High on Killbeg Hill on Valentia Island, Co Kerry, is a strange concrete structure, a landmark known locally as "Cullum's Cups".
It was erected in 1888 on the instructions of John Edward Cullum, then superintendent of Valentia Observatory, to serve as a base for an electrical anemometer, which was connected by copper wire to a recording apparatus in the observatory.
According to Jackie O'Sullivan's excellent booklet, Valentia Observatory: A History of the Early Years, the instrument was something of a curiosity. It attracted unwelcome attention from local schoolboys, and suffered damage on several occasions as a result of stones being thrown at it. This particular problem was solved, however, by Cullum asking the parish priest to speak about the matter from the pulpit. John Edward Cullum had a longer tenure in charge of Valentia than anyone before or since.
He took over in 1875 when in his early 20s, having been for some time a magnetic assistant at Kew Observatory in London. Indeed two years after his arrival, he supervised the installation of equipment for magnetic observations at Valentia, which have continued at the Observatory ever since.
It was also during his term of office that there occurred perhaps the most significant event in the observatory's history.
The observatory had been established on Valentia in the 1860s, in a rented house on the narrow strait which separates the island from the rest of Kerry, and remained there until March 1892.
But in that year Valentia Observatory moved across the sound to its present site on the mainland near the town of Cahirciveen, retaining for the sake of auld lang syne its traditional name; the name by which, somewhat confusingly, it is still known.
Under Cullum's able stewardship, the new Valentia Observatory was decked out with much of the impressive array of scientific instruments that would make it one of the most important meteorological and geophysical institutes in western Europe.
In addition to the magnetic measurements and the tabulation of autographic records, the number of routine weather observations was increased to seven per day, at two-hourly intervals, which were soon transmitted by electric telegraph.
In 1904 the measurement of upper-level winds was begun using a nephoscope, which allows the speed of movement of the clouds to be calculated, and the chemical analysis of rainfall was also introduced.
Cullum retired from his post in April 1915, having been in charge for more than 40 years. He moved to Oxford, and died there 82 years ago today, on January 11th, 1918.