Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Dunsink Observatory
Did you know that Ireland has a ‘space centre’? It is called Dunsink Observatory and is located
on a hill just west of Finglas, near Dunsink Lane. Here you can gaze into space, observe
the stars and ask questions about astronomy.
Dunsink Observatory was built from 1783 until 1785 which means that it is the oldest scientific
institution in Ireland. At that time Dunsink was far away from the noise and lights of
the city and a perfectly dark location for observing the stars and planets.
William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865), one of Ireland’s greatest scientists, was a director
of Dunsink Observatory. He became professor of astronomy when he was only 21 years old
but he preferred mathematics to astronomy and left most of the observational work to
his children and his sister.
However his interest in mathematics was very important for us today . For, one day as he
was walking near Broom bridge in Cabra, he had a flash of inspiration which led to his
discovery of “quaternions” in mathematics. He was so excited that he had to write his
ideas down so he scratched them into the bridge, and you can still see them today. The really
good news is that these mathematics were used to invent the 3-D computer graphics for Lara
Croft in Tomb Raider, and many more!
From 1880 until 1916 Dunsink controlled the time for the whole of Ireland. Back then,
Ireland did not have one time, and clocks ran differently in Cork, Dublin, Belfast,
and Galway. Dublin time was called ‘Dublin Mean Time’ and was established on 2 August
1880. The ‘Dublin Mean Time’ ran 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind London until October
1916 when the time used in Ireland was changed to British time.
By the 1920s the observatory was in decline and finally closed. It reopened in 1947 and
became part of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
In 1988 Dunsink was involved in the first Irish Space experiment aboard the shuttle
Challenger.
Scientific research continued at Dunsink until 2005 when the observatory was converted into
a museum. You can still visit it if you make an appointment, or your school can go there
on special trips in the day or evening.