Cork artist inspired by uncle who was on the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki
William Penney, born in 1909, was a British professor of mathematical physics at the Imperial College London when he was invited to help devise what became known as the Mulberry harbours during World War II. These were two prefabricated harbours used to facilitate the unloading of cargo during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
Penney was then asked to join the Tube Alloys project, the British nuclear weapons programme. 'Originally, the British, the Americans and the Canadians worked separately on developing nuclear weapons,' says Patrick Penney. 'Then they agreed to co-operate, and William was seconded to the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He helped mainly with the construction of the Fat Man plutonium bomb, the one that was dropped on Nagasaki.
'He was the only British member on the committee for selecting targets, and he was a scientific observer on the flight over Nagasaki when they dropped the bomb on August 9, 1945.'
The bombing of Nagasaki came three days after that of Hiroshima, eighty years ago today. Although William Penney did not witness that incident, the first ever deployment of a nuclear weapon, he visited Hiroshima shortly after the Japanese surrender on August 15.
'I used copies of his handwritten notes from Hiroshima in my Degree Show installation,' says Patrick Penney. 'The photographs and prints in the installation were based on photographs he took in the city. Then he went back and gave a lecture in Los Alamos on what he'd observed of the effects of the atomic bomb.'
Part of Patrick Penney's installation, showing his granduncle William Penney.
Patrick Penney never met his granduncle. He first learned of William Penney's achievements when he came across a folder of obituaries his father was given when he began working at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire.
'One of the things that sparked my interest is that William burned all his papers shortly before he died of thyroid cancer in 1991, which was probably down to the effects of radiation. Everything that exists is only a copy. Copies made by the government or by secretaries or by other third parties.'
William Penney had hoped to return to academia after the war, but he was persuaded to continue working on nuclear research at Aldermaston. 'William was the director of the weapons programme. He had a really pretentious title; he was called the CSAR, the chief superintendent of armament research. He finally retired from Aldermaston in 1967 – it took him 20 years to get away - and became the Director of Imperial College in London. But, even then, he was retained as a consultant. He 'held an office at AWRE,' was how they put it.'
Although Patrick Penney's aunt and uncle, as well as his father, all worked for AWRE at Aldermaston, 'they didn't have much of a relationship with William. I think my father would have met him, when he came to visit the building, but William had already retired by then. He lived in East Hendred, thirty miles away.'
William Penney married twice and had two sons. 'It's one of those weird quirks; he was eventually made a lord, and then he was made Baron Penney before he died, but the titles are not passed down through lineage. I know his children attended his funeral, but then they became private again. They would be in their 80s now, and may well have children and grandchildren of their own. I haven't really tracked his family. That would be something to look into.'
Patrick Penney grew up in West Cork. 'My father is English, and my mother is Irish. They moved back in the 1990s, and I was born here. We live just outside Bantry.'
He is almost surprised to find himself pursuing a career as an artist. 'Originally, I intended studying automotive technology and management in MTU. But then I applied for the Crawford and got in. A lot of this has been completely unexpected.'
Much of his Degree Show installation was based on material he discovered in the National Archives at Kew.
'I was there for four days last summer. I had a look at 18 files that referenced William's name, but there were 80 in total. I'll be starting a master's in contemporary art practice shortly, and I hope to carry on my research. I'm going back to the archives this month, and there's a couple of more places that I'd like to try and get into. The photographs and some of the files in my installation were only declassified in 2010. There's more stuff that is still technically classified, but this is up for review.
'I'm hoping that, if I can say I'm a postgraduate researcher, and put in the freedom of information requests, I might be able to get access to more information. I'm hoping to be able to establish for a fact that William was at Aldermaston at the time of the big CND anti-nuclear marches in the 1950s and '60s, for instance. It'd be interesting to compare one side to the other.'
Part of Patrick Penney's installation, based on photographs his granduncle took in Hiroshima.
Penney believes his granduncle must have had mixed feelings about his role in the nuclear arms race. 'In my Degree Show installation, there was a barrel with a book on the top of it. That had a quote was from what he wrote after he witnessed the Nagasaki bomb. He said, we have contributed to a monster that will consume us all.
'What he did was objectively terrible, there's no getting around the fact of that. But there's still an argument over whether dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was worth doing. It's conservatively estimated that if the Americans had had to land in Japan, then at least a million people would have been killed, if not more. So it's complicated, but I think the overall consensus is that it was not good.' Penney plans to exhibit his Degree Show installation again next month.
'I've talked to Mich Moroney at the Swerve Gallery in Skibbereen, and I hope to show it there on Culture Night, September 19.'
He has other exhibitions planned as well. 'At the Degree Show, I got an award for GOMA, the Gallery of Modern Art, in Waterford. I think there'll be a group show there with me and Danny Foley, another artist who was in my year, and probably a couple of more from SETU. And then there'll be an MTU STEAM exhibition during Science Week at the James Barry Centre at MTU Bishopstown in March or April. So hopefully there'll be chances to show the material again.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Irish Sun
8 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Massive 8ft tuna weighing 32st which can feed a THOUSAND people caught off UK's south coast
The tuna sold for an eye-watering sum NEED BIGGER TIN CAN Massive 8ft tuna weighing 32st which can feed a THOUSAND people caught off UK's south coast A GIANT tuna which can feed a thousand people has been caught off the south coast. Jonathan Simper, 59, was four miles out of Dartmouth, Devon, when son Harry, 29, and crewman Wayne Adams spotted the 8ft beast in their trawler net. 3 A tuna which can feed a thousand people has been caught off the south coast Credit: BNPS 3 Jonathan Simper was four miles out of Dartmouth, Devon, when son Harry and crewman Wayne Adams spotted the huge fish Credit: BNPS 3 The crew brought the giant tuna to Brixham harbour Credit: BNPS They were set to release the endangered bluefin back into the sea, but it was already dead. The crew then brought it to Brixham harbour, where a derrick had to lift the 32st (201kg) catch out of the boat. It was sold to a wholesaler for £1,800 and can be divvied up into 1,000 portions. Jonathan said: "We are very pleased with the sale price but it is an unexpected bonus. "It was completely by chance, a once in a lifetime thing.' Jonathan and Harry, 29, have run the family business together for 15 years. Bluefin tuna can reach around 10ft in length, although the average size is about 5-6ft, and can weigh up to 400kg. They can reach speeds of up to 43mph in pursuit of prey and adult tuna have no natural predators apart from man. The massive apex predators disappeared from British waters in the 1960s as overfishing pushed the species to the brink of extinction. But numbers have rebounded in recent years and it was taken off the endangered species list in 2021.
RTÉ News
13 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Last surviving WWII Victoria Cross recipient dies aged 105
Britain's last surviving World War II Victoria Cross (VC) recipient has died aged 105. Flight Lieutenant John Cruickshank, from Aberdeen in Scotland, received the VC for bravery during an attack on a German submarine that left him seriously injured. A total of 181 people received Britain's highest military decoration for their actions during the war. The RAF captain's family told the BBC he died last week and that a funeral would be held in private, it said. Mr Cruickshank was the captain of a Catalina flying boat with the 210 Squadron, flying submarine-hunting missions from RAF Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. On 17 July 1944, aged 24, he was sent on a patrol to protect the British Home Fleet as it returned from an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz. A U-boat was spotted on the surface near Norway and the aircraft he was captaining and piloting launched an offensive. The first bombs failed to release but Mr Cruickshank turned the plane to face enemy fire and attack again. He dropped depth charges during the second attempt, sinking the U-boat. He sustained 72 injuries, including two to his lungs and 10 to his lower limbs, during the assault. The navigator was killed, three other crew members were severely injured and the badly damaged aircraft was filled with fumes from exploding shells. Mr Cruickshank subsequently left the cockpit but refused painkillers and continued to advise his second pilot who had taken control. The surviving crew members spent five-and-a-half hours flying back to Sullom Voe. Despite losing consciousness multiple times during their return, he assisted the second pilot with the landing which took an hour. In 2013, Mr Cruickshank said the mission was "normal", adding "we were trained to do the job and that was it". He said: "I wouldn't like to say I'm the only one that has an amazing story, there are plenty of other stories coming from that time. "It wasn't that wonderful in those days, I can tell you that. We could only think in those days there were better days to come."
The 42
a day ago
- The 42
Sunshine on Leith: The Irish origins of Hibernian FC, as they celebrate 150 years
THE BHOYS IN their green and white hoops are on a season-long commemoration of their Irish roots, having been founded by a cleric with the intention of helping the destitute Irish in their Scottish city. We are talking, of course, not of Glasgow Celtic, but of Hibernian FC. On 6 August, the Edinburgh club hosted a free exhibition at the St Mary's Street Hall that documented their formation exactly 150 years to the day. It was one of a series of events to recognise the landmark. A few weeks before, they staged a friendly with Rot-Weiss Essen of the German third tier; the opposition they met back in 1955 when they became the first British club to play in the inaugural European Cup. A casual look at what was on display in the historical display, however, shows how at one point Hibernian FC were the greatest charitable experiment for the Irish diaspora in the world; one that Celtic would faithfully imitate right down to the small details. **** Take it right back to the start and at the time of their formation, Edinburgh had an Irish problem. Over 100,000 had left Ireland in the years during and immediately after the Great Famine to go to Scotland. While the majority settled in Glasgow, like many other cities, Edinburgh struggled to accommodate the refugees. Two of whom were John Connolly, a labourer originally from Monaghan, and his wife Mary McGinn of Ballymena, Co Antrim. They lived in Cowgate, nowadays a thriving area of modern city life, but back then a slum known as the unflattering 'Little Ireland.' Their third born son, James Connolly, would later become an enormous figure in Ireland's political history, but it was with the then seven-year-old James Connolly in mind that Limerick-born Canon Edward Hannan of St Patrick's Church and Michael Whelahan of Kilglass, Co Roscommon, who had just turned 21 and would become the club's first captain, were thinking of. James Connolly. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Together, they imagined a football club that would raise money for the starving Irish and help them integrate successfully into Scottish society. At this early stage, the Irish influence was absolute, starting with the name itself: Hibernia being the Roman name for Ireland. The Catholic Young Men's Society was embedded from the outset and it was insisted upon that playing members were teetotallers and practising Catholics. The club motto adopted was 'Erin Go Bragh.' Naturally, there was opposition from certain elements of the establishment and Hibernian struggled to get opposition for games. Not only was there an anti-Irish feeling, but a class issue also as football was not yet a mass, working-class pursuit. It was Heart of Midlothian of all teams that helped them out and played a series of games until the stand-off melted away and they were accepted by those that ran Scottish soccer, the Edinburgh and Scottish Football Associations. A year into their existence, they began wearing green and white hoops, something they did for a decade. They called themselves the 'Bhoys.' In 1902 when they won the Scottish Cup, they did so with Dubliner Dan McMichael as the club secretary. While teams were effectively run by committee in those days, McMichael was the de facto manager. The Irish connection has not always been particularly strong, but some notable recent players include Nick Colgan, Daryl Horgan, Anthony Stokes and the late Liam Miller. Anthony Stokes. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill had three seasons there in the '90s under Alex Miller, while Ivan Sproule of Tyrone had two spells at Easter Road and hit a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over then champions Rangers. Advertisement No less than George Best fetched up in the 1979-80 season on a 'pay for play' basis. While the gates were quadrupled, he could not save Hibs from relegation. George Best in the colours of Hibernian. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo One quirky connection was that of Pat Stanton who was acknowledged as one of Hibernian's greatest servants, a winner of the Scottish Football Writer's player of the year in 1970 and one who fended off interest from Celtic until the very final years of his career because of his connection to Hibs. He was the great-great nephew of founding member Michael Whelehan. In July of this summer, the club named one of the Easter Road stands, 'The Pat Stanton Stand.' Pat Stanton at the dedication of a stand in his name. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Like any good Irish sporting story, there's also room for a good old gypsy curse saga. For Hibs, it centred around a Scottish Cup drought that lasted from the Edwardian era and the refurbishment of the south stand in the 1950s, that did not reinstall the Hibs' harp emblem. The finger of suspicion for such a decision landed on chairman Harry Swan. He was selected by the board as the first non-Irish Catholic to take the role. Any quick check though would debunk that theory. Swan had presided over a post-war period that had one of Hibs' most successful periods, including three league titles in five years. He himself ordered a hand-crafted mosaic harp for the club's boardroom. Still, there are grudges that never wither. The New Year's Day match between Celtic and Rangers in 1952 provoked serious violence on the pitch. The Scottish FA considered a request for the Irish tricolour to be removed from Celtic Park. Celtic refused. Sanctions were threatened. Other clubs had their say with a vote and Hibs – represented by Swan – voted against Celtic. **** Everything changes, everything evolves. Hibernian is like any other club; home to thousands of different philosophies. For a great deal of Hibs fans, the club was about the old dock town of Leith and the local culture. For some it was a badge of anti-establishment. Others felt they were just as Irish and indeed Republican as Celtic. It's a theory that has some references in popular culture outside of the terraces. For example, in Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, following the misadventures of a group of heroin addicts and Hibernian fans in Edinburgh, there is a chapter detailing Francis Begbie's New Year's Eve party where the assembled are belting out a selection of Irish Rebel songs, including 'Off to Dublin in the Green.' Edinburgh author and Hibs fan, Irvine Welsh. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo And yet, one of the central characters in Mark Renton comes from a family of Hearts supporters with a brother in the British Army serving in Belfast. The passage of time brings a new generation. When Hibs reached the Scottish Cup final of 2016 and beat Rangers 3-2, their first Cup since 1902, it included a few elements. The contribution of Anthony Stokes was immense. He scored the first goal, a neat stab to the far post after finding himself in space down the left wing. Rangers then grabbed two goals before Stokes' equalising header in the 80th minute. But he was a complete menace throughout, hitting the woodwork and having another shot parried, before David Grey's header in added time sealed the 3-2 win. The big Hollywood moment came as the Cup was presented to Hibs for the first time in 114 years and Hampden Park swayed to the crowd belting out that most gorgeous Hibs anthem, 'Sunshine on Leith' by The Proclaimers. There were some Irish tricolours among the Hibs end. This was a century on from the Easter Rising and James Connolly's execution. Just on Connolly; as a child, he acted as a ball-boy on match days for Hibernian. He had a love-hate relationship with his home town. The love centred mainly around Hibernian but it is striking how monuments and statues commemorating Connolly have been erected in Belfast, Dublin, Chicago and Troy, but not in Edinburgh. There is a small plaque near his birthplace. Nonetheless, there is a Hibs supporter's club named after him. It is difficult to think of another example of just how Irish emigration succeeded than Glasgow Celtic. But it's debateable if it all would have happened without the example of Hibernian FC. Four years after their establishment, Dundee was a city with a strong Irish identity, a census conducted in 1851 revealing that 19% of the city was Irish. They found their voice with the formation of Dundee Harp in 1879. Following a suspension by the Scottish Football Association in 1894, Dundee Harp stopped playing, were replaced by Dundee Hibernian, before reverting back to the Harp name prior to going defunct. It lives on in one way. The area around Lochee was known as 'Little Tipperary.' Having been formed in 1904, Lochee Harp are still on the go at junior level. Then, there was Dundee Hibernian who formed in 1909. Their first game was in August of that year against Hibernian of Edinburgh and they joined the league the following year. In 1923, they almost went bust and it was decided to change the name of the club to Dundee United, and the colours from green and white, to white and black. They would later change to orange and black in 1969. In 1887, Brother Walfrid of Sligo was inspired by the success of Hibernian and wished to achieve the same for the Irish poor in Glasgow. At the time, Hibernian made donations to the fledging enterprise. Unbeknownst to the other Celtic board members as football was evolving from amateur to professional, two Celtic board members, Glasgow businessmen John Glass and Pat Welsh, were thinking in terms of running Celtic as a profitable venture. In time, the best players of Hibernian were tempted west by the Celtic largesse. Under the management of Willie Maley, born and bred in Newry, Co Down, Celtic developed ideas of producing players from the wider east end of Glasgow and surrounding regions that gave them a strong identity. Eventually, with the help of Jock Stein, Celtic would capture the European Cup in 1967 with a team of players all from within 30 miles of Celtic Park; a feat never done before, since, or ever with the remotest chance of happening again. The affections of the Irish were with Celtic and that's how it largely remains. But it may never have happened without the vision of Hibernian FC.
