James MacCullagh, MRIA FRS, Colleagues & Friends - v1

James MacCullagh (b.1809 d,1847), was a mathematician and physicist, who was born in Landahussy townland in the parish of Upper Badoney, Co. Tyrone. Born into a Protestant family of twelve children, five boys and three girls that survived early childhood. He was the eldest son of James MacCullagh (b.1777 d.1857), and his wife Margaret (née Ballentine, b.1784 d.1839).
James was educated initially at the parish school at Castledamph, however on noting his intellectual prowess, his father moved to the Curly Hill, Strabane to ensure his son got a better education.
Trinity College Dublin
At fifteen years old he entered Trinity College, Dublin as a pensioner under the tutorship of Mr. Joseph Stack (b.1799 d.1838) and on 1 June 1825, he was one of the winning candidate of a sizarship.
MacCullagh's first published paper, ‘On the double refraction of light in a crystallised medium, according to the principles of Fresnel’ and ‘Geometrical theorems on the rectification of the conic sections’, and criticised the obscure mathematical methods used by Fresnel in his laws of double refraction of light in crystals.
William Rowan Hamilton (b.1805 d.1865) wrote a review of these papers in 1830.
Fellowship
1831, MacCullagh tried again for a Fellowship but this time, after being told he answered the first question incorrectly, he refused to answer any further questions. He sent a letter containing geometrical theorems on the theory of rotation of a solid body around a fixed point, however the results were original but, unfortunately the work had already been preceded by French mathematician Louis Poinsot's (b.1777 d.1859) in 1834.
In Feb 1832, MacCullagh succeeded in obtaining a fellowship and he was appointed junior assistant to the mathematics professor George Salmon (b.1819 d.1904).
Irish Relics
He became a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1833, and with his close friend George Petrie (b.1790 d.1866) they played an important role in the development of its collection of Irish antiquities.
Petrie, had seen the Cross of Cong in 1822 while passing through Cong on a tour of Connacht. The Cross was in the possession of the last Roman Catholic abbot of Cong, Father Patrick Prendergast (b.c.1741 d.1829).
Although not a wealthy man, MacCullagh, used his life savings to purchase the cross in 1839 for 100 guineas from Dean Patrick Waldron, Fr. Prendergast’s successor.
In 1837, he contributed over £300 towards the purchase of the Domhnach Airgid, a fourteen-century Irish book shrine containing fragments of 39 sheets of the Gospels. Tradition, claims this book was given by St Patrick himself to his companion St Macartan. Both relics are now housed in the National Museum of Ireland.
He also led a subscription to purchase two 1200 - 1000 BC, Bronze Age Gold Torcs, which had been found in 1810 by a boy digging at the Rath of the Synods on the Hill of Tara, Co. Meath.
In 1835 he was appointed Erasmus Smith (b.1611 d.1691) professor of mathematics at the University of Dublin, and later received the degrees of LLB and LLD in 1838.
Crystalline Reflexion and Refraction
In 1835, his most important contribution to the theory of light, ‘An essay towards a dynamical theory of crystalline reflexion and refraction’ was read before the RIA and published in 1848.
This led to a priority dispute with Franz Ernst Neumann (b.1798 d.1895) who had read a paper on the same subject to the Berlin Academy in December 1835 and published 1837.
Cunningham Medal
In 1838 he was awarded the Cunningham Medal by the Royal Irish Academy for his paper ‘On the laws of crystalline reflexion and refraction’, which developed a mechanical model for the propagation of light in a crystalline medium.
Copley Medal
Latter in 1842 MacCullagh was awarded the Royal Society's of London, Copley Medal for his work on the nature of light, a particularly great achievement since Bessel was among those considered for the award.
Westminster Election
MacCullagh was proposed as a candidate for one of the two Dublin University seats at Westminster. The seats also being contested by Frederick Shaw (b.1799 d.1876) and George Alexander Hamilton (b.1802 d.1871), who were both Oxford graduates and Tories. He unsuccessfully contested the August general election.
Death
His defeat and his general state of overworking brought on a severe bout of depression, to which he was periodically susceptible. On the evening of Sunday 24 October 1847 he was found by his housekeeper in his rooms at Trinity College Dublin with his throat cut. The coroner gave a verdict of suicide under temporary insanity.
A funeral service was held in the College Chapel and his remains were buried in the family vault in the graveyard of the St Patrick's Church of Ireland Church, Upper Badoney.
On 15 May 2009, an Ulster History Circle blue plaque was unveiled at St Patrick's Church, Upper Badoney. The plaque was part of events organised by the Glenelly Historical Society to mark his life.