Irish Inventions That Changed the World

What did Ireland invent?

For a small country, Ireland has produced an outsized share of inventors and scientists. Irish-born people gave the world the hollow hypodermic needle, the induction coil, the Kelvin temperature scale, Boyle’s law, the modern submarine, the ejection seat, the portable defibrillator and the tractor’s three-point linkage, and an Irish physicist was one of the first two people to split the atom [1].

GoIreland.com, an Irish accommodation booking site, made a light-hearted infographic of ten “weird things you never knew came from Irish inventors”. Its picks range from the submarine and colour photography to Guinness and chocolate milk. Some are well founded and others are stretched, so this article sets out the real story of each and adds the Irish inventions the graphic left out.

Famous Irish inventions that changed the world

The modern submarine (John Philip Holland)

Submarines existed before Holland, but he designed the first modern one. Born in Liscannor, County Clare, he emigrated to the United States and demonstrated his first prototype, the Holland I, in 1878 [2]. His Holland VI, with a petrol engine for the surface and electric motors underwater, was bought by the US Navy in 1900 as USS Holland, its first commissioned submarine, and the Royal Navy’s first submarine, Holland 1, was also his design [1][2]. That combination of engines set the template for submarines until nuclear power.

Colour photography (John Joly)

John Joly, from County Offaly, did not invent colour photography outright, but in 1894 he invented the Joly colour screen, one of the first practical ways of taking colour photographs. It used a screen ruled with fine red, green and blue lines [1][3]. Joly was a remarkable all-rounder: at Trinity College Dublin he also worked out with Henry Dixon how water rises in plants, and in 1914 developed the “Dublin method” of implanting radioactive sources in tumours, an early form of brachytherapy [1]. There is a crater on Mars named after him [3].

Modern chemistry and Boyle’s law (Robert Boyle)

Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle in County Waterford in 1627 [4]. His book The Sceptical Chymist (1661) argued for experiment over ancient theories of matter and is seen as a cornerstone of modern chemistry [1][4]. A year later he published Boyle’s law: at a constant temperature, the pressure and volume of a gas are inversely proportional [1].

The ejection seat (James Martin)

James Martin, an engineer from Crossgar, County Down, co-founded the Martin-Baker company and carried out the first live test of his ejection seat in 1946 [1]. Martin-Baker’s seats became the standard for military jets worldwide [1]. Its seats are supplied to 93 air forces and have saved over 7,800 aircrew lives [9].

Splitting the atom (Ernest Walton)

Ernest Walton, from Dungarvan in County Waterford, and John Cockcroft built a particle accelerator at Cambridge and in 1932 became the first to split an atomic nucleus artificially, by firing protons at lithium [1][10]. They shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics. The infographic credits Walton with the atomic bomb, which is wrong: he had no part in the bomb, which was developed by the Manhattan Project and first tested in 1945 [10].

The tank (Walter Gordon Wilson)

The graphic names only Dublin for the tank. The Irish connection is Walter Gordon Wilson, born in Blackrock, County Dublin, who designed the British Mark I tank with William Tritton in 1915 and was officially credited as co-inventor in 1919 [7]. Tanks were first used at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette in September 1916, part of the Somme offensive, when 49 were assembled for the attack [8].

Irish inventions in food and drink

Guinness (Arthur Guinness)

Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the St James’s Gate brewery in Dublin in 1759, at £45 a year [6]. The brewery started selling porter in 1778, and the first beers it called stout appeared in the 1840s [13]. Guinness became the best-known stout in the world. The graphic’s claim that it is the best-selling alcoholic drink of all time is not true; mass-market lagers sell far more.

Soda water

The graphic credits Robert Percival, a Trinity College chemistry professor, with soda water in 1800, but we found no source for that. Joseph Priestley, an Englishman, is credited with inventing carbonated water in 1767, though an Irish chemist, Dr Macbride, had infused water with carbon dioxide in 1764 as part of experiments on fermentation [5].

Chocolate milk (Hans Sloane)

Hans Sloane, a physician from County Down, is often credited with bringing milk chocolate drinks to Europe in the 1680s after seeing cacao drinks in Jamaica, where he more likely learned the practice of adding milk to drinking chocolate than invented it [1][11].

Rubber heels (Humphrey O’Sullivan)

Humphrey O’Sullivan, who the graphic says was born in Cork, lived in Lowell, Massachusetts. As the GoIreland story goes, he fixed a piece of rubber to his shoes to make standing all day less painful. His US patent for a rubber heel for boots and shoes is dated 24 January 1899 [12]. The graphic calls it rubber soles, but what he patented was the heel.

More Irish inventions and discoveries

• Hypodermic needle (1844): Francis Rynd, a Dublin physician, invented the hollow needle and gave the first recorded injection under the skin [1].
• Induction coil (1836): Nicholas Callan, a priest at Maynooth College, built the first induction coil, a type of transformer that turns low voltage into very high voltage [1].
• Quaternions (1843): William Rowan Hamilton discovered this number system, still used for 3D rotations in computer graphics and spacecraft, and carved the formula on Broom Bridge in Dublin [1].
• Kelvin scale (1848): William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, born in Belfast, proposed the absolute temperature scale now used as the SI unit [1].
• Greenhouse effect (1859): John Tyndall, from County Carlow, proved experimentally that water vapour and carbon dioxide absorb heat radiation [1].
• Three-point linkage (1926): Harry Ferguson, from County Down, invented the hitch that lets tractors raise and lower implements [1].
• Duty-free shopping (1947): Brendan O’Regan opened the world’s first duty-free shop at Shannon Airport [1].
• Portable defibrillator (1960s): Frank Pantridge, from County Down, developed a defibrillator for ambulances, first used in Belfast in 1965 [1].

Questions about Irish inventions

Did the Irish invent the submarine?

Not the first submarine, but John Philip Holland from County Clare designed the first modern one, bought by the US Navy in 1900 as USS Holland [1][2].

Who is the most famous Irish scientist?

Robert Boyle, Lord Kelvin, William Rowan Hamilton, John Tyndall and the Nobel Prize winner Ernest Walton are the names most often given [1][10].

Did an Irish scientist invent the atomic bomb?

No. Ernest Walton split the atom with John Cockcroft in 1932, but he had nothing to do with the atomic bomb [10].

Who invented the tank?

Walter Gordon Wilson, born in County Dublin, and William Tritton designed the first British tanks in 1915 [7].

What medical inventions came from Ireland?

The hollow hypodermic needle (Francis Rynd, 1844), the portable defibrillator (Frank Pantridge, 1960s) and the Dublin method of radiation therapy (John Joly, 1914) [1].

Sources

1. Wikipedia, Timeline of Irish inventions and discoveries.
2. Wikipedia, John Philip Holland.
3. Wikipedia, John Joly.
4. Wikipedia, Robert Boyle.
5. Wikipedia, Carbonated water.
6. Wikipedia, Guinness Brewery.
7. Wikipedia, Walter Gordon Wilson.
8. Wikipedia, Battle of Flers-Courcelette.
9. Wikipedia, Martin-Baker.
10. Wikipedia, Ernest Walton.
11. Wikipedia, Hans Sloane.
12. Google Patents, US618127A, Heel for boots or shoes, Humphrey O’Sullivan, 24 January 1899.
13. Wikipedia, Guinness.
14. GoIreland.com, GoIreland.com, creator of this infographic.

Last reviewed 2 November 2026