William Kirby Sullivan (1822–1890) was an Irish philologist, chemist, historian, Irish nationalist, educationalist and a passionate promoter of Irish industrial development. He was most notable for his scholarship promoting the literary history and culture of Ireland. He was widely referenced by researchers such as scientist William Grove, jurist and historian Henry Maine and ethnographer and historian Jeremiah Curtin, who visited him in his Irish sojourn of 1887.
Biography
He was born in Dripsey, Co. Cork, Ireland. His father, James Bartholomew Sullivan, owned a paper mill there employing about 400 people. He escaped a fire allegedly started by workers disaffected with the introduction of labour-saving machinery. Sullivan studied at the Christian Brothers school in Cork city. His first lectures were at the Cork Mechanics' Institute, Cork Street. Thereafter he went to Germany, where he studied at the University of Giessen under the pioneering chemist Justus von Liebig.
He returned to Ireland about 1844 with a Ph.D., and after heading to Dublin was appointed as assistant to Robert Kane (who had also worked with Liebig), Director of the Museum of Economic Geology. He performed investigations and analyses for Government projects such as the Geological Survey and helped to arrange extensive collections. He taught private students there and was on the council of the Royal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland. He showed a very broad scientific foundation in his writing, with subjects as diverse as electromagnetism (as referenced by William Grove) and geology, his interest in the latter being particularly deep: he accompanied British geologist Joseph Jukes on field expeditions and wrote a chapter in Jukes's Student's Manual of Geology. His first-known scientific paper was for the Philosophical Magazine (July, 1845) describing his discovery of a more sensitive method for the detection of mineralised phosphoric acid. With Kane, he wrote on the usage of turf (for paper, charcoal and industrial gases) and beetroot and performed research on varieties of "Swedish turnips" ("swedes" to the Irish, of a variety now known as sugar beet) as a potential sugar-crop. He built a model sugar-production plant in the basement of the Museum. In 1846, he became the Museum's official chemist; this position was terminated after two years after his criticism of the Society's poor choice of crops for his experiment, but his work continued and was part of the National Exhibition of 1852. He penned articles for The Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science (founded by Kane). He founded and edited The Journal of Progress in 1851, containing articles on the application of science for the development of Irish industry, including contributions from Kane. He authored a report on the National Exhibition in John Maguire's The Industrial Movement in Ireland (1853). In 1854, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry of two different departments, one role specifically for popular lectures. He lectured at the Glasnevin Model Farm, Dublin, (see Albert College (Dublin)) and (later) helped to create the Munster Dairy Farm.
He was a member of Young Ireland and a shareholder in the short-lived nationalist newspaper of 1848, The Irish Tribune, founded by three medical students, which was regarded as a successor to John Mitchel's The United Irishman, and which was similarly suppressed by the government and its founders arrested. However, he did not participate in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 as he was suffering from a long illness due to rheumatic fever, which had the life-long effect of weakening his heart. About 1849, he married Frances Hennessy, sister to his future professorial colleague the physicist Henry Hennessy.