On the Couch

Harry Kennedy: Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist

Harry Kennedy: Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist

Occupation: Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Clinical Director, National Forensic Mental Health Service, Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum

Personal/Family: Married, four children

Who from the world of health/medicine do you most admire?

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I admired Prof Kieran O'Driscoll for his use of the hospital as a therapeutic machine.

What alternative career might you have chosen?

Portrait painter.

If you were appointed Minister for Health, what would be your first priority?

To free the health service from political interference. Patients should be able to purchase their choice of health provider.

Do you have a phobia/what is your greatest fear?

Being late for anything.

Have you ever been a patient and were you a good one?

No, I am never ill on principle. I would be a terrible patient.

What three books would you bring to a desert island?

Anything by Joyce except Finnegans Wake, Orientalism by Edward Said and At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien.

Have you a fail-safe method of dealing with stress?

Listening to the bass lines in music.

What is your favourite TV or radio programme?

John Kelly on RTÉ.

If you did not live in Ireland, where would you choose to spend the rest of your life?

Corsica (the West of Ireland with sunshine).

Summarise yourself in 12 words?

Terse.

Do you use alternative medicine/therapies? Fools and their money I am a paid-up member of quack-busters.

Who or what makes you laugh?

Lawyers. Three musicians: Jimi Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield, Rory Gallagher. Three films: A Night At The Opera, Monty Python's Holy Grail and Shrek.