Joe's great heart faltered and stopped early in the morning of August 17th. Some 50 years ago he was appointed Consultant Anaesthetist to Jervis Street Hospital. In that happy institution he himself became a much loved institution, even though feared in committee for his forthright, pithy comments, always very much to the point.
He headed the Department of Anaesthesia for almost 40 years, watching it grow from a one-man band to a department and four Consultants and many more junior staff. He also founded and ran the Poisons Information Service, which answered telephone queries at any hour of day and night from people looking for information about the poisonous potential of any substance.
In 1958 the first Artificial Kidney Unit was set up in the Hospital. Each of the Consultant Staff contributed £100 to buy the first machine. With his delight in gadgetry and dismantling and assembling machinery, Joe was easily persuaded to be the first Director of the Unit. For some years he edited one of the Journals of Anaesthesia, to the amusement of those who knew that he could not spell.
As an Anaesthetist he was superb, making technology his servant, but never his master. He served for a time as Dean of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He cared deeply for his patients as individual people and had total integrity, a quality that is sadly uncommon. He was the Founder of the Rathgar Credit Union and to the end of his life was very active in that work.
The great love of his life was shooting, whether for game or as a competitive sport. Indeed, he represented Ireland at the Mexico Olympics of 1968. For many years, until recently, he was Secretary of the Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting Association. Indeed the members of that Association valued his services so highly that they came in numbers to carry the coffin at his funeral, and were all wearing the tie that he had designed, as he had much earlier designed a tie for Jervis Street Hospital.
He is survived only by his older sister Nellie. Since the death of his second wife a few years ago, he has been wonderfully minded and carefully watched over by his neighbours Miriam and Thos O'Brien. Joe's death at the age of 78 has left many people sad, but grateful for his life.
A.W.