Irish Inventions

If you were to ask for some information about Irish inventions, you would no doubt hear some kind of stereotypical jokes on the subject. The fact of the matter is, however, that there are many inventions that have been developed by the Irish that continue to affect us today. Although there are too many Irish inventions to mention in a single article, there are some noteworthy ones that deserve a little bit of space.

Something that is used today in science is the Beaufort wind force scale. This is simply a way of being able to measure wind speed, depending on the naval conditions that are observed. It was invented by Sir Francis Beaufort who was an admiral in the British Navy. Although this is considered to be one of the more interesting Irish inventions that came about through time, the fact of the matter is that it was nothing new. This particular way of measuring wind speed had been used for many years but what Francis Beaufort did was to make it a standard way of measuring it.

If you have ever observed high speed photography in order to see how things move in slow motion, you have a man by the name of Lucien Bull to thank for that. He was born in Dublin Ireland in the late 1800s and became involved in the study of photography in order to view motion. Eventually, he developed several different items which helped to take pictures at a speed which would allow an individual to view what was going on in slow motion.

John Phillip Holland came up with a number of different Irish inventions, many of which surrounded the development of the submarine. These included such things as the screw propeller which drives the submarine, a hydrocarbon engine, the submarine gun and various other things, such as a firing bow, auto ballast and an auto drive mechanism. Interestingly enough, he immigrated to the United States and developed a submarine prototype which was far ahead of its time. The United States Navy turned down the idea, however, saying that it was unworkable. Holland went on to develop his own submarine and it was the first that was able to travel long distances underwater.