John Philip Holland
August 12, 1914 (aged 73)
Teacher, Engineer and Inventor
1878–1914
Founder of the Holland Torpedo Boat Company. Designed and built the first practical submarine
John Holland and Mary Scanlan Holland
Many submarine patents, Royal Navy's Mechanical Engineers' Heritage Award[1]
Early life[edit]
Holland, the second of four siblings, all boys, was born in a coastguard cottage in Liscannor, County Clare, Ireland[5] where his father, John Sr., was a member of the Royal Coastguard Service. His mother, a native Irish speaker from Liscannor, Máire Ní Scannláin (aka Mary Scanlan), was John Holland's second wife; his first, Anne Foley Holland, believed to be a native of Kilkee, died in 1835. The area was heavily Irish-speaking and Holland learned English properly only when he attended the local English-speaking St Macreehy's National School, and from 1858, Irish Christian Brothers school in Ennistymon.[6]
Holland joined the Irish Christian Brothers in Limerick and taught in Limerick (CBS Sexton Street) and many other centres in the country including North Monastery CBS in Cork City, St. Mary's CBS, Portlaoise, St Joseph's CBS (Drogheda) and as the first Mathematics teacher in Colaiste Ris (also Dundalk). Due to ill health, he left the Christian Brothers in 1873.[7] Holland migrated to the United States in 1873. Initially working for an engineering firm, he returned to teaching again for a further six years at St. John's Catholic school in Paterson, New Jersey.
Death[edit]
After spending 56 of his 73 years working with submersibles, John Philip Holland died on 12 August 1914, in Newark, New Jersey. He is interred at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Totowa, New Jersey.
Memorial[edit]
A monument stands at the gates of Scholars Townhouse Hotel, Drogheda (the former building of the Christian Brothers school where Holland taught) in commemoration of his work.[12] It was unveiled in a ceremony on 14 June 2014 as part of the Irish Maritime Festival. The ceremony was attended by Drogheda Town Council as well as representatives of the US, British and Japanese governments.[13][14] St. Josephs's Christian Brothers School, where Holland once taught, has been renamed and operates as John P. Holland Charter School in Paterson, New Jersey.[15]
The John P. Holland Centre, is a centre dedicated to the life and work of John P. Holland. It is based in Liscannor, Co. Clare.[16]