1884 – 1969. Born in Listowel, County Kerry and educated at St. Michael's College, Listowel, and at Blackrock College in Dublin, O'Rahilly went on to third level education at University College Cork, where he completed an MA and PhD.
After a course in scholastic philosophy at Stonyhurst, during which he secured his D.Phil, he was appointed assistant lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Physics in 1914, and made full Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1917. He became Registrar of the college in 1920, and held the post until 1943 when he became President of the University. He spent a year, in 1927, at Harvard studying social and political theory. Cork University conferred on him the degree D.Litt in 1939 and in the same year his massive work on Electromagnetics obtained for him the degree D.Sc. O'Rahilly founded the Cork University Press in 1931.
President UCC, ordained a priest in 1955. Member Committee on Vocational Organisation 1939- 1944. A deeply religious Catholic from early life, O'Rahilly was a member of the Society of Jesus but left before ordination and was dispensed from his vows. He maintained his (sometimes controversial) religious views throughout his life, and became a priest, and then Monsignor, in later years following the death of his wife.
Reference: Alfred O'Rahilly Biography . J by Rev’d J Anthony Gaughan, (Kingdom Books, 1986)
