Post by scania on Nov 23, 2014 7:15:49 GMT
It is a little known fact that the first condom was first invented by an Irish man although his 'Mark 1 condom' was never patented.
Mr Paddy Mick Murphy from Kerry in Southern Ireland had already invented the light bulb, the landline phone, the petrol engine, the diesel engine, the jet engine and the automobile although he allowed others to claim the credit for his inventions as he was shy and didn't seek glory.
Then late one night while working in his mountain cottage lab he designed and invented the earliest recorded condom made from a length of sheep's intestine. In his biography he described how he was inspired by how local fishermen had been using cat gut fishing line for centuries , he figured that sheep's gut as a material if processed correctly would be similarly strong, flexible, reliable, yet sensitive enough to be suitable for use in making condoms.
Some years later a Japanese business man vising Ireland on a fishing holiday stumbled upon Mr Murphy in the corner of a field and decided that the 'sheep's gut condom' idea could be further developed without the actual sheep present and would be a lot safer !
He took the idea to Japan and re-engineered it eventually switching to synthetic materials starting up the Durex company and poor old paddy and his sheep never made a penny out of it.
