#Historic - Last weekend saw the unveiling in Drogheda of a sculpture of the Fenian Ram, the first successful submarine whose designer was connected with the town.
As The Irish Times reports, the modern submarine was pioneered by John Philip Holland, who worked as a teacher in the Boyne-side town before emigrating to the States and developing his submersible ideas for the US Navy.
The rest is history, as Holland's designs formed the basis of all modern submarines we know today.
Strangely enough, his story is entwined with that of another Irishman, Louis Brennan, who invented the world's first practical guided torpedo.
Holland died just weeks before the HMS Pathfinder became the first ship to be sunk by a submarine-launched underwater missile.
But his legacy is not all destruction, and better exemplified by the exploration work being done in the Whittard Canyon by the Marine Institute's unmanned submersible ROV Holland I, named for one of the Irishman's early submarine prototypes.
The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.
