Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Twenty-five years ago McCoy published a characterization of commutative subdirectly irreducible rings. This result was generalized by Thierrin to duo rings with the word “field” which appeared in McCoy's theorem replaced by “division ring”. The purpose of this note is to give another generalization in which the words “division ring” will be replaced by “simple ring with 1 ”. The techniques resemble those of McCoy and Thierrin.