There is no doubt at all about it, Richard Kirwan was eccentric. He had a large house on Cavendish Row in Dublin, on a part of what we now call Parnell Square, in which it was his custom to receive his friends "reclining on a sofa with his hat on, a long screen behind him to protect him from the draughts, and a blazing fire before him, no matter whether winter or dog days". Indeed so obsessed was Richard Kirwan with avoiding the cold that he declined to enter any place of worship, his stated reason being the utter impossibility of removing there his hat.
Kirwan was born to a well-to-do family in Co Galway in 1733. Having spent some years furthering his education on the Continent, he returned to Dublin, and in due course qualified as a barrister. Since he enjoyed financial independence, however, he was able to devote his life to chemistry, mineralogy and other branches of science, philosophy and natural history.
There were those who were sceptical of his talents. A near contemporary, for example, wrote of him that "Kirwan attempted almost every subject, although through some fatality did not succeed in any. Scarcely ever did he advocate a theory which was not found almost immediately to be unfounded; he took great pains to refute authors who have never been read, and evinced his learning more than his judgment in advocating others that will never be believed."
But meteorologists remember him more kindly. Kirwan had a particular interest in the subject, and made a number of original contributions. Indeed many of his ideas anticipated 20th-century concepts: he evolved a theory of air masses, for example, and classified them "polar", "tropical" and "marine" - ideas very familiar to today's weather-people. He also tried his hand at forecasting, using climatological information to predict the coming season, and the story goes that his predictions were so popular and well respected that farmers delayed their sowing until they knew the details of his latest prognostications.
Kirwan is best remembered in meteorological circles, however, for the long series of weather observations he made in the garden of his house in Cavendish Row. Others had kept weather diaries before him, but Kirwan's observations were the first in Ireland to be compiled with the aid of accurate instruments. Excellent records survive from 1787 to 1808, giving readings from a barometer, thermometers, a rain-gauge, and an anemometer of singular design built by Kirwan himself. Apart from his many other scientific achievements, these alone would have ensured that Richard Kirwan was remembered long after his death 186 years ago, on June 22nd, 1812.