Irish Astronomers

Markree Telescope

The telescope mounted at Markree in 1834 by Thomas Grubb, who went on to make telescopes for the world's greatest observatories. Markree Castle is now a hotel.

Markree Telescope

Markree Telescope

The telescope mounted at Markree in 1834 by Thomas Grubb, who went on to make telescopes for the world's greatest observatories. Markree Castle is now a hotel.

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Many other 19th-century Irish people had private observatories and made contributions to astronomy. One of the first was established at Markree Castle, Co Sligo, by Edward Cooper in 1830. He and his assistant Andrew Graham spent eight years measuring the positions of an astonishing 60,000 stars and their groundbreaking catalogue was published in London by the Royal Society. Markree Castle is now a hotel.

An observatory built at Daramona estate in Co Westmeath, by William Wilson in 1871, is remembered for obtaining the first reliable temperature estimate of the Sun's visible surface, and for pioneering experiments to measure the brightness of stars in the 1890s.

Women were interested in astronomy too, and among those we remember are Lady Margaret Huggins, who collaborated with her husband, noted English astronomer Sir William Huggins, in studying the composition of stars and early astrophysics. Mary Ward was a writer who popularised the use of telescopes and microscopes. And Agnes Clerke who was "the chief astronomical writer of her day" and whose ambitious book, Problems in Astrophysics (1903), influenced the new field of astrophysics.