The Geological Society of Dublin and the Royal Geological Society of Ireland 1831-1890

Geology enjoyed a remarkable popularity in nineteen th-century Britain. The science was then in its infancy, and even the untutored amateur equipped with nothing more than a map, a hammer, and a strong pair of legs, could place himself on the frontier of knowledge and make useful contributions to man's understanding of earth-history. No gentleman's study was complete without its geological cabinet, and Sir Roderick Murchison — at his wife's instigation — even re nounced fox-hunting so that he might devote himself the more assiduously to the hunt for fossils. Those anxious to pose as men of science equipped themselves with the accoutrements of the geologist, and, to judge from Book III of The excursion, Wordsworth's Lake District had become infested with geologists and pseudo-geologists as early as 1814. One result of this enthusiasm for the earth-science was the establishment of geological societies in many parts of the British Isles. The first of these was the Geological Society of London, founded in 1807, and second, in 1814, came the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall. The third such society was the Geological Society of Dublin which was constituted in 1831, and which in 1864 became the Royal Geological Society of Ireland. Within seven years of the foundation of the Dublin society, other similar societies sprang up in Edinburgh, Yorkshire, and Manchester, but whereas these societies all prospered, the Dublin society had a life of little more than fifty years. Throughout its existence the Dublin society was very closely associated with the University of Dublin, and it is appropriate that after the society's