How Mallet hit on a seismic shift

SO, at long last, the rogue Gulf of Mexico oil-well has been capped.

1816 was ‘the year of no summer’, 1978 was ‘the year of three popes’ and the ‘9/11’ atrocity defined 2001. Will 2010 be ‘the year of the spillage’? Closer to home, the saga of the Mayo gas pipeline continued but, on the positive side, June 3, saw the 200th anniversary of an Irish scientist whose work proved crucial to oil and gas exploration.

Robert Mallet, the son of a factory owner, was born near Capel Street in Dublin in 1810. After studying engineering he joined the family’s foundry business. The ironwork of the Fastnet Rock lighthouse and the railings around Trinity College have R & J Mallet stamped on them. The firm also produced a giant mortar, which fired a one tonne shell a distance of two and a half kilometres. It was intended for use in the Crimea, but the war there ended before this weapon of mass destruction could be deployed.