To be fair, figures like Boole and Hamilton are very much celebrated within Irish academia. And it's not a new thing. I attended a conference on the legacy of Boole in 1995: https://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/ims/bull33/bull33_3-3.pdf

Ludgate is a more marginal case because his invention didn't come to fruition. There is a bit of a sense in which he is being celebrated/hyped in a silly superficial ("collectively narcissistic") way intended to bolster self-esteem for Irish technical people. https://ingeniousireland.ie/2012/10/1909-a-novel-irish-compu...

Meanwhile significant people like Carew Meredith aren't on the public radar at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carew_Arthur_Meredith

I heard of him as Computer Science in TCD awards - or used to award - a prize for the best 4th year project called the Ludgate prize.

The problem is that he left no written body of work. I recall reading of a researcher who contacted his surviving relatives to enquire about any notes or materials he had left after his death but nothing had been preserved - I guess as his work was viewed as completely obscure at the time and he had achieved little recognition for it during his life. As far as I know what little we know of his proposed machine involves guesswork from very little material.

I've never heard of him until I took a trip to Dublin, and happened to stroll around random neighborhoods until I saw a plaque on a house celebrating his achievement!