Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy on April 25^th 1874 to an Italian father and an Irish mother - his mother was Annie Jameson whose family owned the Jameson Whiskey Distillery in County Wexford. His work on Rathlin Island and in Ballycastle covered a relatively short period from June 4^th to September 2^nd 1898, Marconi himself visited for four days during that time.

The experimental work was carried out by his assistant George Kemp, who was in turn assisted by Edward Glanville, also employed was a John Cecil from Rathlin Island. They carried out experimental transmissions between Kenmara House on the cliff above the harbour and the east lighthouse on Rathlin Island via a 104 foot aerial at the ‘White Lodge’ house situated where the new ferry terminal is - and in doing so created the historical link between the town and the pioneering developments that were taking place in ‘wireless telegraphy’.

Heinrich Hertz who died in 1894, had discovered that electro-magnetic waves existed in the air and that these could be detected over short distances, Sir William Crookes also predicted that these same electro-magnetic waves could be used for communication.

Marconi had studied physics and took inspiration from the work of Hertz, he carried out a series of practical experiments in wireless telegraphy in Italy and although Sir Oliver Lodge and Dr Alexander Muirhead claimed to have sent a ‘wireless’ signal between two Oxford buildings in 1894, it was Marconi who registered the first patent of this technology.

Sir Oliver Lodge had developed a more efficient way of picking up these electo-magnetic signals than Hertz in the ‘Branley coherer’ and Marconi developed this ability a step further. In 1985, a Captain H. B. Jackson (Royal Navy) had also succeeded in transmitting a ‘wireless’ signal the length of ship which rang a bell, and later in 1886 from ship to ship within the confines of an harbour, repeating what Marconi had already done in 1894 - Jackson later met Marconi during experiments on Salisbury Plain.

At the time many scientist were working in the same field but it was Marconi who had realized the potential of the discovery, which led him to register Patent No. 12039, on June 2^nd 1896 -‘ with specification for a ‘wireless’ system using Hertzian waves’.