Gregory Balk

John Gregory Paul Balk (4 July 1958 - 28 February 1990) was one of Ireland's most successful guitarist/mathematicians. Born in Trá Bhán, Galway, to a poor farming family, Gregory despised rural life and moved to Dublin as soon as his second level education had finished. There he studied Environmental Chemistry in Trinity College. Due to strained relationships with his family, he had to make ends meet by busking in and around Temple Bar. It was this busking that acquainted him to his love for music.
In 1980, Balk met his future wife Christina Devereux, a Jewish girl , at a local socialist rally. They quickly fell in love. Both staunch socialists, Gregory and Christina became heavily involved in anti-fascist politics and two years later they formed Sirus McCormac, whose music was heavily influenced by their left-wing stance.
In 1983 the couple married at a small ceremony in Glendalough, but while on honeymoon in London Christina was killed when, after a night of heavy drinking, their car struck a tree. Gregory was taken into custody, and served 2 years in in Liverpool.
After the death of his wife, Balk turned away music and engrossed himself in mathematics. He returned to Trinity to study for his PhD in Advanced 4th-Dimensional Calculus, which he obtained in 1988.
In the following two years Balk's contributions to the fields of Mathematics and Physics led to advancements in both theoretical and experimental fields. He is most famously noted for his work on fuzzy sets and monoidal functors.
Gregory Balk died on 28 February, 1990, when he succumbed to the cluster headaches he had been suffering his whole life. He was cremated and his ashes were placed beside the grave of his wife, in East Anglia.

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