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IGA Lecture: Dr. Patrick Roycroft – Ireland’s Mineral Heritage: the Agony, the Ecstasy and the Future
30 September, 2015 @ 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM IST
Welcome to the first IGA lecture of the Autumn 2015 season. We will be having one lecture per month for you to enjoy, plus the always-anticipated Christmas get-together.
The first lecture will be by the IGA’s own President, Dr. Patrick Roycroft. Here are the details:
Title: “Ireland’s Mineral Heritage: the Agony, the Ecstasy and the Future”
Abstract: Ireland’s mineral heritage might be defined as all the minerals that have been, or could be, collected from Ireland and that reside in museums, institutions, private collections or with mineral dealers, i.e., labelled minerals that, in some way, can be, or have been, transferred down through history and that represent an aspect of Ireland. Unfortunately, history has not always been kind to our minerals and many collections have either been willfully destroyed or accidentally made useless. However, moves are afoot to start documenting what minerals currently survive, where they have come from, what these minerals tell us either scientifically or historically (mineral labels are a treasure trove in themselves), and projects that will allow – for the first time – the general public to get to know their own mineral heritage. Examples will be taken from the UCD mineral collection project (part funded by the Heritage Council in 2014 and 2015), and specimens will be available for examination on the night.
Where on: The lecture theatre in the Geological Survey of Ireland, Beggars Bush, Dublin 4 on Wednesday, September 30th, between 6:30 and 7:30 pm. Coffee and biccies will be on hand from 5:30 pm.
Biography: Patrick became interested in minerals – and geology – when 7 years old in Galway. He obtained his BA (Mod.) in geology from Trinity College Dublin in 1987, went on to do a PhD on the muscovites from the Leinster Granite, supervised by Dr. Padhraig Kennan in University College Dublin in 1995, spent a year-and-a-half as a post-doc in Marseille (France) as an EU Marie Curie Fellow, followed by a second Marie Curie post-doc back in UCD. He then worked as an editor for over 11 years with the now-defunct H.W. Wilson Company and has more recently become an editor with the geological journal Elements, as well as doing work for Ingenious Ireland (as tour guide and researcher) and getting grants from the Heritage Council to save and research the UCD mineral collection. Patrick also has his first book coming out this October (so he has been told) – it’s to be published by Orpen Press and is called “648 Billion Sunrises: A Geological Miscellany of Ireland”.
Looking forward to seeing you there!