I’ll refer you to my rant on #irishsciencesouvenirs, which doesn’t specifically mention the Stoneys.

But a leaflet on papa George, picked up in a Birr hotel, is the only memento I spotted that came remotely close to qualifying.

[So endeth my #IrishScienceSouvenirs rant, posted with passion from a hotel room in Killarney on 30 August 2019, in the days when Twitter was still Twitter.]

I urge this noble country, land of my ancestors, to step up to the challenge.

Next time I visit, Ireland, I want you to show me #IrishScienceSouvenirs!
🇮🇪🧪

15/15

A pale marble bust of a balding older man. The rectangular base of the bust bears the words "Erwin Schrödinger 1887 to 1961." It also features a version of Schrödinger's equation, which is taught to all students of quantum mechanics. In this case, it is written as "i" times "h bar" times "Greek letter psi with a dot over it" (this character means the derivative of psi with time), "equals sign," "capital H" (this means the Hamiltonian operator) times "psi." This bust is at the Arkadenhof of the University of Vienna. The sculptor is Ferdinand Welz (1915-2008), and the photo is by Wikimedia user Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons.

And "What Is Life" without naturalized Irish citizen Erwin Schrödinger?

His famous equation even has a Hamiltonian in it!

(Photo thanks to Wikimedia user Daderot.)

#WilliamRowanHamilton

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

14/15

Photo, a formal portrait, of a pale-skinned balding man with white hair and a wide white mustache. He wears a dark suit, vest, white shirt, and striped tie. He is Charles Algernon Parsons (1854–1931). Photographer is unknown to me.

#Engineering is good, too.

How about a Charles Parsons steam turbine generator mug?

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

13/15

Photo of the 6-foot telescope at Birr Castle in Birr, Ireland. The telescope is a black cylindrical barrel 1.8 meters in diameter and 16.5 meters long. Here the front end is covered with a black wooden circle to protect the optics within. The telescope is flanked by two massive gray stone walls which hold apparatus for elevating and aiming it. The walls also carry elaborate wooden steps and platforms for observers to reach the eyepice. The telescope is surrounded by a green lawn and a few tall green trees, part of the complex Birr Castle gardens. Photo copyright 2019 by William S. Higgins.

Speaking of the Parsons family, I want to see the Great Telescope at Birr inside a snowglobe.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs
🇮🇪🧪🔭

12/15

A woman in a dark dress is seated next to a small table. On the table is a 19th century stereoscope, a wooden box with another, smaller box mounted at a 45 degree angle above it. The smaller box has two lenses side by side, into which the user peers to gaze at the twin photographs within. This produces a three-dimensional view of the special photos. The woman, Mary Ward, has pale skin and dark hair. Her dress features a broad grid design made of light lines outlining squares about 20 centimeters across. Photo, as I wrote in my tweet, by Mary Field Parsons, Countess Rosse.

Or a shirt displaying the portrait of Mary Ward by her cousin-in-law, the pioneering photographer Mary Field Parsons, Countess Rosse.

Here Ms. Ward contemplates a stereoscope.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

11/15

As described, a page from Mary Ward's 1857 book on using a microscope, A World of Wonders Revealed by the Microscope, with colorful drawings of various things. A brass microscope. A couple of insects. Detailed microscope views of the scales on insect wings, magnified from 80 to 420 times. Art by Mary Ward herself.

T-shirt with Mary Ward's microscope drawings.

(Okay, this would not be tacky. It would be nice.)

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

10/15

Black-and-white photo of a gray-bearded 19th Century man, namely George Francis FitzGerald (1851 to 1901). But, as I described, the picture is squeezed in the horizontal dimension, so it is tall and skinny. Photo credited to Hollinger and Rockey photographers, New York, via Wikimedia Commons.

Squashed FitzGerald leprechaun, contracted in the direction of his travel.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

9/15

Walton leprechaun making high voltage and smashing a nucleus.

Maybe add a sheep with its wool sticking straight out.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

8/15

Needed: Tacky souvenirs celebrating Irish scientists.

Hamilton leprechaun scratching quaternions into a bridge.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs

7/15

Photo of a wall in the gift shop of Trinity College Dublin, in Dublin Ireland. Many colorful T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baseball caps are there. They are lettered with words like "Dublin," "Ireland," Trinity College," or, at length, "Trinity College Dublin, Ireland." Photo copyright 2019 by William S. Higgins.

@tcddublin.bsky.social
's shop being classier than typical Dublin souvenir shops, plenty of items celebrate Irish authors.

You want postcards of Joyce, Wilde, Yeats, Shaw? Right there.

But Irish scientists? Don't hold your breath.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs
🇮🇪🧪

6/15

At Trinity College Dublin (Book of Kells, impressive library) plaques claim #WilliamRowanHamilton and #ErnestWalton as graduates. Yet they're nowhere to be found in the souvenir shop.

#IrishScienceSouvenirs
🇮🇪🧪

5/15

But in its gift shops? A dearth of #IrishScienceSouvenirs.

🇮🇪🧪

4/15

[A recent exchange between @irmorus.bsky.social & @rhiggitt.bsky.social has moved me to retrieve my #IrishScienceSouvenirs thread from Twitter. Even though neither of them asked for it. I wrote it when I was in the middle of my first trip to #Ireland. 🇮🇪]

Let me tell you What Ireland Needs.
1/15