A grey and sombre day, cherry blossoms falling gently in a freshening breeze, the weather fitting the mood of those gathered to say goodbye to a great man and a great surgeon.
Prof Eoin O'Malley, who died on April 19th, was leaving us after many years as a colossus on the Irish medical scene. I thought during the Mass of the great physician Oliver Wendell Holmes's couplet:
Why can't a fellow hear the
fair things said
About a fellow, when a
fellow's dead?
In truth however , "the fair things said" would have greatly embarrassed this most modest and unassuming man.
Eoin was born in Galway in 1919 into a prominent medical family. His father, Michael O'Malley, was professor of surgery in University College Galway and four of his uncles were doctors. His mother, Christine, was one of the Tipperary Ryan family, prominent throughout the War of Independence.
Eoin was educated by the Jesuits, first in St Ignatius's College, Galway and then in Clongowes Wood. He was an outstanding scholar with a brilliant academic record. His time in medical school, initially in Galway and then in University College Dublin was similarly distinguished. He took honours in all examinations and graduated in first place with 1st Hons. and Gold Medal in 1942. While at UCD he gained his colours in rugby as a wing forward and also represented Connacht.
Internship in the Mater Hospital followed and then he heeded the surgical calling in his blood and joined the Irish medical diaspora in search of further training. After a variety of posts in England he went to the US and Boston's famed Lahey clinic for a further year, before his return to Dublin.
He joined the Mater as resident surgical officer. This position, essentially at senior registrar level, entailed working with all the consultant surgeons in those days before specialisation. It also, almost unbelievably, involved living in seven nights a week.
Academically as well as practically he advanced his career taking both his FRCSI and his M Ch in 1947. Contemporaries lauded his skills, learning and willingness to help, qualities that remained with him through life.
He was appointed consultant surgeon in the Mater in 1952 - the same year in which he married a most remarkable woman. Una O'Higgins was the daughter of Kevin O'Higgins, a minister in our first government who was murdered in the aftermath of the Civil War. An exceptional and caring person, she abhorred violence from any quarter and sought peace, reconciliation and forgiveness as the way forward on this island. She was a tireless worker in this cause. Una died last Christmas, so after a brief pause this remarkable couple are now reunited.
Around this time, cardiac surgery was taking the first insecure flights of a fledgling discipline. Eoin had long felt that chest and heart surgery represented the surgical challenge of his generation and he set about acquiring the skills and knowledge and building the teamwork and expertise necessary in this most demanding discipline.
In the Royal City of Dublin hospital in Baggot Street another gifted surgeon, the late Keith Shaw, was pursuing a similar objective. The two groups selected slightly different techniques and Eoin intuitively chose the path that became the highway to the open heart surgery that we know today.
It was typical of the man, and indeed of Keith Shaw, that they put inter-hospital rivalries aside and co-operated in the development of one unit on the Mater site, pooling their expertise and that of their teams in the best interest of patients.
I had come to know him when I was honorary secretary of UCD Rugby Club and Eoin was our president. He was also my professor of surgery, having taken the chair in 1958. Accordingly I was his student, intern, registrar, senior registrar and ultimately had the great honour to be his colleague. For me, he was quite simply inspirational.
In this difficult branch of surgery requiring new techniques and skills, Eoin O'Malley never faltered even in the hardest and most disheartening moments. I remember long hours in the theatre when he gave everything he had to the sickest patient, leaving himself exhausted and drained. I remember his reluctance to admit defeat and his sadness when we lost a patient. He was a calm, dignified man and seemingly bore the pressure lightly. Of course it was not so, as I came to understand in my own time. Eoin felt deeply the failures and inadequacies of those times and gave hugely of himself to make things better.
Further honours were inevitable - honorary fellowships of the Royal College in London and the American College of Surgeons, the presidency of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland; he wore them all lightly. He gave the distinguished visitor's address to the American Association for Cardio-Thoracic surgery, the premier cardiac surgical body in the world. He chose as his topic "Bernard Shaw's Doctor's Dilemma" and with uncanny prescience foresaw many of the difficulties that beset our profession today.
He was a quiet man and was described as never using one word where none would do. He was humane and humorous and the best of companions on social occasions.
He retired in 1985, if such great men ever really retire, but was always ready with advice as mentor, adviser and friend to hospitals and individuals alike. The unit he founded, now named after him - The Eoin O'Malley National Cardiac Surgical Unit - is a monument to his life and generously imparted teaching and skills, and is on a par with any such in the world.
Eoin and Una had six children: Kevin, a vascular surgeon in the Mater, Eoin, Arthur, Christopher, Finbar and Iseult. They and his grandchildren are left with the happiest memories of wonderful parents and theirs is the task, as Emily Dickinson wrote, of
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity. MN