Reenellen stands derelict, rising from a tangled mass of hebe and hydrangea, its empty windows gaping at the ocean. Below the house, under the waves lapping Valentia, Co Kerry, a sea anemone, Edwardsia delapiae, may still burrow in the eelgrass - its name a living reminder of one of Reenellen's past occupants, the marine biologist Maude Jane Delap.
The Delaps came to Valentia from Donegal in 1874. Eightyear-old Maude was to pass the remainder of her life on the island, then without a bridge to the mainland. The seventh of ten children, Maude, being a girl, was not destined for formal education. Her father, Rev Alexander Delap, the rector on the island, was a keen naturalist and the girls for the most part were educated at home. In the manner typical of the all-round Victorian naturalist, Maude was interested in archaeology, botany and zoology but her real strength was as a marine biologist.
Scientific debt
In the late 1800s, Valentia was chosen by a group of British naturalists for a study of its marine fauna. The 188 pages of scientific papers presented to the Royal Irish Academy acknowledge their debt to the Misses Delap - Maude and her sister Constance. The group of naturalists, under the direction of Edward T. Browne, was undoubtedly of immense scientific interest to Maude but it was also to bring romance. She fell in love with Browne but he did not return her regard. However, she corresponded with him for more than 40 years until his death in 1937. His letters begin `My dear Miss Delap" and end "Yours very sincerely, Edward T. Browne" and, in turn, hers begin, "My dear Mr Browne" and end "Yours very sincerely, Maude J. Delap." Each year, from 1896 to 1937, she sent him a box of violets on his birthday.
After the study of the harbour was completed, and Browne returned to Britain, Maude and Constance continued to collect specimens using a tow-net from an open boat, which they rowed alone. "Aunt Maude was remarkably tough, and enjoyed handling a boat in the dangerous, remote sea-caves on Doulous head," according to her nephew, Peter Delap. Constance and Maude published the fruits of their observations in two papers on the plankton of Valentia harbour covering the periods 1899 to 1901 and 1902 to 1905. During the early years of this century, in addition to her fieldwork, Maude successfully reared Chrysaora isosceles, a jellyfish, to maturity in a bell jar. Through these and other jellyfish rearing experiments, she elucidated their life cycle. Maude worked in a room in Reenellen, remembered by her nephew as a "heroic jumble of books, specimens, and aquaria, with its pervasive smell of low tide".
In 1906, the Rev Delap died. Some time before his death, Maude was offered a post in the marine biological station in Plymouth. Her father's reaction was "no daughter of mine will leave home, except as a married woman". The three unmarried sisters, Maude, Constance, Mary, and their mother lived out the remainder of their lives in Reenellen, a house without electricity or central heating.
Trade in lilies and gladioli
Turf fires, candles and oil lights were the order of the day, remembers Maude's niece, Molly Friel. The family was virtually self-sufficient, growing their own vegetables and fruit and keeping two cows. Carrageen was a daily part of the diet. Maude augmented the family income by a small seasonal trade in arum lilies and gladioli.
Age did not dampen Maude's enthusiasm for marine life, and in the 1920s, on hearing of a whale which had been thrown up on the rocks beyond the lighthouse, she set out accompanied by her handyman, Mike. The rare True's beaked whale was about 16 feet long, probably weighed a ton or two, and was beginning to decay. Maude notified the Natural History Museum by letter (she never used the telephone) and was asked to cut off the head and flippers and send them to the museum as soon as possible and to bury the rest in the safe place. She and some helpers butchered the whale and carted it to the garden at Reenellen. The head and flippers were duly dispatched and the remainder of the carcass was buried in the asparagus bed. A couple of years later, a letter arrived from the museum asking for the remaining bones. Up came the asparagus and a large number of still smelly bones were despatched to the museum. Then a letter came saying that two small bones, the vestigial pelvic bones were missing. Once more, the asparagus was upturned and Maude excavated and sieved until a telegram arrived from the museum: "Stop! New York Museum informs us that True's beaked whale does not possess vestigial pelvic bones".
In 1928, the sea anemone which Maude had first found burrowing in the eelgrass was named after her.
Mockery of maidens
The Delap sisters continued to wear their full Victorian skirts long after Victoria had died. Islander Nora O Suilleabh ain remembers: "On our island, old maids have always been the subject of sharp mockery, but spinsters who flirted with the anterior eyes, papillae, glands, cephalic or other grooves of pelagic crustacea defeated the man's penchant for coining nicknames". Maude died on July 23rd, 1953, the last survivor of the Reenellen household. She had a huge collection of specimens, mostly jellyfish, which she left to her great-nephew. They were preserved in five per cent formalin in sea water but, in her extreme old age, she was unable to renew the preservative and it evaporated. Her great-nephew found a large number of bottles and jars with sludge left at the bottom. Many wheelbarrowloads were dumped in a large pit near the front door.
Maude is buried in a small graveyard close to Knightstown, where Reenellen now stands vacant. The story of Maude and other Irish women scientists and pioneers is told in Stars, Shells and Bluebells. Published today by Women in Technology and Science (ISBN 0-953 1 953-0-9), the book has a foreword by former president and WITS patron, Mary Robinson, and is the work of a group of women scientists and writers. And here I must declare a vested interest as the chapters on Maude Jane Delap and Annie Letitia Massey (another formidable marine biologist but an elusive woman) are mine.