DOCTOR MICHEÁL FANNING:DR MICHEÁL Fanning, who died at the age of 56 on Christmas Eve, will be remembered in Dingle, Co Kerry, as much more than a well-loved general practitioner in the town for nearly 30 years. He was also a community activist, a prolific poet in English and Irish, and the founder and director of Féile na Bealtaine, the Dingle peninsula's annual arts festival.
He wrote poetry all his life. Prof Tom Walsh, his friend and fellow medical student, told the funeral congregation that "if you borrowed his notes, as I did, you were just as likely to find 15 lines of blank verse as suggested diagnostic tests".
He wrote in both Irish and English, with his final collection Ghost Trawlerpublished last November. It included some of his earlier work in English as well as new poetry in which he contemplated mortality and life after death. The Separation of Grey Clouds, published by Salmon Poetry in 2002, took its title from a six-page poem describing a day in Dingle: the slight grey of the morning; and the sounds, sights and rhythms of school, work and life in the town. His own favourite collection was Verbum et Verbum, published by Salmon in 1998.
Above all, he was synonymous with féile, held each year at the end of April and culminating in a spectacular parade through Dingle on the May bank holiday Monday. It has grown into one of the most vibrant regional arts festivals in Ireland since it started in 1994. He described it as an arts and politics festival, since the programme included lectures, debates and book launches as well as a wide variety of arts events.
His ambitions for it grew year by year. Last year, the festival brought the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Liam Óg Ó Floinn to St Mary's Church in Dingle for a memorable performance of Shaun Davey's Granuaileand The Brendan Voyageattended by a capacity audience.
The night before, soprano Cara O'Sullivan, accompanied by Finghin Collins on piano, gave a recital in the church in Ballyferriter. It didn't start until nearly 9pm because of Saturday Vigil Mass in the church, so many of the audience also caught the French gypsy music in one of the pubs.
In keeping with the eclectic nature of the whole festival, the final event was sheepdog trials.
Micheál Fanning was born in Ballinskelligs, a twin and one of a family of eight. His father was a Garda sergeant - hence there were regular moves and he went to primary schools in Knocknagoshel, Annascaul and Castlegregory before winning a scholarship to St Brendan's College, Killarney. He studied medicine at University College Dublin, where he was a Simon volunteer. Hospital jobs followed in Bantry, Monaghan, Tralee, Derry and Sussex before he did his GP training in Wales and returned to Kerry to set up in practice in Dingle in 1982.
He was involved in much of the town's infrastructure and development, including the founding of the local credit union.
His approach to medicine had a touch of the spiritual about it.In an age when many GPs have all but given up doing house calls, he continued to believe in the value of visiting patients in their own homes. He often sought to go beyond the purely medical in helping his patients to cope; he encouraged them to think in terms of fulfilment in their lives rather than searching for cures. Appropriately, his medical bag and the lamp he took with him on isolated house calls were offered as gifts at his funeral Mass.
But he was also a very modern doctor. He set up, as a pilot project, one of the Republic's first primary care teams in 1998. He became a GP trainer in 2003 and he hosted an annual GP medical conference in Dingle since 1998.
As a doctor, he also made his mark abroad. He worked as a volunteer doctor with Concern in Ethiopia in 1984-85. In September 1994 he went with his brother, Brendan to an orphanage in Gradinari in the province of Giurgiu, Romania to provide medical supervision for dental treatment of immunocompromised children.
In the absence of a general anaesthetic facility, he developed a sedation protocol which is still used in dental treatment.
In 2008, he was invited to assess a local development project in Lesotho.
Shortly before his death, although gravely ill, he enjoyed what he described as one of the happiest days of his life - the wedding of his daughter Ruth.
He is survived by his wife Nóirín, son Peter, daughters Ruth and Rachel, and son-in-law Lorcan.
Micheál Fanning: born March 3rd, 1954; died December 24th, 2010