s subsequent submarine work.

Two prototypes of Holland’s work, the Holland 1 & Holland 2, are still on display in Paterson Museum.

Mr Balistrieri said Holland would also undoubtedly have been a significant force in relation to the development of airplanes only for the ill health which dogged the latter half of his life.