Nicholas Callan

Our recent blog post about Harry Ferguson and his inventions show the remarkable engineering and scientific minds that have emerged from Ireland. From County Louth include the name of Nicholas Callan, a priest at Maynooth College whose experiments led to numerous changes which made the world a better place. In 1964 on the centenary of his death the Irish Independent newspaper said this of him:

NICHOLAS CALLAN: PRIEST-SCIENTIST

QUAINT old saint and savant. That is how one of his distinguished pupils described Dr. Nicholas Callan of Maynooth, the priest-scientist, whose death- occurred just a century ago, on January 14, 1864. Today we find the description itself a bit quaint although it comes from the famed ' poet-editor of- the "Irish Monthly", Father Matt Russell, noted discoverer of literary talent. But the genial Jesuit had little knowledge of men of science. It is doubtful If he even understood the importance of Callan in the rehabilitation of Irish Catholics after Emancipation.

One thing Father Matt did see clearly. He saw that Callan was a personality for whom Maynooth had a most extraordinary affection. Students and colleagues were always telling stories about the little, professor from Louth, 'stories not always reverential, but always full of fun and good humour.

Rev. Dr. Callan was noted for his tireless energy and devotion to duty. He set and required high standards. Maynooth men of his time have been charged with Jansenism. Callan was no Jansenist, but he was a rigorist and did not believe in soft options or taking the benefit of the doubt.

He avoided praising his students no matter how well they answered. When on one occasion an involuntary " Very , good, Mister" was wrung from him by brilliant answering, he immediately added, lest he had fanned the student's vanity: "But not as good as you think. Mister."

Callan. was indeed a most generous giver. During the Hungry Forties, he devoted every penny of his salary as a professor to relief schemes. He lived frugally on his private means and denied himself expenditure on apparatus for research. He abandoned his beloved research while the famine period lasted.

He gave his leisure time to translating Liguori's devotional works. He produced at least two volumes a year to feed the presses of the Dublin publisher, James Duffy. This was a contribution to the drive against the rampant proselytisers. Callan did not accept any remuneration for his laborious work except copies of the publications for free distribution among the needy. The books went through one edition after another and were in demand down to the end of the century. In 'his lifetime, modesty kept his name off the title pages.

There is something truly fascinating and inspiring - as there was to his Maynooth pupils—in observing how the wee Louth priest went undaunted after the big effect and kept on discovering how to enhance and exalt the strange force of electricity.

For more information search the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com)