seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Union with Great Britain (1801-1912)


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Birth of Walter Frederick Osborne, Landscape & Portrait Painter

Walter Frederick Osborne, impressionist and Post-Impressionism landscape and portrait painter, is born in Rathmines, Dublin on June 17, 1859.

Most of Osborne’s paintings are figurative and focus on women, children, the elderly, the poor, and the day-to-day life of ordinary people on Dublin streets, as well as series of rural scenes. He also produces city-scapes, which he paints from both sketches and photographs. A prolific artist, he produces oils, watercolours, and numerous pencil sketches. He is best known for his documentary depictions of late 19th century working class life.

Osborne is the second of three sons of William Osborne, a successful animal painter who specialises in portraying horses and dogs for the then prosperous Irish landlords. He is educated at Rathmines School and at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) school. He learns from his father that there is money to be earned from painting animals. He produces quite a few, including of children with their pets, notably his 1885 A New Arrival, and a series of impressionistic works on cows.

Osborne wins the Taylor Prize in 1881 and 1882, the highest student honour in Ireland of the time, while studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He is influenced by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, and the French realist, plein-air painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage, as well as Berthe Morisot.

In 1883, Osborne moves from Antwerp to Brittany where he paints his famous Apple Gathering, Quimperlé, now in the National Gallery of Ireland. Soon after, he moves to England where he works alongside Nathaniel Hill and Augustus Burke at Walberswick. During his period, he often returns to Dublin to make preparatory sketches for what becomes his most renowned series, of the everyday lives of the city’s poor. Although highly regarded today, these documentary street paintings are not commercially successful, and Osborne supplements his income through portrait paintings of the middle class, which are not as artistically satisfying.

In 1886, he is elected to the Royal Hibernian Academy and receives many commissions for portraits. This is an important source of income, as he has no private means of his own. After his sister dies, he is involved in looking after her daughter, and his own parents become increasingly financially dependent on him.

In 1892, he returns to Ireland to live in the family residence, and he also keeps a studio at No. 7 St. Stephen’s Green. He spends a considerable amount of time painting outdoors, in Dublin around St. Patrick’s Cathedral or in the country. He is well liked in social circles and counts the surgeon Sir Thornely Stoker, brother of Bram Stoker, among his best friends.

Osborne’s mother becomes ill in the early 1900s, and Walter spends significant periods caring for her. In 1903, while gardening, he overheats himself and catches a chill, which he neglects, and which develops into pneumonia. He dies prematurely from the illness at the age of 43 on April 24, 1903. He is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.

Some critics have suggested that at the time of his death he is on the brink of his artistic maturity. His final work Tea in the Garden, a fusion of naturalism and impressionism, remains unfinished at his death and is now in the collection of the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. Today his work is highly sought after by collectors.


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Birth of Charles Wood, Composer & Teacher

Charles Wood, composer and teacher, is born in Vicars’ Hill in the Cathedral precincts of Armagh, County Armagh on June 15, 1866. His pupils include Ralph Vaughan Williams at Cambridge and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music. For most of his adult life he lives in England, but preserves a lively interest in Ireland.

Wood is the fifth child and third son of Charles Wood, Sr. and Jemima Wood. He is a treble chorister in the choir of the nearby St. Patrick’s Cathedral. His father sings tenor as a stipendiary “Gentleman” or “Lay Vicar Choral” in the Cathedral choir and is also the Diocesan Registrar of the church. He is a cousin of Irish composer Ina Boyle.

Wood receives his early education at the Cathedral Choir School and also studies organ with two Organists and Masters of the Boys of Armagh Cathedral, Robert Turle and his successor Dr. Thomas Marks. In 1883 he becomes one of fifty inaugural class members of the Royal College of Music, studying composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry primarily, and horn and piano secondarily. Following four years of training, he continues his studies at Selwyn College, Cambridge through 1889, where he begins teaching harmony and counterpoint.

In 1889 he attains a teaching position at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, first as organ scholar and then as fellow in 1894, becoming the first Director of Music and Organist. He is instrumental in the reflowering of music at the college, though more as a teacher and organiser of musical events than as composer. After Stanford dies in 1924, Wood assumes his mentor’s vacant role as Professor of Music in the University of Cambridge.

Like his better-known colleague Stanford, Wood is chiefly remembered for his Anglican church music. As well as his Communion Service in the Phrygian mode, his settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis are still popular with cathedral and parish church choirs, particularly the services in F, D, and G, and the two settings in E flat. During Passiontide his St. Mark Passion is sometimes performed, and demonstrates Wood’s interest in modal composition, in contrast to the late romantic harmonic style he more usually employs.

Wood’s anthems with organ, Expectans expectavi, and O Thou, the Central Orb are both frequently performed and recorded, as are his unaccompanied anthems Tis the day of Resurrection, Glory and Honour and, most popular of all, Hail, gladdening light and its lesser-known equivalent for men’s voices, Great Lord of Lords. All of Wood’s a cappella music demonstrates fastidious craftsmanship and a supreme mastery of the genre, and he is no less resourceful in his accompanied choral works which sometimes include unison sections and have stirring organ accompaniments, conveying a satisfying warmth and richness of emotional expression appropriate to his carefully chosen texts.

Wood collaborates with priest and poet George Ratcliffe Woodward in the revival and popularisation of renaissance tunes to new English religious texts, notably co-editing three books of carols. He also writes eight string quartets, and is co-founder of the Irish Folk Song Society in 1904.

He marries Charlotte Georgina Wills-Sandford, daughter of W. R. Wills-Sandford, of Castlerea, County Roscommon on March 17, 1898. Their son is killed in World War I.

Charles Wood dies on July 12, 1926 and is buried at the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge alongside his wife.


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The Broad Street Riot

The Broad Street Riot, a massive brawl between Irish Americans and Yankee firefighters, occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 11, 1837. At the time of this particular riot, nearly all of Boston’s firefighters are volunteers.

Boston is a major center for immigration in the 19th century due to its large seaport. Nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment is strong, especially among working-class men whose jobs and wages are threatened by an influx of poor Irish immigrants. On Broad Street, it is common for groups of nativist Yankees to vandalize Irish homes and attack lone Irishmen.

At about 3:00 PM on Sunday, June 11, 1837, Fire Engine Company 20 returns to their station on East Street from a fire at the Boston Neck. Some of the men go straight home from there, however most stop at a nearby pub for drinks. The pub is apparently operating illegally as it is a Sunday and, in Massachusetts, blue laws are then in effect.

The men have just emerged from the pub “in a more or less bellicose mood,” when they collide with a crowd of about a hundred Irishmen who are on their way to join a large funeral procession on Sea Street. Nearly all of the firefighters pass through the crowd without incident, however, when 19-year-old George Fay, who has reportedly had too much to drink, insults or shoves several of the Irishmen, and a fight breaks out. Fay’s friends rush to his aid, but the firemen are outnumbered and are badly beaten. Their foreman, W.W. Miller, orders them back into the firehouse.

By some accounts, the Irishmen then take over the firehouse. According to others, the crowd had begun to disperse, and the matter might have ended there had the foreman not “lost his head completely.” In any case, Miller orders his men to sound the emergency alarm. First, they roll their wagon into the street, ringing the fire alarm bell. Then Miller sends men to ring the church bells, summoning all the fire engines in Boston. According to the Boston Transcript, Miller then runs to another firehouse, shouting, “The Irish have risen upon us, and are going to kill us!”

Company 9, responding to what they think is a legitimate fire alarm, arrives just as the funeral procession is turning onto New Broad Street. Their horse-drawn wagon veers into the crowd, scattering and knocking down the mourners. The Irish assume the assault is deliberate, and another brawl erupts. As more fire companies arrive, and Irishmen pour out of nearby houses into the street to help their friends and relatives, the fight escalates into a full-blown riot. Before long, an estimated 800 men are doing battle with sticks, stones, bricks, and cudgels while at least 10,000 more urged them on. Protestant workmen come running to the aid of the firefighters, while underfoot, injured and unconscious men lay sprawled on the pavement.

Outnumbered, the Irish are defeated and driven back to their homes. That is when the home invasions begin. A “gang of stout boys and loafers” raid nearby houses, breaking doors and windows, and in some cases beating the occupants. Furniture and other possessions are destroyed and thrown into the street. Some Irish families lose their homes altogether.

After raging for about three hours, the riot is quelled when Mayor Samuel Atkins Eliot calls in the National Lancers, a newly formed cavalry company, and some 800 other members of the state militia with fixed bayonets. Among them are the Montgomery Guards, a short-lived Irish American infantry company which is forced to disband the following year due to the extreme nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment in Boston.

No immediate deaths result from the violence. Many people suffer serious wounds, however, and there is no nearby hospital to care for them. Given the lack of hospital and police records, the number of people who eventually die of their injuries cannot be determined. Thousands of dollars in damage are done to property belonging to some of the city’s poorest inhabitants.

The militia, being composed nearly entirely of Yankees, arrest 34 Irishmen and 4 Yankees. A grand jury indicts 14 of the Irishmen and all four of the Yankees. At the municipal court trial, a Yankee jury acquits the four Yankees and convicts four Irishmen, three of whom are sentenced to several months of hard labor.

Three months later, in September, Mayor Eliot establishes a professional, paid fire department, with all new hires requiring the approval of the mayor and aldermen. The Boston Police Department is established the following year.


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Birth of Brian Coffey, Poet & Publisher

Brian Coffey, Irish poet and publisher, is born in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin on June 8, 1905. His work is informed by his Catholicism and by his background in science and philosophy, and his connection to surrealism. For these reasons, he is seen as being closer to an intellectual European Catholic tradition than to mainstream Irish Catholic culture.

Coffey attends the Mount St. Benedict boarding school in Gorey, County Wexford from 1917 to 1919 and then Clongowes Wood College, in Clane, County Kildare from 1919 until 1922. In 1923, he goes to France to study for the Bachelor’s degree in Classical Studies at the Institution St. Vincent, Senlis, Oise. While still at college, Coffey begins writing poetry. He publishes his first poems in University College Dublin‘s The National Student under the pseudonym Coeuvre.

In the early 1930s, Coffey moves to Paris where he studies Physical Chemistry under Jean Baptiste Perrin, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1926. He completes these studies in 1933, and his Three Poems is printed in Paris by Jeanette Monnier that same year. In 1934 he enters the Institut Catholique de Paris to work with the noted French philosopher Jacques Maritain, taking his licentiate examination in 1936. He then moves to London for a time and contributes reviews and a poem to T.S. Eliot‘s The Criterion magazine. He returns to Paris in 1937 as an exchange student to work on his doctoral thesis on the idea of order in the work of Thomas Aquinas. In 1938, Coffey’s second volume of poetry, Third Person, is published by George Reavey‘s Europa Press.

During the war, Coffey teaches in schools in London and Yorkshire, leaving his young family in Dublin. After the war, he returns to Paris and completes his doctoral thesis. The family then moves so that Coffey can take up a teaching post at the Jesuit Saint Louis University.

By the early 1950s, Coffey becomes uncomfortable for a number of reasons, including the nature of his work, his distance from Ireland and the pressures that inevitably come to bear on an academic who has previously associated with well-known left-wing writers in Paris. For these reasons, he resigns in 1952.

In 1952, Coffey returns to live in London and, from 1973, Southampton. He begins again to publish his poetry and translations, mainly of French poetry. The first work in English to appear after this period of silence is Missouri Sequence, apparently begun in St. Louis but first appearing in the University Review, later known as the Irish University Review, in 1962.

Over the next decade or so, he publishes regularly in the University Review. He also sets up his own publishing enterprise, Advent Press, which publishes work by himself and by younger writers he wants to support.

Brian Coffey dies at the age of 89 on April 14, 1995, and is buried in Southampton, England.


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Birth of James Connolly, Republican & Socialist Leader

James Connolly, Irish republican and socialist leader, is born to Irish-born parents in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, Scotland, on June 5, 1868. He spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life.

Connolly has an education up to the age of about ten in the local Catholic primary school. He then leaves and works in labouring jobs. Due to economic difficulties, he joins the British Army at age 14, falsifying his age and giving his name as Reid. He serves in Ireland with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Scots Regiment for nearly seven years, during a turbulent period in rural areas known as the Land War.

Connolly develops a deep hatred for the British Army that lasts his entire life. Upon hearing that his regiment is being transferred to India, he deserts. He meets a young woman by the name of Lillie Reynolds, and they marry in April 1890, settling in Edinburgh. There, Connolly begins to get involved in the Scottish Socialist Federation, but with a young family to support, he needs a way to provide for them. He briefly establishes a cobbler‘s shop in 1895, but this fails after a few months.

By 1892 Connolly is involved in the Scottish Socialist Federation, acting as its secretary from 1895. During this time, he becomes involved with the Independent Labour Party which Keir Hardie had formed in 1893.

Connolly and his family move to Dublin, where he takes up the position of full-time secretary for the Dublin Socialist Club. At his instigation, the club quickly evolved into the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP). The ISRP is regarded by many Irish historians as a party of pivotal importance in the early history of Irish socialism and republicanism.

While active as a socialist in Great Britain, Connolly is the founding editor of The Socialist newspaper and is among the founders of the Socialist Labour Party which splits from the Social Democratic Federation in 1903.

A combination of frustration with the progress of the ISRP and economic necessity causes Connolly to emigrate to the United States in September 1903. While in America he was a member of the Socialist Labor Party of America (1906), the Socialist Party of America (1909) and the Industrial Workers of the World, and founded the Irish Socialist Federation in New York City, 1907.

On his return to Ireland in 1910 he is right-hand man to fellow-syndicalist James Larkin in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. In 1913, in response to the Great Dublin Lockout, he, along with an ex-British officer, Jack White, found the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), an armed and well-trained body of labour men whose aim is to defend workers and strikers, particularly from the frequent brutality of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. He also founds the Irish Labour Party as the political wing of the Irish Trade Union Congress in 1912 and is a member of its National Executive.

When the Easter Rising begins on April 24, 1916, Connolly is Commandant of the Dublin Brigade. As the Dublin Brigade has the most substantial role in the rising, he is de facto commander-in-chief. His leadership in the Easter Rising is considered formidable. Michael Collins says of Connolly that he “would have followed him through hell.”

Connolly is sentenced to death by firing squad for his part in the rising. On May 12, 1916, he is taken by military ambulance to Royal Hospital Kilmainham, across the road from Kilmainham Gaol, and from there taken to the gaol, where he is to be executed.

Connolly has been so badly injured from the fighting that he is unable to stand before the firing squad. He is carried to a prison courtyard on a stretcher. Instead of being marched to the same spot where the others had been executed, at the far end of the execution yard, he is tied to a chair and then shot.

His body, along with those of the other leaders, is put in a mass grave without a coffin. The executions of the rebel leaders deeply anger the majority of the Irish population, most of whom had shown no support during the rebellion. It is Connolly’s execution that causes the most controversy. The executions are not well received, even throughout Britain, and draw unwanted attention from the United States, which the British Government is seeking to bring into the war in Europe. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith orders that no more executions are to take place, an exception being that of Roger Casement as he has not yet been tried.


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Birth of Illustrator Hugh Thomson

Hugh Thomson, illustrator, is born on Kingsgate Street, Coleraine, County Londonderry on June 1, 1860. He is best known for his pen-and-ink illustrations of works by authors such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and J. M. Barrie.

Thomson is born to tea merchant John Thomson (1822–1894) and shopkeeper Catherine (née Andrews). He is the eldest of their three surviving children. Although he has no formal artistic training, as a young boy he often fills his schoolbooks with drawings of horses, dogs, and ships. He attends Coleraine Model School, but leaves at the age of fourteen to work as a clerk at E. Gribbon & Sons, Linen Manufacturers. Several years later his artistic talents are discovered, and in 1877 he is hired by printing and publishing company Marcus Ward & Co.

On December 29, 1884 Thomson marries Jessie Naismith Miller in Belfast. Soon afterwards they move back to London for Thomson’s career. They have one son together, John, born in 1886.

In 1911, he and his family move to Sidcup, hoping to improve their “ever delicate health.” Thomson’s correspondence reflects the fact that he misses being close to the National Gallery and the museums where he usually compiles research for his illustrations. During World War I, demand for Thomson’s work decreases to a few propaganda pamphlets and some commissions from friends. By 1917, Thomson has fallen on financial hardship and he has to take a job with the Board of Trade, where he works until 1919.

Hugh Thomson dies of heart disease at his home at 8 Patten Road in Wandsworth Common, London, on May 7, 1920.


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Birth of Eva Gore-Booth, Suffragist & Sister of Countess Markievicz

Eva Selina Laura Gore-Booth, poet and dramatist, and a committed suffragist, social worker and labour activist, is born at Lissadell House, County Sligo, on May 22, 1870. She is the younger sister of Constance Gore-Booth, later known as the Countess Markievicz.

The work of Gore-Booth, alongside that of Esther Roper, the English woman who would become her lifelong companion, is responsible for the close link between the struggle for women’s rights in industry and the struggle for women’s right to vote. As a middle-class suffragist representing Manchester, the work of Gore-Booth is mainly recognized in the Lancashire cotton towns from 1899 to 1913. Her struggle begins when she becomes a member of the executive committee of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Carrying out work at the Ancoats settlement, Eva becomes co-secretary of the Manchester and Salford Women’s Trade Union Council.

In 1902 Gore-Booth campaigns at the Clitheroe by-election on behalf of David Shackleton, a Labour candidate who promises her that he would show support for the women’s enfranchisement. Shackleton is elected but does not act upon his promise. This leads to the founding of the Lancashire and Cheshire Women Textile and Other Worker’s Representation Committee by Gore-Booth, Esther Roper and Sarah Reddish. When the Women’s Trade Union Council refuses to make women’s suffrage one of its aims, Gore-Booth resigns from the council.

In 1902 Gore-Booth campaigns at the Clitheroe by-election on behalf of David Shackleton, a Labour candidate who promises her that he would show support for the women’s enfranchisement. Shackleton is elected but does not act upon his promise. This leads to the founding of the Lancashire and Cheshire Women Textile and Other Worker’s Representation Committee by Gore-Booth, Esther Roper and Sarah Reddish. When the Women’s Trade Union Council refuses to make women’s suffrage one of its aims, Gore-Booth resigns from the council.

In 1907 Gore-Booth, reluctant to give up hope, contributes an essay “The Women’s Suffrage Movement Among Trade Unionists” to The Case for Women’s Suffrage. In this essay Eva gives a summary of reasons for the methods of the LCWTOW campaign to gain a vote for working women.

As World War I breaks out, Gore-Booth and Esther Roper take up welfare work among German women and children in England. Gore-Booth becomes a member of the Women’s Peace Crusade in 1915 and the No-Conscription Fellowship in 1916.

When Gore-Booth embarks on her writing career she is visited by William Butler Yeats who is very much taken with her work. Yeats hopes that she will take up his cause of writing Irish tales to enchant and amuse. Instead, Eva takes Irish folklore and put emphasis on the females in the story. Her widely discussed sexuality in later years is never declared but her poetry reflects it quite overtly. Gore-Booth is also one of a group of editors of the magazine Urania that publishes three issues per year from 1916 to 1940. It is a feminist magazine that reprints stories and poems from all over the world with editorial comment.

After years of playing a lead role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and fighting for equality of women’s rights in the UK as well as staying true to her literary roots, Gore-Booth and Roper relocate to London from Manchester in 1913 due to Gore-Booth’s deteriorating respiratory health.

Just weeks after the 1916 Easter Rising, Gore-Booth travels to Dublin accompanied by Roper and is pivotal in the efforts to reprieve the death sentence of her sister Constance Markievicz awarded for her instrumental role in the rising, which is successfully converted to a life sentence. She further campaigns to abolish the death sentence overall and to reform prison standards. She attends the trial of Irish nationalist and fellow poet Roger Casement thus showing solidarity and support for the overturning of his death sentence.

During the remaining years of her life, which is claimed by cancer on June 30, 1926, Gore-Booth remains devoted to her poetry, dedicates time to her artistic talents as a painter, studies the Greek language and is known as a supporter of animal rights. She dies in her home in Hampstead, London, which she shares with Roper until her passing. She is buried alongside Roper in St. John’s churchyard, Hampstead.


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Birth of Thomas Henry Wyatt, Anglo-Irish Architect

Thomas Henry Wyatt, Anglo-Irish architect, is born at Lough-Glin House, County Roscommon, on May 9, 1807.

Wyatt has a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1870–1873) and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1873. His reputation during his lifetime is largely as a safe establishment figure, and critical assessment has been less favourable more recently, particularly in comparison with his younger brother, the better-known Matthew Digby Wyatt.

Wyatt’s father, Matthew Wyatt (1773–1831), is a barrister and police magistrate for Roscommon and Lambeth. Wyatt is presumed to have moved to Lambeth with his father in 1825 and then initially embarks on a career as a merchant sailing to the Mediterranean, particularly Malta.

Wyatt marries his first cousin Arabella Montagu Wyatt (1807–1875). She is the second daughter of his uncle Arthur who is agent to the Duke of Beaufort. This consolidates his practice in Wales. He lives at and practises from 77 Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury, London.

Wyatt’s early training is in the office of Philip Hardwick where he works until 1832, and is involved in work on Goldsmith’s Hall, Euston Station and the warehouses at St. Katharine Docks.

Wyatt begins practice on his own account in 1832 when he is appointed District Surveyor for Hackney, a post he holds until 1861. By 1838 he has acquired substantial patronage from the Duke of Beaufort, the Earl of Denbigh and Sidney Herbert and David Brandon join him as partner. This partnership lasts until 1851. Wyatt’s son Matthew (1840–1892) becomes his father’s partner in 1860.

Wyatt works in many styles ranging from the Italianate of Wilton through to the Gothic of many of his churches. His practice is extensive with a large amount of work in Wiltshire largely as a result of his official position and the patronage of the Herbert family and in Monmouthshire through the Beaufort connection.

Thomas Henry Wyatt dies at his Great Russell Street home on August 5, 1880, leaving an estate of £30,000. He is buried at St. Lawrence’s Church, Weston Patrick.


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Birth of Artist William Conor

Artist William Conor is born on May 6, 1881, in the Old Lodge Road area of north Belfast, the son of a wrought-iron worker.

Celebrated for his warm and sympathetic portrayals of working-class life in Ulster, Conor studies at the Government School of Design in Belfast in the 1890s. His artistic talents are recognized at the early age of ten when a teacher of music, Louis Mantell, notices the merit of his chalk drawings and arranges for him to attend the College of Art.

Conor initially works as a commercial artist, before being commissioned during World War I by the British government to produce official records of soldiers and munitions workers.

Conor moves to London in 1920 and there meets and socialises with such artists as Sir John Lavery and Augustus John. He exhibits at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1921 and in Dublin at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) from 1918–1967, showing nearly 200 works.

Conor is one of the first Academicians when the Belfast Art Society becomes the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1930. He becomes an Associate RHA in 1938 and a full member in 1946. Exhibitions at the Victor Waddington Galleries are held in 1944 and 1948. In 1952 he is awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and in 1957 he is elected President of the Royal Ulster Academy, an office he holds until 1964.

More than 50 works of his in crayon and watercolour are in the permanent collections of the Ulster Museum.

(Pictured: Bronze statue of William Conor at Conor’s Corner, Shankill Road, Belfast)


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Birth of William Frederick Archdall Ellison, Clergyman & Astronomer

Reverend William Frederick Archdall Ellison FRAS, Irish clergyman, Hebrew scholar, organist, avid amateur telescope maker, and, from 1918 to 1936, director of Armagh Observatory in Armagh, Northern Ireland, is born on April 28, 1864. He is the father of Mervyn A. Ellison, the senior professor of the School of Cosmic Physics at Dunsink Observatory from 1958 to 1963.

Ellison comes from a clerical family, his father Humphrey Eakins Ellison having been Dean of Ferns, County Wexford. He gains a sizarship of classics at Trinity College, Dublin in 1883, becomes a Scholar of the House in 1886 and graduates in 1887 with junior moderatorships in classics and experimental science. In 1890 he takes Holy Orders and moves to England, where he becomes the Curate of Tudhoe and Monkwearmouth. In 1894 he takes his MA and BD degrees and in the following year wins the Elrington Theological Prize.

In 1899 he returns to Ireland to become secretary of the Sunday School Society, a post which he holds for three years before accepting the incumbency of Monart, Enniscorthy, moving in 1908 to become Rector of Fethard-on-Sea with Tintern in Wexford. Ellison develops an interest in astronomy, having been introduced to practical optics by Dr. N. Alcock of Dublin and sets up his first observatory at Wexford. He becomes highly adept at making lenses and mirrors and writes several books and articles on the subject, including major contributions to the Amateur Telescope Making series, the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, and the weekly newspaper The English Mechanic. His book The Amateur’s Telescope (1920) is still considered a standard for telescope-makers and a forerunner of the more extensive series on the same topic by Albert Graham Ingalls.

On September 2, 1918 Ellison is appointed Director of the Armagh Observatory. He finds the Observatory in a state of disrepair and sets about repairing the instruments and the observatory dome. On January 3, 1919 he deeds a telescope of his own to the observatory, an 18-inch reflecting telescope, which is still there.

Ellison is a highly regarded planetary and binary star observer. Working with his son Mervyn, he makes many measurements of binary stars using the observatory’s 10-inch Grubb refracting telescope and even discovers a new one close to Beta Lyrae, and according to Patrick Moore, is one of the few people to have observed an eclipse of Saturn’s moon Iapetus by Saturn’s outermost ring on February 28, 1919.

In 1934 Ellison becomes Canon and Prebendary of Ballymore, Armagh Cathedral. He dies on December 31, 1936, having held the office of Director of the observatory for nearly twenty years.