Matthew McMahon – Museum Collections Officer
Patrick (Pat) Corvan was born 18 March 1940 and passed away on 28 December 2024. He was a longstanding friend of the institution and former staff member, and a generous mentor to a younger generation of scientists and historians. His association with astronomy, and Armagh Observatory began on the evening of 20 April 1953 (see figure 1).
Pat described his visit as follows, having come with some friends from school. He claimed he had no interest in astronomy, “But at that time, I wasn’t even aware that Armagh had an observatory…”.
After examining the plate and all and then when it was dark enough, he [Dr Lindsay, Director of the Armagh Observatory] took us out to the 10-inch dome and the first object we observed was the Moon. Mm hmm. And then Saturn and of course it was fantastic and then the double star. Castor, of course you know, and that’s how it started[1]
In October of 1954, while Patrick Moore was in Northern Ireland visiting the Armagh Observatory, he was introduced to Pat. Moore provided Pat with the parts required to make a mirror for a small reflecting telescope, and Dr Lindsay provided him with access to the workshop and required chemicals to grind the mirror into shape. Pat was aided by an American PhD student, Franklin Kamney, who was in Armagh at that time. Pat described the experience as follows;
“It was brilliant, we thoroughly enjoyed it. It took us a number of times a month to get it done… And I must confess, I think that that telescope, using that telescope gave me more pleasure than anything else because it was made by us.[2]
He joined the Irish Astronomical Society and attended many of the talks held in the Armagh Centre and in 1965 he began to regularly assist Patrick Moore, who had moved to Armagh, with planetary observation with the Grubb 10-Inch telescope. Pat had first used this telescope in 1953, and last used it in December 2023, making him the longest user in the history of the instrument. Though Pat was supportive of the new Armagh Planetarium, his first passion was observational astronomy. In 1975 a new telescope was installed at Armagh Planetarium, a modern 16-inch reflecting telescope.[3] Pat was officially hired by the Armagh Planetarium on 1 December 1975 as a caretaker but was the primary operator of the public telescope until his retirement on 17 March 2005. He described his educational style as an attempt to recreate the environment in which he first fell in love with astronomy. He preferred quiet conversation at the telescope to public lectures, and his conversational style of teaching inspired hundreds of visitors, many of whom still remember his approach in 2025 and can recall vividly their first encounter with Saturn, or the Moon, under the guidance of Pat. Figure 2. Shows Pat at the eyepiece of the telescope though he continued to use the Armagh Grubb 10-Inch throughout his career and was instrumental in helping to craft the instructional procedures that still govern its use today.
There had been plans for a number of years to provide a dwelling onsite for the caretaker and in 1980 the building was completed. The minutes of the Planetarium Management Committee indicate the Corvan family took up residence from 1 August 1980. The residence allowed Pat to increase the number of nights during which the Public Telescope was operated, as well as providing a necessary security arrangement for the safety of the Planetarium building at night.
Pat remained a close friend of Dr Eric Mervyn Lindsay, a native of Portadown who had become Director of the Armagh Observatory in 1937, until Lindsay’s sudden death in the summer of 1975. Pat became the steward of Dr Lindsay’s legacy after his death. He would contribute to both the 1975 Special Edition of the Irish Astronomical Journal and the 2007 Special Edition of the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, both of which were dedicated to Dr Lindsay.[4] His articles remain an important part of the legacy of the twentieth century and form the best eye-witness accounts of life in the Armagh Observatory during the Lindsay years. This deep knowledge of history was essential to the work of the Bicentennial Celebrations at the Armagh Observatory, and Pat took an active interest in the conservation of the historic telescopes, in particular the Troughton Equatorial Telescope which had been at the Observatory since 1795. Figure 4 shows him in the Troughton Dome after the telescope had been removed in the 1980’s.
During the 1990’s he became a crucial link between the Armagh Planetarium and the various splintering amateur astronomy groups on the Island of Ireland. He assisted in the curation of displays in the Armagh Planetarium and restored an 8.25 inch Calver reflector which had been donated by the Belfast Boys High School to the planetarium in poor condition. In 2005, on March 17, he retired from the Armagh Planetarium and in December of that year a Minor Planet was named in his honor.
The object had been discovered by R.H McNaught, the Scottish-Australian Astronomer, who had visited Armagh many times and met Pat. The asteroid was named “(8515) Corvan” was the citation for its inclusion reads:
(8515) Corvan = 1991 RJ. Discovered 1991 Sept. 4 by R. H. McNaught at Siding Spring. Patrick G. Corvan (b. 1940) has links with Armagh Observatory dating back to his schooldays. He is an avid observer whose enthusiasm for astronomy is readily communicated to others. His book and slide collections, as well as stories about the astronomers who have worked at or visited Armagh, are much in demand.
Patrick knew four generations of Directors at the Armagh Observatory, and every Director of the Armagh Planetarium. He remained a generous trove of information and assisted the historical research of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium with great vigor and enthusiasm. He was always happy to offer comment and suggest new avenues for research, having built an encyclopedic knowledge of the History of Irish Astronomy over his lifetime. Even during his last observing session at the 1885 10-Inch Grubb telescope in December 2023 he took time to instruct the staff and volunteers who joined him in the finer details of using the telescope, and the subtle techniques he had employed in the 70 preceding years to care for the instrument. His legacy, an enduring connection to the history of the institution, and the instruments, will be remembered here by those that had the pleasure of knowing him, and the future generations who will be inspired by those same views of the cosmos at the same telescopes that he protected and maintained.
[1] Oral History 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) Under Irish skies. Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 10: 179–186.
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