Dunsink Observatory [DO] (1785- ), was the first building in Ireland specifically constructed for scientific research. It was where Ireland’s greatest mathematician and one of her greatest scientists, William Rowan Hamilton, lived and worked. And it was the place where the time standard for Ireland was set using astronomical observations until the first world war. Dunsink time is mentioned several times in James Joyce’s great novel Ulysses, and in 2012 the clocks used are still on display in the
Dunsink Observatory (Credit: http://www.astronomytrail.ie/)
Observatory. Originally part of Trinity College Dublin, the Observatory was purchased by the state in 1947 when the School of Cosmic Physics was being established as part of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies . For some time under threat, happily in 2012 the observatory is used mainly for public outreach, small workshops and conferences, and as visitor accommodation for the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Open nights for stargazing are held twice monthly (Howse 1986; Stroobant 1931; Duff 1983).
Erck’s Observatory [EOBW] (c.1873-1891), Sherrington House, shankill, now a suburb of Dublin, established by Wentworth Erck in the corner of a walled garden of his residence. The building, which housed a 7.5-inch refractor with lens by Alvan Clark on an equatorial mount, had shallow dome that was moved aside on rails – run-off shed design. The structure housed a regulator clock and had a nearby observing platform for a 15-inch silver-on-glass reflecting telescope. The instruments were used mainly used to observe the Sun, planets along with double stars. The Clark telescope passed to W.H.S. Monck after Erck’s death (W.H.S. Monck (Obit., MNRAS, 51 (1891), 194-6; Elliott 1993).
Survey of Astronomical History 