Mathematical Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

Abstract:

The subject of this memoir is an Irish mathematician who achieved considerable recognition and was a major influence in the US mathematical world of the first half of the twentieth century. Some of his work has continued to be of importance up to the present day. He is one of the most distinguished mathematics graduates of University College Dublin. Surprisingly, there does not appear to be any biography or appreciation of him in the literature, either in Ireland or elsewhere. (All that I am aware of is a very short memoir in 1976 by Richard T. Cox ('Francis Dominic Murnaghan (1873-1976)', "Year Book of the American Philosophical Society" (1976), 109-14).) This article is an attempt to rectify the omission. Hopefully it can be read with profit by both mathematicians and non-mathematicians.