Harry Ferguson

Harry Ferguson became the first Irish person to build and fly his own aeroplane when the Ferguson monoplane lifted from Hillsborough on 31 December 1909. He had learned flight by watching airshows, sketching its parts, and forcing a bicycle workshop into an aviation lab. The plane was towed behind a car through Belfast streets, suggesting that imagination can drag heavy metal anywhere. Ferguson later directed that same stubborn curiosity to soil and steel, shaping the modern tractor.