Denis Kane recently received news from a friend in the USA of the passing of ROW past pupil Liam O’Callaghan. Liam graduated in 1964 and John Cullen recalls meeting him a number of times when he made the trip home for significant occasions.
Liam was an outstanding Mathematician and his story makes very interesting reading. He was born in Effin Co. Limerick in 1946. Shortly after the untimely death of his father and sister Madeleine, Liam was cared for by his uncle while his mother worked in Dublin and London. He survived two bouts of pneumonia and one of tuberculosis before the age of 4.
Liam’s mother brought him to Dublin and he became a pupil in the ROW where he applied himself keenly to the study of maths and physics. He went to UCD on graduation from the ROW and achieved a BS Hons, MSc in Mathematics in 1969.
Liam went to the US and studied Mathematics at Wesleyan University in Middletown Connecticut on a Fullbright Fellowship, receiving his PhD in 1975. Liam became a US citizen in 1986.
Liam married fellow Wesleyan University student, Robin in 1975. The couple lived for 40 years in Princeton New Jersey and raised six children, three boys and three girls. Liam worked as a software engineer at RCA (later General Electric) Aerospace, and Telos (later Engility and L3 Communication Satellites. He also received an MBA from Rutgers in 1983.
Liam and Robin took some time out to be with their oldest daughter in Northern California and sons in San Diego before returning full time to Princeton in 2017.
In late 2020 Liam received a diagnosis of Gioblastoma Multiforme from which he died on January 2nd 2022. He is survived by his wife Robin, six children and seven grandchildren.
Liam’s family brought his remains home to Effin, where his funeral Mass was said on January 16th. He was laid to rest in Ardpatrick Cemetery alongside generations of his family. A Mass will also be held in Liam’s memory at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Princeton NJ on March 12th.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam.
