Seán Teegan:SEÁN TEEGAN, who has died aged 87, was professor of spectroscopy at University College Cork and the author of several highly regarded walking guides to his native county.
An only child of John Teegan and his wife Mary (née Mooney), he was reared by his maternal grandparents following the untimely death of his father when he was still a boy. A brilliant pupil at St Patrick’s national school and North Monastery CBS, he won a scholarship to study science at UCC.
Graduating in first place in chemistry in 1945, Teegan did an MSc the following year and then went on a science research scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD in 1950. Having relished the academic atmosphere there, he maintained the connection with Cambridge all his life.
After a stint teaching at Leeds University, Teegan, who was by then published in scientific journals, was appointed lecturer in physical chemistry at UCC in 1951. He became professor of chemical spectroscopy in 1962.
In the late 1950s, Teegan held a research fellowship with the US Atomic Energy Commission at the University of Notre Dame. In the early 1960s he was a visiting professor at Florida State University.
He was elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy in 1968 and, in retirement, remained active in the academy’s affairs.
Centrally involved in the reforming administration of the then UCC president MD McCarthy in the 1970s, Teegan served as UCC governor and NUI senator and filled the new office of dean of student affairs from 1974 to 1983. He was warden of the Honan Hostel residence from 1963 to 1970. He retired from UCC in 1984.
Extramurally, Teegan’s greatest voluntary work was with the Cope Foundation, which developed out of the Cork Poliomyelitis Aftercare Association. A Cope director, he researched and wrote its history, An Ill Wind Blowing Good (2003).
Music was a passion and his friendship with composer Aloys Fleischmann began at the Cork Gramophone Society. He also relished foreign travel and recently put the final touches to The Way That We Went,a chronicle of the trips he took with his wife Maura.
His extensive knowledge of his native county is reflected in Twenty-Five Scenic Roads Walks in West Cork(1993) and Scenic Walks in Cork(1998). As well as giving practical information on scenic walks, they are affectionate discourses on the lore and antiquities of inland west Cork.
Teegan was a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a member of the Irish Federation of Chemical Industries. He also served on the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace.
A cherished paterfamilias, he is mourned by his beloved Maura, children and grandchildren, and a wide circle of friends.
Seán (John Pentony) Teegan: born October 16th, 1923; died June 25th, 2011.