Ireland blazed a trail with telescope manufacture in the 19th century, now it's a world player in optical research, writes Dick Ahlstrom
Dublin was an international centre for the design and manufacture of world-class telescopes during the 19th century. Now the Republic is a major world player in optical research in areas as diverse as medicine, computer communications and materials science.
Optics in its broadest sense was the focus of a three-day international conference at the RDS in Dublin which ended yesterday. Ireland now hosts Opto-Ireland every other year, one of the main regional events backed by SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering.
"Optics is very strong in Ireland," says chairman of the Opto Ireland 2005 organising committee Dr John Sheridan. "We are players. There is a lot being done but lots to be done."
Dr Sheridan is a senior lecturer in UCD's department of electronic and electrical engineering. He and Opto Ireland 2005 conference chairman Dr Norman McMillan of the Institute of Technology Carlow had a hectic time preparing for this international event. It hosted more than 500 delegates listening to 250 talks by specialists from 30 countries.
The conference and SPIE are designed to support research, development and commercialisation of optics in all its many forms, says Sheridan. "It is all about applied optics and optical engineering."
SPIE is a huge organisation with 25,000 members worldwide. It includes a balance of academics and industrial members, says Dr Sheridan. Ireland won the right to stage one of its regional conferences with 2005 being the second Opto Ireland event.
The three-day meeting is broken up into a series of sessions relating to optics as applied to a variety of sectors. There were sessions on spectroscopy, biomedical uses of optics, new materials and optical education to name a few. There were also sessions on the business development of optics and commercial opportunities, says Dr Sheridan.
To mark the event, Dr Sheridan and his organising team last week unveiled a plaque to the man who single-handedly made Ireland a world centre for telescope manufacture during the 19th century, Thomas Grubb.
Grubb (1800-1878) was a self-taught Quaker mechanic from Co Waterford. By the 1830s he had established an engineering works at the Grand Canal in Dublin near the Charlemont Bridge.
Among other things, his works produced cast-iron beds for billiard tables and machinery for printing and numbering bank notes. Such was Grubb's proficiency with the latter that from 1840 until his death he was the engineer to the Bank of Ireland.
While metal works was his business, his hobby was astronomy and accordingly he built a 9-inch reflecting telescope for himself. This caught the eye of the then director of Armagh Observatory, Rev Thomas Romney Robinson, which in turn led to a commission. Grubb was asked to mount a 13.3-inch lens, the largest then in existence, for Edward Cooper of Markree Castle, Co Sligo.
Grubb began to make telescopes for observatories at Armagh, Dunsink, Greenwich and the US Military Academy at West Point. His mirror support system was used in the great telescope at Birr Castle, the Leviathan.
Grubb innovated in the development of the mounts, movements and designs for his devices. He also designed the grinding and polishing machinery needed to produce lenses from five to 28 inches in diameter and the metallic mirrors used in his telescopes.
In 1866 Melbourne Observatory ordered a 48-inch reflecting telescope from Grubb, forcing him to upsize to a bigger works in Rathmines. Dubbed the "Great Melbourne Telescope" this success led to further commissions to build some of the largest telescopes then available including a 27-inch refractor for Vienna and seven 13-inch photographic telescopes for the Carte du Ciel project to map the heavens.
Grubb died in 1878 but the firm continued under his son Howard, who invented a submarine periscope for the British navy. The company moved to London during the first World War for security reasons, causing the closure of the Rathmines works. All that remains there today to indicate what went before is a street name, Observatory Lane, off Rathmines Road.
The firm was liquidated in the post-war depression, but was rescued by Sir Charles Parsons, the youngest son of the third Earl of Rosse, the Earl who had built the Leviathan. The company was back in business as Grubb-Parsons and went on to build many large telescopes, the last being the 4.2-metre William Herschel Telescope for La Palma Observatory in the 1980s. The firm finally closed in 1985, more than 150 years after it all began on the banks of the Grand Canal.
The plaque honouring this famous Irishman is at the site of Grubb's first engineering works and observatory on Canal Road, Dublin 6, now the headquarters of the Construction Industry Federation. It was unveiled last Thursday by Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan TD .