Niall MacNeill was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 army officer and entomologist who specialised in Odonata

Odonata

Odonata is an order of insects, encompassing dragonflies and damselflies . The word dragonfly is also sometimes used to refer to all Odonata, but the back-formation odonate is a more correct English name for the group as a whole...

 and Heteroptera

Heteroptera

Heteroptera is a group of about 40,000 species of insects in the Hemiptera. Sometimes called "true bugs", that name more commonly refers to Hemiptera as a whole, and "typical bugs" might be used as a more unequivocal alternative since among the Hemiptera the heteropterans are most consistently and...

.

He was the son of Eoin MacNeill

Eoin MacNeill

Eoin MacNeill was an Irish scholar, nationalist, revolutionary and politician. MacNeill is regarded as the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history. He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture, going on to establish the Irish Volunteers...

 founder of the Irish Volunteers

Irish Volunteers

The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...

 which Niall MacNeill joined later becoming an officer in the Irish Army

Irish Army

The Irish Army, officially named simply the Army is the main branch of the Defence Forces of Ireland. Approximately 8,500 men and women serve in the Irish Army, divided into three infantry Brigades...

. With the rank of Colonel

Colonel

Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 he specialised in surveying, training with the Royal Engineers

Royal Engineers

The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....

 on the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

. After retiring from the army he worked for the State Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey Ireland

Ordnance Survey Ireland is the national mapping agency of the Republic of Ireland and, together with the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland , succeeded, after 1922, the Irish operations of the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey. It is part of the Public service of the Republic of Ireland...

 and he was made Assistant Director in 1935.

MacNeill is best known for his studies of larval Odonata on which he worked with A. Eric Gardner and Frederic Charles Fraser

Frederic Charles Fraser

Frederic Charles Fraser was an English entomologist who specialised in Odonata. Following army service in India as a surgeon with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, Fraser devoted himself entirely to dragonflies, mostly in the British Museum where his collection is maintained. Fraser's...

. He was a personal friend of both and of Cynthia Longfield

Cynthia Longfield

Cynthia Longfield Dragonfly expert and explorer, she travelled extensively and published The Dragonflies of the British Isles in 1937. She worked as a research associate at the Natural History Museum, London. Longfield was the expert on the dragonflies at the Museum, researching particularly...

.

Niall MacNeill was a Member of the Royal Irish Academy

Royal Irish Academy

The Royal Irish Academy , based in Dublin, is an all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is one of Ireland's premier learned societies and cultural institutions and currently has around 420 Members, elected in...

 and a Fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

 of the Royal Entomological Society.

External links

• Habitas Bibliography very incomplete but lists 44 papers