In conversation with Mayo maths genius Tom Laffey
His defining legacy is his mentorship of generations of Irish mathematicians and elevating the standard of Irish mathematics
by Dr. Richard Martin
I went to Dublin to meet Tom Laffey. He is the former head of the maths department in UCD and hails from Cross, on the Mayo-Galway border.
An Erdös number of 2, he was a recipient of the Hans Schneider Prize in Linear Algebra in 2012.
That’s a really big deal.
However, his defining legacy is his mentorship of generations of Irish mathematicians and elevating the standard of Irish mathematics.
I was a mathematics undergraduate in Galway and I frequently heard lecturers refer to him.
I contacted him by email and he graciously invited me into his home.
Before we met Tom, I asked Dr. Des McHale from Marian Row, Castlebar, about him and he emailed me the following note:
"Tom is such a great mathematician, in my opinion, because he has an enormous range and depth in algebra, excelling in group theory, ring theory, and especially matrix theory in both the finite and infinite areas.
"In terms of character, he's exceedingly modest, but generous, and very helpful to others. His lecture and his supervision at UCG, and for many years at UCD, have inspired a whole generation of algebraists, who've carried on and developed his work."
I was nervous beforehand but when we met he quickly put me at ease. We started at the beginning.
RM: You're the eldest of six children. What did your parents do?
TL: Farmers, small farmers.
RM: This is the thing that I found interesting, and I've been thinking about this. You were before free education. You went to secondary school, so you actually had to get a scholarship, and you went to the CBS in Ballinrobe.
TL: Yes I got a scholarship.
But it wouldn't have been an academic one. Well, I had two, I think, or something like that. There were two scholarships at that time in the county.
RM: And how did you get them?
TL: I did an exam. It was the only time ever in an exam that I got more than 100% in the subject.
That's because they had a bonus for doing things through Irish. So there was two.
RM: That's fascinating. So when did you start secondary school?
TL: I got the scholarship after my first year in secondary school. As long as you were under whatever age it was, you could apply for the scholarship, under 12 or something, or 13. So I applied for the scholarship and did the test, did the exam.
I got the highest mark overall in the thing, so they gave me a scholarship. You could go to a boarding school and they'd pay, or you could just stay and they'd pay less. They'd pay your fees to the school.
RM: How did you get into school everyday, from Cross to Ballinrobe?
TL: I cycled. Six miles each way.
RM: What I find really interesting, from what I've read about you, is that you're completely self-taught.
TL: Well, partially. To some extent. Mostly, yes.
RM: I got the sense that in secondary school that you were given a maths book, and you just went away and learned it.
TL: Well, essentially that's true.
I did the Inter Cert. And then a new brother came, and he decided that I was too young to go straight to the Leaving Cert. So he suggested maybe the best thing was to do an Inter Cert, a second time. So I did that.
I got full marks in a number of these subjects, more or less. But they never had offered honours maths in Ballinrobe CBS.
It was seen as too esoteric. The new principal, by the way, was a Brother Farrell from Dublin.
And when Brother Farrell saw my results, he said: "We'll try and accommodate you in some way. Try and make it possible for you to do honours maths.” So that's what he did.
RM: From what I can gather, you just pretty much were given the books.
TL: Yeah, well, that's true.
RM: And you just kind of muddled your way through it.
TL: Yeah. But that's what you have to do. I mean, you do that in other subjects as well.
RM: So you went to Galway University in 1961. Did you enjoy that?
TL: We worked really hard. You see, Galway had one particular thing that was very special, they offered 20 mean-free scholarships in order to encourage more students to go there. To encourage it and try and get a bunch of very good students to go to Galway. I also got a Mayo County Council scholarship, which wasn't worth as much as the other.
I finished my degrees in Galway and then I did a masters.
I had intended to do a PhD for a long time, once I'd heard of what a PhD was, and I decided I would try and do it. A lot of the books on algebra we studied were written by Walter Lederman.
I went to Sussex to do my PhD. Sussex was a new university. It was opened around 1960. And a lot of guys who were big-name types moved from places that had sort of industrial smoke every day, like Manchester and such like places, and they went to this beautiful city of Brighton. The university's about seven miles from the city, and it's absolutely beautiful.
RM: What was your work rate like? Were you just obsessed with maths?
TL: I wouldn't call it obsessed, but I did a lot of it. But I do a lot of reading, even now.
RM: You read maths, right?
TL: Well, I read history and things like that also. I read politics.
RM: Would you do 10-hour days?
TL: I wouldn't measure like that. It's a passion, I think. It has to be that way in terms of research.
RM: Do you have any academic regrets?
TL: I don't have regret, even now with my disability that was caused by diabetes.
It was diagnosed only after I got my foot amputated five years ago. My strength is not great.
RM: Are you lonely here?
TL: No, my siblings are very good to me. They phone me and we have lots of conversations, come and visit us and so on.
And a number of other people, I do quite a bit of stuff on the web with people.
RM: Are you still doing maths research?
TL: To some extent, I get tired more easily. Whatever maths research I do, it's been with Helena Smigoc.
...
We spoke for three hours.
What’s in print here is only a small vignette of our conversation.
I was enthralled by his own personal anecdotes of people like Paul Erdös and others.
Tom is a truly great Mayo man.