Background
Callan was born on December 22, 1799, in Darver, Ireland, the son of “Wee” Denis Callan and the former Margaret Smith. He was one of the Callans of Dromiskin, a widely spread County Louth Catholic family of means.
Maynooth, Ireland
St. Patrick's College
Rome, Italy
Sapienza University
clergyman educator priest professor scientist
Callan was born on December 22, 1799, in Darver, Ireland, the son of “Wee” Denis Callan and the former Margaret Smith. He was one of the Callans of Dromiskin, a widely spread County Louth Catholic family of means.
Callan had his final schooling at the Dundalk Presbyterian Academy before entering St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in 1816. In his third year at Maynooth, Callan studied natural and experimental philosophy under Dr. Cornelius Denvir. He introduced the experimental method into his teaching, and had an interest in electricity and magnetism. He was ordained priest in 1823 and went to Rome to study at Sapienza University, obtaining a doctorate in divinity in 1826.
After postgraduate studies in Maynooth and Rome, in 1826 Callan was appointed professor of natural philosophy at Maynooth. Here he spent the rest of his life, a life dedicated to the formation of priests and the teaching of science.
As a young professor he was vigorous and aggressively active. As a priest he was scrupulous and zealous and became known for his “large benevolences” during the famine. Callan is a reminder that science lost as well as gained when it fell into the hands of the professionals. He built large batteries and constructed huge electromagnets, invented the induction coil in 1836, and in 1838 discovered the principle of self-excitation in dynamo-electric machines. Callan’s inventions, especially that of the induction coil, became widely known in his lifetime and greatly influenced the growth of electricity as a power source.
It was through private means rather than assistance from the college authorities that Callan was able to conduct his researches. His students lacked elementary knowledge; and except for the talented few, they did not appreciate him. Most colleagues saw him as a furious experimenter obsessed with wires and magnets, a Baconian rather than a Cartesian, a visionary who somewhat foolishly spoke of a day when electricity would be of benefit to man by reducing human drudgery. Under pressure from colleagues and the need to combat rampant proselytism, this first-class scientist passed laborious years in making available in English the simple devotions of St. Alphonsus Liguori. He returned to his scientific pursuits in his declining years, when he was acclaimed by the Royal Irish Academy and, in 1857, was honored at the Dublin meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Callan died on January 10, 1864, in Maynooth.
Small in stature, Callan was a dynamo of effort. Regarded as a “character,” an amiable eccentric, he was the subject of countless stories.