Wallace Family Scholarship in Engineering
DIT Foundation is delighted to announce the awarding of the inaugural Wallace Family Scholarships in Engineering to students Fionntan O’Suibhne and Tadhg Murphy.
Tadhg Murphy is a 4th year mechanical engineer at DIT Bolton Street. Tadhg struggled at school, leaving at 14 to work in a motorcycle shop, and beginning an apprenticeship in Green keeping at 16. Realising the importance of education in his early 20s he enrolled in evening classes to improve his basic literacy, and later completed an ECDL. In 2011 he began attending a Level 5 Engineering Technology course in Greenhills College as a stepping stone to studying mechanical engineering in DIT.
Fionntan O’Suibhne is a 3rd year mechanical engineer at DIT. Fionntan began his engineering career early in life by helping his Dad, fixing lap tops and iphones for his friends. He struggle with dyslexia which made maths challenging but he was determined and achieved his place at DIT through the second chance maths route.
The Wallace Family Scholarships aim to support committed students like Fionntan and Tadhg who have not only demonstrated academic achievement but also engaged with the world of engineering outside of the classroom.
Paul Wallace (Back Row 4th from Right) with his 1950s class mates at Bolton Street in August 2016
About Paul Wallace (1936 – 2016)
Paul Wallace graduated in 1958 from the Whole-time Course in Mechanical Engineering at the College of Technology, Bolton St. This was the 2nd year of the then-unrecognised course, to gain recognition students had to sit the external Graduatship examinations of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. His practical training during the course was done at the Meath County Council and at Vorwerk & Co., Wuppertal, Germany.
After a period as a development engineer at Unidare Ltd, Finglas he did research for an M.Sc. at Salford and for a Ph. D. at Bristol.
He and his wife then emigrated to Chicago and he worked at IIT Research institute, before returning to Ireland in 1969 with the first US Company in Ireland, SPS International Ltd. First in Shannon and later in Naas, Co. Kildare, he started the first R&D Centre in Ireland for a Multi-National Company. Success in Naas resulted in promotion to Director of R&D for the SPS Technologies Corporation in Pennsylvania including the Centre in Naas.
Crossing the Atlantic again, he became Professor and first head of Trinity College’s Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering.
Returning to the US in 1983, he became head of the Assembly Systems Division at SPS and later at Ingersoll-Rand, from which he retired in 2001. Since then he has been a partner in an R&D company in Naas, Co Kildare and currently runs a similar company in the US.
He lived in Furlong, Pennsylvania with his wife Margaret until his death in late 2016. He had 4 children Karen, Ian, Mike and David.
We are deeply grateful for the support of Paul and his family in encouraging a new generation of talented young Irish engineers.
