Veronica Burns facts for kids

Veronica Conroy Burns (born November 13, 1914 – died January 5, 1998) was an amazing Irish scientist. She was a museum curator, which means she took care of collections in a museum. Veronica was especially known for being an expert on graptolites, which are tiny, ancient sea creatures that are now fossils.

Early Life and Learning

Veronica Conroy was born in Calverstown, County Kildare, Ireland. When she was very young, she went to live with a family named Burns in Dublin. This was because her mother was not well. Later, when Veronica was 22, she found her birth brother. She then added "Conroy" as her middle name.

Veronica lived in the same house in Ballsbridge, Dublin, for almost her whole life. She did not go to university to get a degree. Instead, she taught herself a lot about science. She became very interested in space (astronomy), nature (natural history), and rocks and fossils (geology and palaeontology). She was very good at connecting professional scientists with people who studied geology as a hobby.

A Career in Science

Veronica Burns helped start the Irish Astronomical Society in 1938. This group studies stars and planets. She also held important roles in this society many times. She was also a member of the Irish Geological Association, which focuses on rocks and the Earth.

In the 1940s, Veronica worked at Armagh Observatory. She kept records of the weather there. She also worked as a lab assistant and in a photo studio. In 1953, she joined the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club. She helped organize their yearly exhibition for many years. She also led 19 field trips over 27 years. On these trips, she loved collecting fossils. She was especially keen on finding graptolites along the Irish coast. Other scientists encouraged her to write about her fossil collection. She even helped write two science papers about graptolites.

In 1960, Veronica became a research assistant to a scientist named Robert George Spencer Hudson. In 1964, she started working at Trinity College, Dublin. She began as a photo technician in the geology department. But soon, she was put in charge of the department's museum collections. She created cool displays and organized thousands of rock and mineral samples. She also gave tours to schoolchildren, teaching them about the collections. Even after she retired in 1980, she still spent time at the museum.

Her special skill was collecting fossils. In the early 1960s, she often went on trips to Balbriggan and Skerries in north Dublin. There, she collected Silurian graptolites. These are fossils of tiny sea animals that lived in colonies a very long time ago. She built a huge collection of Lower Carboniferous fossils. These fossils were used in a science paper published in 1966. Even though her fossils were used, Veronica was not listed as an author on that paper.

Veronica was very humble about her work. But other scientists encouraged her to share her discoveries. She co-authored two important papers. One was in 1973 with Barrie Rickards and Jean Archer. The other was in 1993 with Barrie Rickards. These papers used her fossil findings to figure out the exact age of rocks in the Balbriggan area. Today, her amazing fossil collections are kept safe in the Geological Museum at Trinity College.

Later Life

Later in her life, Veronica Burns had a bone condition called osteoporosis. But she still stayed active at the museum. She passed away in Dublin on January 5, 1998.