Matthew McMahon – Museum Collections Officer
Patrick (Pat) Corvan was born 18 March 1840 and handed away on 28 December 2024. He was a longstanding buddy of the establishment and former workers member, and a beneficiant mentor to a youthful technology of scientists and historians. His affiliation with astronomy, and Armagh Observatory started on the night of 20 April 1953 (see determine 1).
Determine 1. Web page 344 of the Armagh Observatory Customer E-book (ARM ADM 14.1)
Pat described his go to as follows, having include some buddies from college. He claimed he had no real interest in astronomy, “However at the moment, I wasn’t even conscious that Armagh had an observatory…”.
After analyzing the plate and all after which when it was darkish sufficient, he [Dr Lindsay, Director of the Armagh Observatory] took us out to the 10-inch dome and the primary object we noticed was the Moon. Mm hmm. After which Saturn and naturally it was improbable after which the double star. Castor, after all you recognize, and that’s the way it began[1]
In October of 1954, whereas Patrick Moore was in Northern Eire visiting the Armagh Observatory, he was launched to Pat. Moore supplied Pat with the elements required to make a mirror for a small reflecting telescope, and Dr Lindsay supplied him with entry to the workshop and required chemical compounds to grind the mirror into form. Pat was aided by an American PhD pupil, Franklin Kamney, who was in Armagh at the moment. Pat described the expertise as follows;
“It was sensible, we totally loved it. It took us a variety of occasions a month to get it performed… And I have to confess, I feel that that telescope, utilizing that telescope gave me extra pleasure than the rest as a result of it was made by us.[2]
He joined the Irish Astronomical Society and attended most of the talks held within the Armagh Centre and in 1965 he started to commonly help Patrick Moore, who had moved to Armagh, with planetary statement with the Grubb 10-Inch telescope. Pat had first used this telescope in 1953, and final used it in December 2023, making him the longest consumer within the historical past of the instrument. Although Pat was supportive of the brand new Armagh Planetarium, his first ardour was observational astronomy. In 1975 a brand new telescope was put in at Armagh Planetarium, a contemporary 16-inch reflecting telescope.[3] Pat was formally employed by the Armagh Planetarium on 1 December 1975 as a caretaker however was the first operator of the general public telescope till his retirement on 17 March 2005. He described his academic fashion as an try to recreate the surroundings during which he first fell in love with astronomy. He most popular quiet dialog on the telescope to public lectures, and his conversational fashion of educating impressed a whole lot of holiday makers, lots of whom nonetheless bear in mind his strategy in 2025 and might recall vividly their first encounter with Saturn, or the Moon, below the steering of Pat. Determine 2. Exhibits Pat on the eyepiece of the telescope although he continued to make use of the Armagh Grubb 10-Inch all through his profession and was instrumental in serving to to craft the academic procedures that also govern its use at the moment.
Determine 2. Pat on the eyepiece of the Public Telescope at Armagh Planetarium.
Determine 3. The Armagh Planetarium Bungalow in 1982.
There had been plans for a variety of years to supply a dwelling onsite for the caretaker and in 1980 the constructing was accomplished. The minutes of the Planetarium Administration Committee point out the Corvan household took up residence from 1 August 1980. The residence allowed Pat to extend the variety of nights throughout which the Public Telescope was operated, in addition to offering a crucial safety association for the protection of the Planetarium constructing at night time.
Pat remained an in depth buddy of Dr Eric Mervyn Lindsay, a local of Portadown who had develop into Director of the Armagh Observatory in 1937, till Lindsay’s sudden loss of life in the summertime of 1975. Pat grew to become the steward of Dr Lindsay’s legacy after his loss of life. He would contribute to each the 1975 Particular Version of the Irish Astronomical Journal and the 2007 Particular Version of the Journal of Astronomical Historical past and Heritage, each of which have been devoted to Dr Lindsay.[4] His articles stay an vital a part of the legacy of the 20 th century and kind the perfect eye-witness accounts of life within the Armagh Observatory through the Lindsay years. This deep data of historical past was important to the work of the Bicentennial Celebrations on the Armagh Observatory, and Pat took an energetic curiosity within the conservation of the historic telescopes, specifically the Troughton Equatorial Telescope which had been on the Observatory since 1795. Determine 4 reveals him within the Troughton Dome after the telescope had been eliminated within the 1980’s.
Determine 4. Pat seated on the western facet of the Troughton Dome.
Through the 1990’s he grew to become a vital hyperlink between the Armagh Planetarium and the varied splintering newbie astronomy teams on the Island of Eire. He assisted within the curation of shows within the Armagh Planetarium and restored an 8.25 inch Calver reflector which had been donated by the Belfast Boys Excessive College to the planetarium in poor situation. In 2005, on March 17, he retired from the Armagh Planetarium and in December of that 12 months a Minor Planet was named in his honor.
The article had been found by R.H McNaught, the Scottish-Australian Astronomer, who had visited Armagh many occasions and met Pat. The asteroid was named “(8515) Corvan” was the quotation for its inclusion reads:
(8515) Corvan = 1991 RJ. Found 1991 Sept. 4 by R. H. McNaught at Siding Spring. Patrick G. Corvan (b. 1940) has hyperlinks with Armagh Observatory courting again to his schooldays. He’s an avid observer whose enthusiasm for astronomy is quickly communicated to others. His guide and slide collections, in addition to tales concerning the astronomers who’ve labored at or visited Armagh, are a lot in demand.
Patrick knew 4 generations of Administrators on the Armagh Observatory, and each Director of the Armagh Planetarium. He remained a beneficiant trove of knowledge and assisted the historic analysis of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium with nice vigor and enthusiasm. He was at all times completely happy to supply remark and counsel new avenues for analysis, having constructed an encyclopedic data of the Historical past of Irish Astronomy over his lifetime. Even throughout his final observing session on the 1885 10-Inch Grubb telescope in December 2023 he took time to instruct the workers and volunteers who joined him within the finer particulars of utilizing the telescope, and the refined strategies he had employed within the 70 previous years to look after the instrument. His legacy, a permanent connection to the historical past of the establishment, and the devices, will probably be remembered right here by those who had the pleasure of figuring out him, and the longer term generations who will probably be impressed by those self same views of the cosmos on the identical telescopes that he protected and maintained.
[1] Oral Historical past Interview with Pat Corvan by Matthew McMahon (2022)
[2] Ibid.
[3] Armagh Observatory and Planetarium Reference ARM ADM Id20 ‘The Planetarium 1975, A Report by Terence P. Murtagh, Director’. 1975.
[4] Corvan P (1975) Eric Mervyn Lindsay (1907-1974). Irish Astronomical Journal 12: 130–137. And Corvan P (2007) Underneath Irish skies. Journal of Astronomical Historical past and Heritage 10: 179–186.
