THE extraordinary story of an Irish teacher and would-be Christian brother who invented the modern submarine will be told next week in a documentary made by a Derry film production company and broadcast on TG4.
It's the tale of trial and error, disappointment, subterfuge and a partnership with the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) – which commissioned a submarine for use against the British – before the US Navy finally put John Philip Holland’s design into operation at the turn of the 20th century.
Holland was born beside the sea at Liscannor, Co Clare on February 24 1841 and died in Newark in New Jersey in August 4 1914, a month before the start of the First World War – the first conflict in which his invention saw military use.
Produced by Deaglán Ó Mochán of Derry-based Dearcán Media and directed and voiced by Co Armagh broadcaster and film-maker Macdara Vallely, the 55-minute programme seeks to highlight the scientific brilliance and contribution of the Irishman who was a peer of inventors such as Thomas Edison (the electric light bulb) and Rudolf Diesel (the diesel engine) but whose name history has largely overlooked.
Holland was said to be a 'natural born teacher' who loved to introduce his students to science and engineering. He taught at Christian Brothers schools in Cork, Drogheda, Dundalk and Armagh before emigrating to the United States after deciding not to take his vows with the Catholic educational order.
The son of a coastguard, it's said that his first thoughts of submarines and underwater travel came after he read a newspaper article about an American Civil War sea battle featuring two iron-clad ships. Holland realised that the more powerful navies of the world could be countered by a vessel that could attack from underwater. He felt that a vessel of this sort also had the potential to make naval warfare redundant, and give smaller nations an opportunity to defend themselves.
His first submarine designs pre-date Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea so at that point his ideas were still considered to be science fiction or impossible.
But when he left Ireland for the US in 1872 he began to seriously develop his plans.
"We called Holland the inventor of the first modern submarine as there were others across the world who were trying to do the same thing," explains Ó Mochán. "But he was the first one to make one that was commercially successful as the US navy bought it."
“His is a classic Irish American immigrant story. I liked the link with Irish history and the contradictions built into the story based on his own personality; him being a teacher and yet having this fascination with science that led him to make this terrible weapon.
"I came across him a long time ago and the name 'the Fenian Ram' stuck out with me but I didn't really know the extent of his achievement until I had a chance to do this project."
Holland's first prototype sank on its maiden voyage in 1878 but three years later came the Fenian Ram, a 10m by 2m wide and high vessel that Holland developed for the IRB, at a cost of $15,000, after he became involved with them in the US through his brother, who was a supporter.
Just as, decades later, there was a race into space, so it was a race to build a submarine and the programme tells of how Holland fell out over money with the IRB, the US Navy and the Electric Boat Company, which was established as part of the 'submarine race' and whose descendent company continues to build US naval submarines to this day.
"Holland died weeks before a German submarine sank three British ships in an hour killing 1,500 sailors," Ó Mochán says. “I wonder what he would have made of that as he seemed to have genuine pacifist beliefs – but on the other hand he was developing submarines and torpedoes.
"When he fell out with the Electric Boat company, they wrote him out of history but then he was resurrected again in the 1920s. I think that ever since then, the US navy has done more than anyone who keep his name and achievements alive."
:: John Philip Holland: The Inventor of the Modern Submarine will be broadcast on TG4 on Tuesday November 22 at 9.30pm with subtitles for non-Irish speakers.
