The ten divisions of the 2017 Scranton St. Patrick Parade are named in honor of technological contributions invented by the Irish and/or those of Irish descent. It is our fervent hope that this list motivates others to research the rich history of all that is Ireland.
Division 1: John Joly invented color photography in 1894.
Division 2: The Binaural (two eared) Stethoscope, invented by Arthur Leared in 1851
Division 3: Irish geophysicist Robert Mallet is often credited as the “father of seismology” thanks to his pioneering research into earthquakes. In addition to writing several pioneering papers that helped shape our understanding of earthquakes, Mallet also coined the words “seismology” and “epicenter”.
Division 4: John Philip Holland invented the submarine 1878. Holland submitted his first design for consideration in 1875, but he had to spend years refining his design for it to become functional and it wasn’t until 1900 that the US Navy accepted his invention.
Division 5: Professor Frank Pantridge, Belfast, Ireland, pioneered the portable defibrillator, a serious breakthrough in medicine, in the 1960s. Countless thousands of lives have been saved because of this man’s invention.
Division 6: Irish-Australian engineer John O’Sullivan discovered the modern marvel of WIFI by complete accident! WiFi was developed as a by-product in a CSIRO research project, “a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle”. In 1996, he obtained patents for a method later used in WiFi to unsmear the signal. Amazing? Imagine yourself in this day and age, without WIFI.
Division 7: Perforated postage stamps-When postage stamps were first invented, they were printed on rectangular sheets on paper. Scissors were required to cut stamps from the sheet. Needless to say, there were crooked edges aplenty. Henry Archer, a London-based Irish businessman and landowner, devised a perforation machine specifically designed to perforate sheets of stamps, giving that classic rippled outline that we all know and love today. The 1850 Penny Red was the first stamp to be perforated and, well, the rest, as they say, is history.
Division 8: The Hypodermic Syringe, invented by Francis Rynd in 1844.
Division 9: mmmmm Good. All reading this should love this “inventor.” Chocolate milk was created in Ireland in 1680 by Irishman Hans Sloane.
Division 10: George Johnstone Stoney- The Electron as a concept: It was an Irish-Anglo physicist George Johnstone Stoney introduced the term “electron.” as the fundamental unit quantity of electricity. He introduced the concept between 1874 and 1881, with the word coming at the later date of 1891.
-Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit-Happy St. Patrick’s Day-
Gary Duncan, Parade Historian