James Robert C. McConnell was educated at O’Connell Schools, Dublin, and University College Dublin.
Education
He entered University College Dublin in 1932 and graduated in 1936 with a first-class honours degree in mathematics. After leaving University College Dublin McConnell, studied for the priesthood, entering Clonliffe College after a year moving to Rome, earning a Bachelor's Degree, Bachelor of Civil Law(Cannon Law) and Licentiate of Sacred Theology degrees and was ordained in 1939, as made a Doctor of Mathematical Sciences by the Royal University of Rome (Louisiana Sapienza) in 1941.
Career
Review McConnell was appointed a scholar in the newly founded Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 1942. Doctor McConnell was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics in Saint Patrick"s College, Maynooth, getting awarded a Doctor of Science from the National University of Ireland from his research there in 1949. He is best known for research on Rotational Brownian motion, the electric and magnetic properties of matter and the theory of the negative proton (or anti-proton).
Doctor McConnell served as Dean of the Faculty of Science, of Maynooth, from 1957 to 1968, and registrar of the College from 1966 to 1968.
McConnell was the 1986 recipient of the RDS Irish Times Boyle Medal for Scientific Excellence. Doctor McConnell was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1990, and honoured with the title of Monsignor by Pope John Paul II in 1991.