John Philip,
A Clare scientist was born on February 29, 1840. Philip was born in the
coastguard’s residence in Liscannor, in Co.Clare. Philip attended St.Macreehy’s
National School and then the Christian Brothers School (C.B.S.) in the nearby
town of Ennistymon. His father named John Holland who was a coastguard, retired
in 1852. John had a younger brother who died at a young age during the great
hunger period.  In 1853 Holland family moved
to Limerick and soon after john Philip’s father died.

After moving
to limerick Holland joined the Christian Brothers School and later went on to teach
with them.  Holland had to work in number
of different Christian Brother’s schools in Ireland to help his family
financially. On November 3, 1858 Phillip moved to Cork where he was assigned to
the North Monastery School.  While
working in cork John met Brother Dominic Burke, an excellent science teacher who
used to live in Limerick. Burke really encouraged Philip with his idea and plans
for a submarine. During the year 1859 Holland designed and completed his first
draft for a submarine.

 During the year 1873 Holland had to leave
C.B.S. because of health issues as he wasn’t feeling well and when he left the
Christian Brothers his brother and mother named Mary Scanlon Holland had
already emigrated to Boston. John moved to Boston as well and started working
there with an engineering firm. He only worked there for a short period of time
and decided to move back to teaching again and started working in St. John’s
Catholic School in Paterson, New Jersey. He teached there for roughly 6 years
and during his 6 years he submitted his first ever design to the US navy but
the navy rejected it.

After Philip’s
design’s got rejected Michael, Holland’s brother was involved with Fenian
Movement. The fenians were a secret organisation and force in Ireland in the
late 1800’s who wanted to achieve Irish independence from England. The Fenians
and Philip teamed up to build a submarine to use against the British Navy. They
called it a “skirmishing fund” and they wanted to use it against the British
Navy. They wanted to build a submarine that could carry around 3 people and
could attack the British ship without being detected. The initial payment
towards development of Holland’s idea was nearly six thousand dollars.  

Philips first submarine was called Holland No. 1 the
submarine was 14 feet long and was powered by a four horse power engine. The
submarines construction was secret and was built in Todd & Raftery’s shop,
Paterson, NJ. The submarine was launched on 2 October 1901 and dived for the first
time (in an enclosed basin) on 20 March 1902. It was launched in the Passaic
River in front of a big audience in April 1902. But for some reason the
submarine started to sink and later it turned it that it was sinking because
someone forgot to put in a curtail screw, but the day after they tried again
and was successful.

As Holland 1
was a major success, the Fenians were really impressed by the work and decided
to put more money to develop a sub that would be “suitable for war”.  Instead of using and modifying Holland no. 1
he decided to take useful parts out of the no.1 and decided to make a new
submarine. Holland was able to focus full on the submarines as he decided to
quit his teaching career because he was getting extra funds so he could afford
to. After few years of hard work Holland built Holland No. 2 or so called Fenian
Ram which was launched in 1881, which was 31 feet in length, had a 15
horsepower engine which could reach up to speed of 9 miles per hour over water
and 7 miles per hour under water. It was a big upgrade from Holland number 1 as
it was quicker and had an underwater cannon for combat. It was armed with a
9-inch pneumatic gun.  But after Holland
no.2 the Fenians we no longer interested in funding Holland.

So Philip
continued to work on his projects and achieved a lot of name and fame and 20
years after making Holland no. 2 john made 3 more submarines for British Admiralty.
His last submarine for them was Holland no.5 which was ordered in the year 1900
and was launched on 10 June, 1902. This submarine costed the British 35,000
pounds. Holland no.5 was once of the first submarines to be equipped with a
Periscope, and at the time of the launch, no other submarines in the Royal Navy
or the United States Navy were so equipped with it. It had a displacement of
105 long tons, was 63.5ft in length and had a petrol engine of 160 horsepower.

During the
year 1896 the John Holland Torpedo Boat Company was set up and 2 years later
the Holland number 6 was crafted. It was 53 feet and 10 inch in length, had a
displacement of 65 tons and its bean was 10ft and 4 inches. It was driven by a
45 horsepower gas engine, it also has an electric motor and it had an enormous
crew capacity of 15 crew members. Its speed was 11 km/h when surfaced and 10.2
km/h when under water.  The submarine had
an 18 inch torpedo tube with 3 torpedoes and an 8.425 inch pneumatic dynamite
gun in the bow.  It took its first dive
on ST. Patrick’s Day on 17th march 1898 and was Hollands most
successful craft as it was his first successful, full-fledged trial run of
diving and surfacing of a submarine which was done in Staten Island, in New
York Harbour. Holland had a trail and demonstration in front of the U.S. navy
for the submarine the navy was not impressed and did not buy it but then
Holland made some changes and after 2 years and a final test in March 1900 the
U.S. Navy finally decided to go ahead with the project and on April 11, 1990
the U.S. navy finally bought Holland no.6 for 150,000 Dollars which was
surprisingly just half of its actual production cost. And on October 12, 1900
it was officially commissioned as the first submarine of the U.S. navy. Soon
after the purchase of Holland 6 the navy ordered 7 more submarines for production.
On October 12, 1990 it was officially named as           USS
Holland and later was called SS-1.  Later
on in years the U.S. nave names two submarines tenders for John Philip Holland
called the AS-3 which was launched in 1923 and the AS-32 which was launched in
1963

Later in his
career during the years of 1904-05 Holland build 2 submarines for the Japanese
which were used in the war of 1904-05 between japan and Russia. After Japan’s
victory Holland won the Rising Sun award from the Emperor of Japan himself for
his contribution and his the way he helped to the Japanese naval victory.

Holland
spend most of his life working with submersibles, Philip died on August 12,
1914 at the age of 73 in Newark, New Jersey, U.S.  He is buried in Totowa, New Jersey, less than
two kilometre from where he launched his first submarine Holland no. 1. Later
in 1976 his gravestone was redone which includes a sculptural version of an
iconic photo of Holland looking outside from Holland no.6. In 1964 a street
called Castle Street in Liscannor has been renamed Holland Street to honour
John Philip Holland.