John P. Holland

John Philip Holland (Irish: Seán Pilib Ó hUallacháin/Ó Maolchalann) (24 February 1841 – 12 August 1914) was an Irish engineer who developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the U.S. Navy, and the first Royal Navy submarine, Holland 1.

Holland, the second of four siblings, all boys, was born in a coastguard cottage in Liscannor, County Clare, Ireland where his father, John, Sr., was a member of the British Coastguard Service. His mother, a native Irish speaker from Liscannor, Máire Ní Scannláin (aka Mary Scanlon), was John Holland's second wife, his first, Anne Foley Holland, believed to be a native of Kilkee, died in 1835. The area was heavily Irish-speaking and Holland learned English properly only when he attended the local English-speaking St Macreehy's National School, and from 1858, in the Christian Brothers in Ennistymon.

Holland joined the Irish Christian Brothers in Limerick and taught in Limerick (CBS Sexton Street) and many other centres in the country including North Monastery CBS in Cork City, St. Mary's CBS, Portlaoise, St Joseph's CBS (Drogheda) and as the first Mathematics teacher in Colaiste Ris (also Dundalk). Due to ill health, he left the Christian Brothers in 1873. Holland emigrated to the United States in 1873. Initially working for an engineering firm, he returned to teaching again for a further six years in St. John's Catholic school in Paterson, New Jersey.

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