Richard Kirwan

Kirwan was born at Cregg Castle in County Galway in 1733, the second son of Martin Kirwan and Mary French. He entered the Jesuit novitiate abroad but returned home when his brother died in a duel, leaving Richard to inherit the family estates. He abandoned the law for science, corresponded with leading European thinkers, and became president of the Royal Irish Academy. He remained one of the last defenders of phlogiston, a lost idea about fire and change that newer chemistry soon discarded.