The genius of Holland

EVENTS in Cork and Liscannor two weeks ago lauded the achievements of John Philip Holland, the Clare man who invented the first submarine.
The life and times of the Liscannor man were recalled at a conference in National Maritime College in Ringaskiddy, Cork last Saturday week as part of the bicentenary celebations of the founding of North Monastery CBS, Cork where he taught before emigrating to America in 1872.
While his was the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the US Navy, Holland was a genius in many fields and would have developed a flying machine only for a deterioration in his health, the conference was told.
Dr Donal S Blake, Christian Brothers Congregation historian, told the conference that Holland was interested in the possibilities of flight but such was his passion in developing submarines that he allowed his other hobby to go onto the back burner. When teaching in Drogheda, he constructed a mechanical duck that would walk across water and simulate swimming in the school pond.
The postulator for Blessed Edmond Rice also stated that Holland may well have taken his final vows as a Christian Brother only for a conflict  to intervene with a  member of the order. He said Holland’s decision to go to America was influenced by the fact his brother, Michael, had become involved in the Fenian fight and had emigratred Stateside to avoid arrest by the British authorities.
The colourful occasion in Ringaskiddy was added to by the presence of the band of the 1st Southern Brigade  attached to Collins Barracks. The  attendance included Minister Simon Coveney, who unveiled a plaque dedicated to John P Holland. The Clare representation included Christy Curtin, Mayor of Clare and his wife, Anne.
Mayor Curtin said those in Clare are very proud of the unique achievements of a great Clare native. The Banner group also included Patrick Blake and his wife, Eilis, representing the Liscannor community. Eilis gave a rendering of the John P Holland song, recorded by the late Miko Russell from Doolin and composed by her brother Brendan O’Higgins, a teacher in Boston. Also entertaining the large attendance was concertina player Owen Hill, who is a nephew of Lissycasey-born traditional musician, Noel Hill. Owen is a son of Paddy Hill, who is on the teaching  staff of North Monastery CBS.
Representing Paterson Museum in New Jersey was curator Bruce Balistrieri. On permanent display in the museum are hulls of two of Holland’s submarines, Holland I (1878) and Holland 2 – The Fenian Ram – (1881). Holland I is 14’ 6” in length and weighs two and a quarter tons. Holland II is 31’ in length and weighs 19.5 tons and carried three crew men. The museum also maintains the Edward Max Graf Collection of notes, letters, drawings, diagrams and specifications of the inventor of the modern submarine.
The first experimental model built by Holland was later forgotten about on the banks  of the Passaic River near Spruce Street Bridge in Paterson. However, in 1927, it was recovered by a group of young men after many weeks. They dug it out of the mud and presented it to the city on October 1, 1927.
Situated in Market Street, Paterson, the museum was organised in 1925 by the City of Paterson Library’s Board of Trustees. It was housed in the Danforth Public Library with a display of natural history items which were donated by local residents. They were transferred to the carraige house of the former Paterson mayor and philanthropist, Nathan Barnert in 1927. Additional space was required when the collections grew and in 1983, it was relocated to the restored Thomas Rogers Locmotiove and Machine Shop.
Paterson is remembered in history as the Silk City, after silk manufacturing was first introduced there by Christopher Colt in 1838. As well as the Holland submarines, the museum also has a display on the history of the textile industry, as well as the Wright Years from 1920 to 1945.
The Wright Aeronautical Corporation operated five factories in and around Paterson and built aircraft engines that made avaiation history. One of the engines, the J-5, powered the historic Charles Lindbergh non-stop flight from New York to Paris in 1927.
The museum also displays what has been described as the finest collection of Paterson-made firearms of all east coast institutions.
Mr Balistrieri told the Cork conference that Holland would undoubtedly have been a significant force in relation to the development of airplanes only for the ill health that dogged the latter half of his life.
One of the chief organisers of the conference was Tony Duggan of Cork, retired deputy princial of the gaelsocil attached to the North Monastery CBS campus and a member of the North Monastery CBS Bicentenary Steering Committee.
A group from Cork also came to the homeplace of Holland in Liscannor last Sunday week, including Tony Duggan and Bruce Balistieri. They were shown around the area by Patrick and Eilis Blake and viewed plaques erected to Holland at various locations at Holland Street, the school and in front of the community centre. They were also impressed with the display and submarine model at the Visitors’ Centre at the Cliffs of Moher.
Holland, the founder of the modern submarine, was born in Liscannor on February 24, 1841. In 1858 he took the initial vows of the Irish Christian Brothers to become  a school teacher. It was also in that year that the Irish Republican Brotherhood was founded and Holland later became linked financially with its American counterpart,  Fenian Brotherhood.
He taught in a few places around the country during which time he planned the building of a submersible craft. All of Holland’s immediate family had emigrated to America by 1872 and a year later, Holland left the Christian Brothers and sailed to Boston. In his pocket was an envelope with a drawing of a submarine.
In America, he returned to teaching and became a lay teacher at St John’s Parochial School in Paterson. He also continued working on a design for his one-man submarine and sent plans to the Navy Department in Washington for their consideration in 1875. However, the design was described as being impractical. Nonetheless, Holland continued with his plans and his number-one boat was tested in the Passaic River in Paterson in May and June, 1878.
It convinced the Fenian Brotherhood to fund Holland’s next prototype. In a  second trial, he kept his boat on the bottom of the river for an hour and retuned safely. The Fenians then agreed to fund a larger boat and in May 1878, Holland started work on his second boat in Manhattan. Two years later, it was launched into the Hudson River. The boat attracted a lot of attention and when it became generally suspected that it had been paid for by the Fenian Brotherhood, it became known as the Fenian Ram.
He later moved the boat to the New Jersey side of the Husdon and started more experiments over a period of two years, going as far as the Narrows of New York Harbour and along the Brooklyn shore. His boat had achieved a surface speed of nine knots and submerged as deep as 50 feet.
However, there were some divided views in the Fenian Brotherhood over the future of the Skirmishing Fund for building submersibles. A few Fenians brought a tug alongside the Fenian Ram and together with a new 16ft model boat number three intended for more experiements, they rowed the craft towards New Haven. However, they floundered on the way and beached the boat.
In later years, Holland met a US army man who was anxious to promote a dynamite gun and was of the opinion that it would be best mounted on a submarine. As a result, Holland’s boat number four was launched in Septmber 1885. The project was a failure.
Subsequently, capital was made available for a submarine company managed by Holland. A competition was announced for an experimental submarine and Holland won it with his submersible torpedo boat. It was his fifth design for which the contract was signed. It was a cumbersome steam submersible, much bigger than Holland wanted. His fears were later justified.
Holland VI was the outcome of a declaration made in 1896 by a US navy officer to the senate committee on naval affairs. “Give me six Holland submarine boats, the officers and crew to be selected by me and I will pledge to stand off the entire British squadron 10 miles off Sandy Hook without any aid from our fleet,” he said.
Holland VI was launched in Elizabeth Port, New Jersey on May 17, 1897. It was declared that the sixth design was the shape of things to come.
It measured 53ft, 3 inches with a maximum beam of 10ft 3 inches. It had a 45 brake horsepower Otto gasoline engine, which gave her nearly eight knots when surfaced and a battery supplied power for up to five knots dived. It had an 18 inch bow torpedo tube as well as a dynamite pnuematic gun above the tube.
She made her second operation dive on March 17, 1898. The US Navy Department sent observers to witness the formal dives. They were impressed and on October 12, 1900, the US Holland (SS-1) was formally commissed, with a crew of nine. After France, the US became the second power to adopt the submarine as a fighting unit, with the help of the Liscannor native.
John Holland died in Newark, New Jersey in August 1914 after spending 57 of his 74 years with submersibles. He was interred at the Holy Sepulchere Cemetery in Totowa, close to Paterson City.