Timeline of Key Developments in Local Medical History
1765 Irish Parliament passes an Act enabling the Grand Juries to establish County Infirmaries. County Infirmaries established at Downpatrick and Armagh.
1788 Dr Samuel Black sets up a practice in Newry. His highly influential work linked angina to ‘ossification’ of the coronary arteries.
1817 Small fever hospital and dispensary established in Kilmorey Street in Newry.
1826 Connor’s Chemist established on Hill Street in Newry by Dr Patrick Connor.
1832 Epidemic of Asiatic Cholera in Newry; 271 people infected, 127 died.
1835 Buildings rented on Pound Road for use as a hospital and dispensary.
1838 The Irish Poor Law established workhouses and other mechanisms for helping the poor.
1839 Newry Fever Hospital (later renamed Newry General Hospital) opens on the Rathfriland Road.
1841 Workhouses opened in Newry and Kilkeel. Infirmaries and Fever Hospitals are built on the sites.
1845 – 1849
Epidemics of typhus and fever in Newry during the Great Famine.
1856 Workhouse hospitals allowed to provide treatment for the nondestitute poor who were not inmates.
1871 Newry Improvement and Water Act receives Royal Assent.
1895 Smallpox outbreak in Newry.
1900 A serious fire destroyed the main building of Newry Workhouse.
1901 Sisters of Mercy invited to work in the Newry Workhouse Infirmary. This practice had already been introduced in many workhouses in Ireland.
1902 Newry Workhouse re-opened with improved facilities.
1904 Sisters of Mercy resign, and their nursing role taken on by the Sisters of St John of God.
1914 – 1918
First World War prompts local doctors and nurses to provide medical services to the Armed Forces, both at home and abroad.
1918 Spanish flu outbreak.
1927 The Fever Hospital in Kilkeel expanded to become Mourne District Hospital.
1930 Newry Workhouse becomes Daisy Hill Hospital.
1936 New medical block at Daisy Hill Hospital constructed with electric light.
1939 – 1945
Second World War.
1947 Streptomycin, first antibiotic effective in treating tuberculosis, discovered in 1943, introduced locally.
1948 National Health Service (NHS) established. Board of Guardians close Newry Workhouse and dispensaries are replaced by GP services.
1963 The running costs for Daisy Hill Hospital, Newry General Hospital and the Mourne Hospital Kilkeel were £279,368, an increase of £49,000 on the previous year, the main reason for the rise was salaries.
1964 A Nurse Training School is established at Daisy Hill Hospital.
1966 Post Graduate General Practitioner Training Scheme introduced in Northern Ireland. Myles Shortall from Newry is the first and only trainee of that year.
Late 1960s
Building of a new Maternity Unit and Casualty Department at Daisy Hill.
1967 The hospital of the Sisters of St John of God opened at Courtenay Hill.
1970s Daisy Hill Hospital at the forefront of the Troubles.
1981 New tower block development at Daisy Hill opened by Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Mr John Patton MP.
1981 Last patients in Newry General Hospital transferred to Daisy Hill Hospital.
1989 Newry and Mourne Hospice (later Southern Area Hospice) is established by the Sisters of St John of God and the Southern Area Health Board at Courtenay Hill.
1991 Psychiatric Day Hospital opened by Dr Gerald Plunkett at Daisy Hill.
1996 Mourne District Hospital closes.
2000 Last Sister of St John of God working in Daisy Hill Hospital retires.
2003 Daisy Hill Hospital designated as one of nine acute hospitals in an acute hospital network for Northern Ireland.
2005 An allocation of £2.9 billion for modernisation and development of facilities at Daisy Hill was included in the Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland.
2009 The Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 led to a reorganisation of health and social care delivery, reducing the number of organisations involved. This Act established the Health and Social Care Board and five Health and Social Care Trusts which are responsible for the delivery of primary, secondary and community health care.
2011 Daisy Hill Hospital becomes a Queen’s University Belfast Teaching Hospital.
2020 COVID-19 Pandemic begins.
Newry General Hospital, originally known as a Newry Fever Hospital, opened on the Rathfriland Road, in July 1839. A sum of £800 for the building of the hospital was raised through public subscription and was matched by the Grand Jury of County Down. This photograph was taken by Dr Myles Gilligan, Resident Surgical Officer at Daisy Hill Hospital and later Surgeon at Louth County Hospital in Dundalk.
Newry General Hospital closed in the early 1980s.
Newry and Mourne Museum Collection
Dr
Courtesy of Daisy Hill Hospital
Richard Flood was Anaesthetist at Daisy Hill Hospital from 1920 until 1950. His son, Derek, and grandson, Richard, followed him into the medical profession as GPs in Newry.
Christopher Shortall – A Surgeon during the Second World War by Myles Shortall
Based on an interview carried out by Noreen Cunningham with Dr Myles Shortall in December 2019, with additional material supplied by him and from other sources.
Known as ‘The Wizard of the Desert’ for his speed of operating, my father, Christopher Shortall, served as an RAFVR surgeon during the Second World War in Aden, the Middle East, and Cyprus.
Christopher was born in 1905 to Milo Shortall and his wife, Catherine Phelan, at the family home of ‘Wood of O House’, near Tullamore, King’s County (now county Offaly). He received his education at Mount St Joseph’s boarding school, Roscrea, county Tipperary. He graduated with First-Class Honours in Medicine from the National University of Ireland, Dublin in 1928 and was appointed to the extern department of St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. By 1935 he was Assistant Surgeon in St Vincent’s Hospital, and in that same year he was appointed Medical Officer and Surgeon in Newry Union Infirmary and Fever Hospital (later known as Daisy Hill Hospital).
In August 1936 he attended a surgical course in Berlin, Germany, and his Irish passport bears the Olympic symbol. He was the guest of a German orthopaedic surgeon who kept him out of contact with his children, who were members of the Hitler Youth movement, and might have reported the presence of a foreigner.
In April 1939 he married Marie O’Hare from Newry, at St Peter’s Church in Warrenpoint. They honeymooned in Nice, France in May, and one day at the French-Italian border, whilst taking photos of a group of men and cars outside a hotel, some of them came over and took the film from Christopher’s camera. It was thought they were high ranking Nazis meeting with Italian Fascists in preparation for the forthcoming war.
It is probable that his seeing how things were in Germany under the Nazis, influenced his decision to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve in July 1938, where he gained the commission of Flight Lieutenant.
During the early years of the war he was based in England, in 1939 at No. 1 Depot, Henlow, 1941 at the Recruits Centre, West Kirby and later that year at No. 4 RAF Hospital, Rauceby, Lincolnshire, one of the pioneering burns and trauma units within the RAF.
On 16th January 1942, Christopher was posted to the Far East on the troopship, the Llangibby Castle. En route the ship was torpedoed by the U-402, a German submarine, killing twentysix of the 1,200 people on board. Left without a stern and a rudder, but steering by her twin screws, the ship was escorted by destroyers, all the while fighting off an attack by a FolkeWulfe Fw 200 Condor aircraft (which bombed and strafed the deck with phosphorous tipped
Mr Christopher Shortall pictured at his desk in his consulting room at his home, Laurel Lodge on the Downshire Road in Newry
Courtesy of Dr Myles Shortall
ammunition), to the Azores for temporary repairs, then to Gibraltar where Christopher was billeted on the Maidstone, a submarine supply vessel.
His next posting was to Egypt, where he stayed for two months until he was sent to Aden from 1942 to 1944. After this he was in Syria, Jerusalem, and Cyprus. Whilst in Aleppo, Syria, he was detailed to go north to the Turkish-Syrian border at Meidan Ekbis, to meet a train-load of prisoners of war (POW) who were being repatriated from a POW camp at Shumen in north east Bulgaria. The prisoners, numbering 318, were mainly United States Air Force bomber crews plus a few British and other nationalities. After screening they were flown to Aleppo and then on to Cairo. He took numerous photos of his time abroad, using a small Agfa Karat 35mm camera.
My mother and I had been with my father at his various postings in England between the end of 1939 until the start of 1942. When he returned from the Middle East to RAF Uxbridge in 1945, we joined him there, living near the camp. I started school in Uxbridge. By the time the war ended my father had attained the rank of Wing Commander. Living in Uxbridge as a young child I remember the ‘Victory in Europe (VE) Celebrations’ on 8th May 1945. My Mum and Dad had gone to a party that evening and had left me in the care of a babysitter who decided she wasn’t going to miss the fun, so she took me and her young brother out to the street parties. There were bonfires and fireworks. Drink was on the go and people danced to
a piano which had been taken out into the street. I was parked on top of this. Eventually my distraught parents found me when the celebrations were over.
My father returned to his pre-war job at Daisy Hill Hospital and covered the south Down, Newry and south Armagh areas, and his Registrar was Mr Myles Gilligan. Christopher was one of the last ‘General Surgeons’, and he not only did Surgery but also covered Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, ENT and Orthopedics.
Mr Christopher Shortall wearing his RAF uniform during the Second World War. Courtesy of Dr Myles Shortall
In 1948 Christopher’s appointment to the post of Surgeon at Newry General Hospital became a matter of controversy and was discussed in a Northern Ireland Parliamentary debate, as to ‘whether one man can perform the duties involved in supervising these major hospitals [Daisy Hill Hospital and Newry General Hospital]’. It was argued that the opposition to his appointment was due to the fact that he had served as a Medical Officer in the armed forces, and ‘If he had not joined the Forces this question would not have been raised’. At the close of discussion, it was pointed out that in Belfast there were surgeons employed in more than one hospital. My father also did private work at Courtney Hill and saw his private patients at our home, Laurel Lodge, on the Downshire Road. He served on the specialist committee
which was instrumental in establishing the National Health Service in Northern Ireland and despite his extensive commitments was a regular attendee at meetings of the British Medical Association (BMA) where his opinion was often sought by the committee of the Northern Ireland Branch.
Christopher Shortall died aged forty-five on 15th June 1950 from myeloid leukaemia and, in an obituary, written by Sir Ian Fraser in the British Medical Journal he concludes; ‘on this (BMA) and other committees there was no one more admired by his colleagues. He was a man of his word, without bias, and all that mattered to him was to do the right thing. Many people in Ulster will mourn his death from leukaemia, and to his widow and their four boys the deepest sympathy of his colleagues and friends will be extended’.
Pictured at Daisy Hill Hospital in the 1940s are Mr Christopher Shortall (third from left), Consultant Surgeon, Dr Richard Flood (third from right), Anaesthetist, and Dr Myles Gilligan (first right), Surgical Officer. Courtesy of Dr Myles Shortall
Memories of the Fever Hospital and Surgical Ward, Daisy Hill Hospital, Newry by Rosaleen Cole
As a child I was a patient in Daisy Hill Hospital, just after the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948.
My mother took me to Dr Rafferty’s surgery when I was four-year-old as I was unwell. After he examined me he wrote a little note which he passed to my mother, ‘Scarlet Fever, Daisyhill’. According to my late mother I spent six weeks in isolation in Ward 8 of the Fever Hospital.
I cannot remember how I spent all those long summer days alone in that little room, but occasionally my mother and father would wave to me from the perimeter of the wall, a signal I would receive some delicious Timoney’s ice cream.
After a while on my own a slightly older girl joined me. She was probably used to the company of older brothers and sisters, she had a sense of adventure and wasn’t for being contained in the room we shared. Little timid me followed her on our first big adventure, out of the room down the long corridor to the right, peeping in all the rooms along the way. It was filled with very ill adults who failed to notice the doors quietly opening and two sets of eyes peeping in. Nothing exciting there! One more door left, facing the length of the corridor - bingo we had hit gold, a room full of playmates, all in bed like us and soon ‘play commenced’ jumping in and out of these beds and sharing their ‘loot’, I will never forget those very big black shiny grapes.
How long were we there I can’t remember, but it was long enough to get to the squealing stage which soon attracted the nurses. Shock horror! Two scarlet fever patients in the Diphtheria Ward. Our procession back to our room was hastened by a couple of firm smacks to bottoms, like those our mothers would have delivered. Imagine if we arrived in the Fever Hospital with one illness and caught a second illness, questions would undoubtedly have been asked.
Rosaleen Cole, on left, pictured with her sister Phyllis, around the time of her stay in hospital. Courtesy of Rosaleen Cole
On the day I was due to leave the nurse gave me a lovely warm bath in a large sink. Whilst I might have been glad to leave the hospital I was sad to discover I had to leave behind my lovely book from Aunt Teresa, but worse, to arrive home to find all my toys and little treasures had been burnt, to prevent infection.
Quarantine didn’t end there; once I was back home, German measles followed
immediately! The blinds were drawn and paper placed around the light shade, to dim it. My little sister, Phyllis, despite being in close proximity to me, did not catch either infection.
My second stay in hospital as a child was in Ward 6, Female Surgical with acute appendicitis. What signs that I was ill I cannot remember, and how my mother got in touch with our doctor, in the days before every house had a land line, I’ll never know. All I do know is that Dr Mallon arrived, examined me, spoke to my mother and gathered me up in a pink eiderdown and placed me in his car and we were off to Daisy Hill. I can vaguely remember the operating theatre with its bright lights. Three whole weeks of injections followed, including the morning a needle broke in my hip, which still bears the scar.
My stay in Ward 6 was very different from the Fever Hospital ward. For one, it was an adult ward and I was still a very young child, but at least I could now have visitors. I remember well my bed was to the right of the door to the sluice and bathrooms. It’s unbelievable what a child takes in and how it sticks in one’s memory. There was still post-war rationing in place and I can remember the broth served daily at about 11 am which was thick with barley and the enamel mugs and plates, another aspect of rationing.
Sister de Lallis (centre), who was Matron, with Sister Isadore and Sister Pius of the Order of St John of God at Daisy Hill Hospital c.1950. Sisters from the Order began working at Daisy Hill as nurses in 1904 and remained at the hospital until 2000 when the last Sister working there retired.
Courtesy of Daniel McKevitt
There was always plenty going on to keep me amused. As I was the only child amongst a ward of bedridden ladies it was down to the nurses and Sister Isadore to keep me busy, until another young girl joined me. There were swabs to be made under the tutelage of Sister King, a fellow patient, and washing water to carry to the sluice room.
Towards the end of my three-week stay I was moved to the children’s ward at the very top of the hospital. What a different place it turned out to be. Beds close to the ground, boys and girls, including a couple of long-term patients who ruled the roost, lots of playacting amongst ourselves and the breakfast, McCann’s loaf with lemon curd spread. Night time was unbelievable, as the room was illuminated by the light of the fire where the nurse sat with the baby’s nappies airing on a big fire guard.
I still remember the original approach to the hospital which was a lovely sweeping drive up the hill past flower beds, and on the left the convent where the nuns, who were nurses, lived. At the top of the drive was the lodge where the porter sat, through the lodge towards the main hospital building with its cast iron beds, wooden floors, staircase and old-fashioned lift. A very different, less formal building, where caring nurses in starched hats took care of the population of Newry and Mourne.
Over the years I have visited others in the new Daisy Hill Hospital, but the old hospitals are fondly remembered by me.
Aerial photograph of Daisy Hill Hospital c.1970 showing the old workhouse buildings which were still in use until they were demolished to make way for the building of the new tower block which opened in 1981.
Courtesy of Daniel McKevitt
Memories of my Father by Michele McVerry
Based on an interview carried out by Dr Ken Abraham with Dr Michele McVerry in December 2019.
My father Dr Michael McVerry, was a local GP and practised from his home at 7 John Mitchel Place in Newry. He was born 5th May 1917, the son of Bernard and Rosina McVerry (nee McKnight), who had a grocery business in Hill Street in the town. My grandparents had seven children, Maureen, John, Bridie, Michael, Theresa, Eileen and Kaye. My father would always say that my grandmother, who died before I was born, was forward thinking, and was very keen on educating her children, including her daughters which was unusual in those days. Maureen attended Queen’s University Belfast, became a teacher and taught at St Dominic’s School, Belfast. Bridie obtained a MSc. in chemistry in University College Dublin (UCD) and worked in the Faculty of Science at UCD. Theresa qualified as a doctor and practised as a psychiatrist. Eileen and Kaye became radiographers. John McVerry also became a doctor and practised as a GP in Newry, initially from his home at Bank Parade.
My father, Michael McVerry attended the Christian Brothers Primary School in Newry, then attended Clongowes Wood College in county Kildare, as his brother John had done before him. He did his leaving certification at the age of seventeen and gained entry
to the medical school at UCD. He always excelled academically. He left school in June 1934, and during that summer his sister, Bridie McVerry who was already in the science faculty gave him a ‘grind’ in sciences and he then passed the first-year exam at UCD (known as the pre-med year) a few months later in September, which was quite a feat. He qualified as a doctor in June 1939, one month after his twenty-second birthday. I am not sure how long he remained in Dublin. There would have been a requirement
Dr Michael McVerry at the time of his graduation from University College Dublin in 1939. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection
to stay a year at least. He then went to Cornwall where he worked as a doctor for over five years. It was during the Second World War of course and I remember the stories about how he gained a lot of experience in England and become quite skilled in Obstetrics. He also did anaesthetics. He did his first appendectomy operation in Plymouth in a hospital as it was being bombed and they continued with the operation as the bombs fell. At some stage he went into general practice, in St Austell in
Cornwall, in an older doctor’s practice. While he was in Cornwall, he was a captain in the Home Guard, it being war time.
My father returned to Ireland in 1947 and bought Dr Grant’s practice at 7 John Mitchel Place in Newry, as doctors did before the National Health Service was introduced in 1948. He also bought the house and the furniture and set up his practice in the house and lived there.
Dr Michael McVerry and Maureen Mackin pictured on their wedding day in February 1949. The best man (first left) was the groom’s brother, Dr John McVerry, who had a practice on Bank Parade in Newry and the groom’s man was Dr Dermot McDermott, who was a GP in Donaghmore, a rural area about five miles north of Newry. Courtesy of Dr Michele McVerry
In 1948, he met my mother Maureen Macken from Dalkey, Dublin, who had been at school with his sisters Theresa and Eileen at Sion Hill, Blackrock, Dublin. My parents were married in February 1949 and had three children, Ian born in 1950, I was born in 1954 and Raymond arrived in 1956. We lived above my father’s practice. Like our father, we all chose medicine as our careers. His practice naturally included areas around his surgery, High Street, North Street, Courtney Hill, The Commons, William Street, Drumalane, later the Meadow. Dr Grant, was originally from Mayobridge and my father inherited many of his patients in that area and in the greater Newry area. Next door to the surgery was Connolly’s grocer’s shop and two doors down, Liam O’Hare’s chemist shop; both were integral parts of our lives.
As a child I can remember the doorbell was always ringing. Transport was limited then. It wasn’t the norm to have a car, or even a phone, so many came on foot and rang the doorbell with their request. During surgery hours, we as children were told to be very quiet. We learned not to touch the telephone in case it was a medical call. My father seemed to work all day, and at night, he rarely appeared to be off duty. Designated surgery hours started at 9.30 am in the morning, again at 2 pm in the afternoon and there was an evening surgery starting 6 pm. There wasn’t an appointment system, it was a walk-in
surgery, and there were house calls in between and maybe a home obstetric delivery to attend during the day, or night. My father also did anaesthetics for the local dentist, usually at 9 am, before morning surgery.
I can still remember my father’s surgery. We, as young children weren’t allowed into it except when we were invited in by my father. It was kept locked. It had a large roll desk with a key to it, with drawers on either side. There was a book case. He had an examination couch and a purple covered timber screen which was moveable. There was a small oak cabinet in which he kept his instruments. He had a filing system which I clearly remember. It was wooden, and it wasn’t very elaborate, with alphabetical A-Z pull out drawers. Obviously, there was a wash-hand basin.He had a lovely antique chair which swivelled. When children attended with their parents, sometimes my father would put the child in the chair and give it a swivel to amuse. He had an electric bell that connected from the surgery to the waiting room and he’d press that, and the next patient would come in. The waiting room was quite big and nicely furnished with Dr Grant’s old antique furniture. Its window faced out to the main street. My father’s professional brass name plate was outside at the front door, and early on, my mother placed decorative geranium flower boxes on all the window sills. There wasn’t a receptionist, my mother
would have opened the door and answered the phone. She often made cups of tea for waiting patients. She had a major role in those days. You had to be available, there weren’t rotas like nowadays. Holidays were infrequent and on occasion curtailed. I remember when the locum’s wife died, and my father returned a few days into our holiday, we continued. Another rare weekend was cancelled just before, due to an impending home confinement he was to attend. There wasn’t a practice nurse. My father did all the dressings, ear syringing, and poultices which were common in those early days. Not many poultices now!
We, as a family, moved to live at Rostrevor in 1960. Their practice continued as before. Around 1966, my father sold the house in John Mitchel Place and moved his practice to rented premises in Corry Square, Newry, which he shared with other doctors but never joined in practice, they worked separately. One was Dr Seamus McAteer, another Dr Neil O’Reilly and there were others. Their surgery was opposite the RUC station.
The Troubles started in 1969 and had a major impact on life in Newry. His surgery was in a bad position, being opposite the police station which was ‘blown up’ a few times, and on occasion the surgery suffered from the blast also, but this danger didn’t stop patients attending. Anyhow, in 1971 he joined the Alliance Party NI, as one of its early members and stood for election in 1973, in Newry South Ward. He topped the poll
in his ward and became a [Alliance Party] councillor on Newry and Mourne District Council, continuing on for eight years, having been re-elected in 1977. He was Chairman of Newry and Mourne District Council from 1978 to 1979.
In his earlier medical career in Newry, he was involved in medical politics; he was on the Local Medical Committee and was a local representative at national BMA events. In 1973 he was on the South Down Hospital Management Committee. My father was also a Forensic Medical Officer, which often involved appearing as a medical expert witness in court. His work involved being a forensic medical examiner and often appearing as a medical expert witness. During the Troubles his duties involved a lot of night work. The police may have gone to the surgery during the day but would also come to our home in Rostrevor at night, to serve a summons. They would come down the drive in a police car, there would have been soldiers lying under our rhododendron bushes with rifles poised, on the road there might have been an armoured vehicle and a helicopter hovering overhead. We, as his children, were both intrigued and apprehensive as we viewed this from our windows. The police rarely arrived without military support in those times.
Around 1973, my father was one of the GPs who favoured and encouraged the move to John Mitchel Place to what we now refer to as the ‘Old Health Centre’, opposite our former
In 1973 health and social services in Northern Ireland underwent major reform with the introduction of four new health boards. This photograph was taken at the last meeting of the South Down Hospital Management Committee in that year.
Back row (left to right): J Berry, Secretary, D Wright, Dr M Mc Verry, W Wright, H O Neil, J Getty, B Edwards, J Mc Ateer, P Murray, H Short, Deputy Secretary. Front row (left to right): Mrs D Ferns, Miss [?] Sloan, Matron, Newry General Hospital, Mrs E Fisher, P Mc Kenna, F N L Bell, Chairman, Mrs R Mitchell, Miss T Grant, Matron, Daisy Hill Hospital, Miss O Rogers, Matron, Mourne District Hospital.
Newry and Mourne Museum Collection
premises in 7 John Mitchel Place. The doctors had their individual surgery room and annex, but now had the facility of a treatment room and an in-house nurse to do dressings, take blood and assist the doctors etc. They had a communal reception and waiting area, and their own receptionists. That was a great help and there was camaraderie there; you could have a cup of coffee if you had time with your colleagues. The social workers were on the other side of the building and midwives, nurses and others would come in and interact with the doctors. That was a great move and
my father continued there until he retired. He practiced as a single handed general practitioner from 1947 until I joined him in general practice, as his first partner in 1982. My father retired from being a principal in general practice in October 1989, at the age of 72. However, he continued to work as a locum for a few years. In 1990, I amalgamated my practice with that of my brothers, Dr Ian McVerry and Dr Raymond McVerry and their partner Dr Mark McEvoy. My father died on 25th September 2013. His granddaughter, Dr Fiona McVerry, is now qualified in medicine, the next generation.
General Practice in Warrenpoint by Donal O’Tierney
Based on an interview carried out by Dr Ken Abraham with Dr Donal O’Tierney in January 2020.
My father, Dr John O’Tierney (‘Sean’), came to Warrenpoint on 11th November 1918, at the end of the First World War, as doctor to the shipyard in Warrenpoint. He was born in Cookstown in county Tyrone, in 1892 and, about 1910, he moved to Dublin with his parents and his two older brothers.
When my father came to Warrenpoint he was paid £200 per year (a handsome sum then). He had qualified in the Mater Hospital in Dublin in 1916 and later spent six months in Wexford before applying for the shipyard job. Other doctors in Warrenpoint were Dr Bell, the dispensary doctor, who lived in Coolbawn on Queen Street, Dr Glenny and Dr Mayne. Almost immediately came the Spanish flu and my father was kept busy. He set up practice in Avoca, in Great George’s Street. He had a bicycle, then a motor bike, and finally a motor car.
In 1925, Dr Bell died and my father applied for the dispensary job. He canvassed the Poor Law Guardians and at the meeting, one councillor proposed they stop the meeting as a mark of respect following the death of the father of another of the councillors. Then someone else proposed that first they should appoint the dispensary doctor in Warrenpoint, and this was seconded. A dispute arose as to which would be taken first, but the Chairman ruled that the first proposal was not seconded and my father was appointed. The Poor Law Guardians
never met again. Subsequent appointments were made in Belfast.
My father then applied to take over Dr Bell’s surgery in 6 Queen Street. In 1930 my father married the daughter of Arthur Mallie who had emigrated from Newtownhamilton to America but returned with his family to Warrenpoint in 1920 after suffering a stroke.
My parents had five children. I was born in 1933 and went to Miss O’Hare’s Private School, St Peter’s National School, the Christian Brothers for one year and then to
Dr John O’Tierney pictured at the time of his graduation in Medicine from University College Dublin in 1916. Courtesy of Dr Donal O’Tierney
Clongowes Wood College in county Kildare (1945-1951), going on to do medicine at University College Dublin (1951-1957).
In 1958, after a year at Baggot Street Hospital in Dublin, I returned to join my father in general practice in Warrenpoint.
My father worked from our house in 6 Queen Street, Warrenpoint, and did a short morning surgery, 9.30 am - 10.00 am and then went out on his calls and did the dispensary as well in Charlotte Street. This was a separate building where he looked after the poor, who could not afford to pay the doctor. He ate dinner at 2.00 pm and had two surgeries from 3.00 pm - 4.00 pm and 6.00 pm - 7.00 pm at the house and also on Saturday mornings. He was always very busy, as in addition to his dispensary job, he was Registrar for Deaths, Births and Catholic Marriages, and would take his papers for registration up to Mayobridge each Wednesday. He was also Public Health Officer for Warrenpoint Urban District Council and looked after TB patients in in the sanatorium outside Warrenpoint until it closed when the NHS was introduced. He was also doctor to Reed’s Factory and visited there every Tuesday morning.
There were two other doctors in Warrenpoint, each working from their own premises. Dr Redman in Seaview and Dr Purcell, doing locum for Dr Gilsenan. Dr Redman had taken over Dr Glenny’s practice in 1948, at the start of the National Health Service. Dr Gilsenan had originally come to Warrenpoint in 1941, to work with my father. He set up has own practice at the start of the NHS in 1948. He was now ill, and employed Dr Purcell,
who, in 1959, on the death of Dr Gilsenan, inherited the practice.
Dr Purcell had intended to go to the USA when Dr Gilsenan died, but eventually went there in 1966. That year, under the New Contract, the doctors came together, joined by Dr McLaughlin from Rostrevor, in the Central Surgery in Great George’s Street. This meant that their houses were free from surgery.
In 1958, when I joined the practice (having known Dr Purcell at school), we arranged to cover one another on Saturday afternoons. This enabled us to play sports without being disturbed. I played rugby with Dundalk and Dr Purcell played golf. Soon afterwards the other GPs joined in and we arranged to have the weekends covered. We stopped the Saturday surgery in Warrenpoint but kept it going in Rostrevor (Dr McLaughlin had his half day on Thursday and felt the Saturday surgery to be necessary).
When my father retired officially in 1959, I had about 2,000 patients. I had the NHS practice and also the registration of Births, Deaths and Catholic Marriages for a few years. I married my wife, Winifred Lloyd from Bray in 1961 and I was able to appoint my wife as deputy to assist with registration as well as answering the phone. Also, I had the contract to look after Reed’s Factory. Gradually the surgery hours continued to expand till I was working from 8.30 am to 11.30 am in the morning and from 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm but often until 7.00 pm in the evening. As more people drove cars, patients
could be brought to the practice and home visits were reduced from about sixteen a day to an average of six.
In 1966, when Dr Purcell had gone to the USA, we formed a partnership with all the doctors and were able to absorb Dr Purcell’s practice. This brought our numbers of patients to near the average in the UK. (Northern Ireland was ‘over-doctored’ and our average had been 1,750 compared to 2,500 in England.) Our rota was now three doctors.
New contracts in 1966 revolutionised general practice. Doctors were paid £1,500 each year if they came together, working from one premises, a nurse was employed to take bloods and 70% of the cost of ancillary staff was paid by the NHS. After having practised in Princes Street, a new Health Centre was built in Summerhill, and all the doctors moved there in 1972; two receptionists were appointed and Public Health Services came there as well.
In about 1983, I applied for my practice to be recognised as a training practice, and this was accepted. For eight years out of the next ten, I had a trainee doctor working with me. The young doctors who joined the practice, mostly for a year, were: Dr Hassan, Dr Malachy Murphy, Dr Paul McCormick, Dr Vijay Tohani, Dr Gabriel Scally, Dr Mark McEvoy, Dr Tom O’Leary, Dr Petrina Ryan, Dr Barbara Devlin, Dr Eleanor Brown, Dr Joseph McGivern and Dr Mark Murphy. I had to retire from training in 1993 when I was 60. The following year I applied for
my pension and returned to work half time. I invited Dr Mark Murphy my former pupil, to join my practice.
In 1981, Drs Redman and McLaughlin, decided to have another doctor, so the practice amicably split, with Dr David Gaw coming to join them. Dr Mary Henry came to work for me in the morning. Within a year, we had extended our total from three to six doctors, and at the age of 49, I was able to take a winter holiday and went skiing.
In the meantime, the population was slowly expanding, and things were tight in the Health Centre. Dr Joe McGivern, one of my trainees, joined Dr Gaw’s practice when Dr Redman retired, and later Dr McLaughlin’s son, Henry, replaced his father. The practice had become fund-holding and was able to save money. They built a new premises across the road which freed up space in the Health Centre for each of the three doctors to have his own surgery.
In 1987, Dr Henry thought she would like to have a different style of practice and decided to have her own surgery at Marina Surgery on Havelock Place. We asked Dr Petrina Ryan (who had been a trainee) to join our practice. In the following year I was awarded a Fellowship by The Royal Collage of General Practitioners (FRCGP).
I had reduced my work in 1994 to half time and then in 2003, at 70, I had to retire. However, I continued to work as a locum doing an average of three half days per week –up to the age of 80.
Watercolours by Dr A E Douglas (1835 – 1894) who had become the dispensary doctor for Warrenpoint and Mayobridge by 1870. Watercolour painting of landscapes and botanical subjects was one of Dr Douglas’ principal hobbies and he often went on painting expeditions in the Warrenpoint, Rostrevor and Cooley areas. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection
Memories of Dr Paddy Ward, Police Surgeon and GP
by Wendy Ward
Based on an interview carried out by Noreen Cunningham with Wendy Ward in December 2019.
My husband Paddy Ward was born in Dublin in 1925 and attended The Royal School in Armagh. He ran away at the age of fifteen to join the Merchant Navy during the Second World War and served in the Naval Convoys which protected vital supplies of food, equipment and raw materials to the British Isles. Goods were transported in thousands of merchant ships which were grouped into convoys with naval escorts, protecting them from German submarine attacks.
After he left the Navy, he did what was called a ‘grind’, and studied to pass exams into the College of Surgeons in Dublin. He set up practice in Bangor, and then in 1959 moved to Bessbrook in county Armagh where he was GP. In the early years he was by himself in the surgery but was later joined by Dr McKnight and they worked together for thirty years. It was also around this time he became a Police Surgeon and would have examined victims of assault, rape, man-slaughter as well as suicides or murders. He was also Staff Medical Officer for Daisy Hill Hospital and would have carried out annual medicals for staff, similar to what we now know as Occupational Health. He was also Staff Medical Officer for Dromalane House and was also the Medical Officer for the Bacon Factory, and much later, Norbrook Laboratory.
One of the most high-profile murder cases he was involved in was the infamous McGladdery case. Robert McGladdery was the last man to be hanged in Northern Ireland, in Crumlin Road Prison in December 1961.
Robert McGladdery had brutally murdered Pearl Gamble on 28th January 1961 after a dance at the Henry Thomson Memorial Orange Hall in Newry. Paddy had to examine the poor victim, Pearl Gamble, and in came this little man wearing rubber boots and a flat cap. Thinking he may have been a relative of the victim, Paddy said, ‘I must warn you this is not a pleasant sight’, the man said, ‘Get out of my way, I am County Police Inspector Ferris!’
McGladdery was taken in for questioning and later released, but the police were convinced that he would soon lead them to the hiding place of items missing from the murder scene. I remember going on the bus to school in Newry and seeing crowds around the Waldorf Bar (Hill Street), were he frequented. Seemingly, he was being constantly followed by the police and this was creating a sensation for local people, who also followed him around the town.
I married Paddy in 1971 and we lived on the Green Road, near Bessbrook. As the Troubles intensified, and with the helicopters landing nearby, Paddy decided it was time to move. A building site became available and we built a house in 1971.
Dr Paddy Ward pictured with his wife, Wendy, and children, Julie and Alan, at Buckingham Palace when he received his MBE in 1985. Courtesy of Wendy Ward
At that time Paddy was still working as a GP, but his Police Surgeon duties were increasing due to the Troubles. He would have been called out sometimes two to three times a night. There were so many horrible incidents during the Troubles that my husband had to deal with around the Newry and south Armagh area. Some of them stick out in my mind.
One of them was The Miami Showband Murders which took place on 31st July 1975 on the A1 road at Buskhill in county Down. Five people were killed, including three members of The Miami Showband, one of Ireland’s most popular show bands. I remember that day as we were supposed to have been going to our holiday cottage in Donegal. At about 2 am that morning Paddy got a call to go in to the police station in Newry as the survivor had come in to report the attack. He then had to go out to a scene of desolation to examine those who had been killed.
Other awful incidents he had to deal with were the murders of the Reavey brothers and the Kingsmill Massacre, both of which occurred near Whitecross within a day or two each other in January 1976. Paddy was called to sedate one of the survivors of the Kingsmill Massacre who was a patient of his and suffering from severe shock. He then went to the hospital and was told to go to the scene of the crime to offer medical help. Eight of the ten men who were murdered were his own patients.
Paddy was a committed smoker, and at one point he was asked to go to the police station in Corry Square to examine two people for drugs. Before he went, he asked our daughter to fetch his packet of cigarettes from the surgery in Bessbrook. This short delay almost certainly saved his life as a few minutes later he was going up Catherine Street in Newry, when a massive explosion went off at the Police Station. When he got there, there was total mayhem and carnage, and one of the police women said to him that she had hurt her leg, but it had been blown off. This was in February 1985 and the mortar which had been fired killed nine RUC officers and injured many others.
There were also many other incidents my husband had to deal with. I remember him getting calls at night, and one comes to mind when I was awoken during the night by the sound of a vehicle revving. I got up and saw a hearse in our driveway, the undertaker got out and opened the back doors and I could see my husband ducking his head down and looking into the hearse. As it turned out some poor person had committed suicide and as the mortuary at Daisy Hill was on strike, rather than bring the body to the morgue in Craigavon which would have caused further distress to the family, they had brought it to Paddy to certify death.
Another incident I remember is a policeman who had shot himself in the foot being
brought into our kitchen for Paddy to examine. I remember bringing a bowl for him to be sick into and a stool to support his foot.
It is true to say that during the Troubles the abnormal became normal. Throughout it all, assisted by Dr Michael McVerry, he undertook his role as a Police Surgeon in an unbiased and honest way. His role was to examine suspects on arrival and after they were questioned. He was unfailingly truthful in his reports and recorded any marks or injuries.
For Paddy, the surgery doors never closed, and even in the evening if he was worried about a patient he would contact them. Patients would also come to the house if the surgery was closed and he would never turn them away. As a GP’s wife you were very housebound, and you could not leave the house for any length of time as you had to answer the phone and there were a lot of
house calls. In the afternoon it was not as busy, as the phone could be diverted to the surgery in Bessbrook.
Paddy was very caring to his patients, and around Christmas time he would have taken presents to some of them. I remember one Christmas morning he visited a patient with a gift, but she was at church and did not see him. Around 1.00 pm or 2.00 pm when I was getting the Christmas dinner ready for the family, the doorbell rang, and who was it only the patient he had visited. She came in and said, ‘I heard you were at my house, doctor, I am here for my Christmas dinner!’ After dinner was over, we went to the sitting room and Paddy switched the television over, and she said, ‘Oh doctor, you have turned off the Generation Game!’ It was amusing incidents like this that you remember as well as the terrible tragedies.
In 1985 Paddy was awarded the MBE, he was also Deputy Lieutenant of County Armagh and a Justice of the Peace, and I remember him having to sign a lot of paperwork in that role.
At the age of 70 my husband retired, but he went back to work the next day on a parttime basis as a GP and was still working in some capacity for Daisy Hill Hospital. He completely retired at 83 and died at the age of 86 in 2012.
Dr Paddy Ward (right) with Dr Ajam and Dr Gerald Donaldson at a retirement party for Dr Banerjee in 2007. Courtesy of Dr Myles Shortall
A Newry General Medical Practitioner by Myles Shortall
Based on an interview carried out by Noreen Cunningham with Dr Myles Shortall in December 2019.
During my career as a GP in Newry from about 1968, I have seen many changes over the years, not just with how GPs are trained, but how care is delivered to patients as well as changes in disease, and how many once common conditions have now been eradicated.
After attending the Christian Brothers School, Newry, and Clongowes Wood College, county Kildare, I studied Medicine at Queen’s University, Belfast, graduating in 1964. I spent my ‘Houseman’s year’ at the Mater Hospital, Belfast, six months of which were spent in the Obstetric and Gynaecology unit. The next year I worked at the new Ulster Hospital Obstetric and Paediatric departments, six months in each. In 1968 I graduated from the newly created General Practitioner Training Scheme, Northern Ireland, having done an extra year at the Belfast City Hospital, rotating through Cardiology, Respiratory Medicine, and Psychiatry. This was followed by a year attached to a GP Training Practice in Lisburn. I was the first and only trainee for that period but within a couple of years the Scheme became mandatory for those wishing to enter General Practice.
Following this there was a period in which I did locum work in England and both the north and south of Ireland. Each summer
I worked with the practice in which I was later to become a partner, that of Doctors Mearns, Faloon, and Donaldson, 11 Trevor Hill, Newry. In the early 1970s all the Newry practices were relocated to the Newry Health Centre at John Mitchel Place. Of the fourteen doctors who started there, I am the only one left. They were: Drs Wilson Mearns, Sydney Faloon, Gerald Donaldson, Paddy Byrne, Derek Flood, Val Blaney, Seamus McAteer, Neil O’Reilly, Frank Mallon, Patrick Lane, John McVerry, Michael McVerry, Paddy Ward (whose base was in Bessbrook, but he also did surgeries in Newry), and myself. The move was not without problems, one of the main
Dr Myles Shortall working in Newry Health Centre on John Mitchel Place c.1990. Courtesy of Dr Myles Shortall
stumbling blocks being that the different practices employed their own clerical staff at varying rates of pay and with different holiday arrangements. At first, administration in Daisy Hill Hospital wanted us to hand all our staff over to them as regards pay rates and holidays. The GPs had a meeting at 11 pm, the night before we were due to move in, and in view of our opposition, administration capitulated and we were able to carry on as usual. Once installed we were very happy there.
As regards post-graduate education we had occasional meetings of doctors from Newry and the surrounding area (they included Drs Arthur Mitchell, Wilma Hanna, Jack Crummie, Paddy Fee, Donal O’Tierney, Malcolm Redman, and Brian McLoughlin). The meetings took place at the Ardmore Hotel, Newry, hosted by a drug company, and featuring a Hospital Consultant who would give a lecture on the latest medical innovations. This informal education would later give way to changes in our terms of service requiring us to provide an annual report and attend courses and lectures in Northern Ireland hospitals. I remember attending a lecture given by Professor Frank Pantridge who promoted the cardiac ambulance network and use of defibrillators throughout the six counties. He was advocating the installation of ECG machines in GP surgeries. One GP at the lecture said, ‘this is wonderful, we can do an ECG, send it to the hospital for reading and have the report with us the next day’. Frank in his usual
laconic manner replied ‘Hmmm, a report the next day – you might as well stand the patient up against a wall and take their Polaroid photograph,’ Frank was not impressed!
Lack of car ownership meant a much higher rate of home visiting in the 1960s and 70s. When I worked in Trevor Hill we could have up to fifty house calls in a day. We were giving triple and oral polio vaccines to children in their homes as well as doing the occasional home delivery of babies. There were no mobile phones and very few people had land lines, so communication was a problem. No practice could exist without good reception staff, and in more recent times a good practice manager. In this respect we were exceptionally fortunate over the years.
In a practice of three or four GPs you did one in three or four nights ‘on call’. This meant doing your day’s work and then covering your practice until the next morning when the day’s work started again. After a Saturday morning surgery and house calls, you would be on a one in three or four rota for the weekend (including nights) and then on Monday until late afternoon. My longsuffering wife took the phone calls when I was on duty and during the night if I was away on a home visit. On the plus side, traffic was lighter then, though when the Troubles came we had problems with road blockages, explosions, and military check points, which interfered with traffic flow.
House visits were sometimes very useful for diagnostic reasons. One patient used come repeatedly complaining of headaches.
Dr Myles Shortall (centre) pictured with two of his colleagues, Dr Sydney Faloon and Dr Gerald Donaldson (seated) at Newry Health Centre in the 1980s.
Courtesy of Dr Myles Shortall
They had been extensively investigated in various hospitals to no avail. Fortunately, the patient requested a home visit and as soon as I entered the house I said ‘Don’t anyone light a match’. There was a strong smell of gas coming from a leak outside their front door. Once the leak was repaired there were no more headaches!
Poor living conditions existed in those days. I remember one man who lived in a corner of a room, the rest of the house having fallen in. He was in his forties with a heart condition and lay on a mattress on the floor.
With the expansion of air travel, diseases spread more rapidly worldwide. Polio, diphtheria, and tuberculosis (TB) have become rare in these islands but now we are beginning to see antibiotic resistant TB being brought in from countries where the vaccination programmes are not as good. The advent of penicillin and sulphonamides eliminated a lot of diseases such as rheumatic fever, renal nephritic syndrome, erysipelas, and bacterial endocarditis. In the past we would have seen hundreds of cases of measles, whooping cough, mumps, rubella, all now relatively rare due to vaccination.
In the 1960s I remember vaccinating people against small pox. This disease has fortunately been eradicated worldwide. The vaccination was done either near the ankle or on the upper arm. It came in a little plastic tube and a bleb would be squeezed on to the skin. A very fine needle would be repeatedly jabbed
into the skin through this bleb. This carried the material into the skin surface and if the vaccine had taken a reaction would occur resulting in a raised area over the following week. Eventually a scar would occur. I still have one. Other diseases I encountered among our farming patients were, brucellosis, Q fever, and farmer’s lung. These are still with us. To those pigeon fanciers out there I would remind them of the dangers of psittacosis.
I cannot leave without mentioning the part played by our local public health officers in improving air quality in Newry. For years Newry, on account of its location, had been prone to smogs and poor air quality. Every time I met my old school friend, Mr Hugh O’Neill, who was the Chief Local Public Health Officer, I would raise the problem with him. He was instrumental in getting out to the local Council to install air monitoring stations in the town, and when the results showed how bad the problem was, they brought in clean air regulations so that only smokeless fuel could be burnt. Traffic emissions remain a problem.
In 1994 all the Newry doctors were relocated from John Mitchel Place to the ‘Health Village’ off Monaghan Street. At this stage I was the senior partner with the Shortall, O’Neill, Radcliffe and Torney practice.
I retired in 2009, having had a very satisfying career working with excellent colleagues, both medical and non-medical, and not least of all, wonderful patients.
Training as a nurse in the 1970s by Sean McCorry
Based on memories recounted by Sean McCorry to Noreen Cunningham in February 2020.
At the beginning of October 1973, I saw an advertisement in the local paper for jobs in Daisy Hill Hospital for Porters and Ward Orderlies. After an interview, I got a letter offering me a job as a Ward Orderly and I commenced work on Monday 29th of October. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but it was the start of a journey lasting forty-two years.
Working on the wards involved a range of duties from making beds, bathing and helping to feed patients to putting on bandages. As time went on I decided to train as a nurse, I made a few enquires and found out that mature students could do an entrance test to get into the Southern Area Group School of Nursing. I found out the format and got IQ tests papers from a bookshop in Newry, and timed them with an alarm clock, night after night. I took the exam on 23rd June 1976, which was a really hot day, I had prepared as much as I could, and when I turned the page over I thought this is fine, near the end I left one question because I knew it was going to take too long. Just as I thought I was finished, I found out I still had to write an essay, ‘a holiday of a lifetime’, so I just wrote it as if I was still at primary school. I think they were just looking for spelling and neat eligible writing.
I passed the exam and commenced training on 7th March 1977. It was six weeks in the School of Nursing and an exam every Friday.
My first placement was in Banbridge Hospital, which was like a cottage hospital. When you walked in through the front door in the morning you could smell a delicious aroma of what there was going to be for lunch. It was really laid back, it was a hot summer and the grounds were lovely and the ward I was on had a balcony.
The next hospital I went to was Daisy Hill. It was a bit nerve racking as I had worked there as an orderly and was now back as a trainee nurse. One of the first things I had to
Sean McCorry pictured in his nursing uniform in the 1970s. Courtesy of John McCorry
do was change a dressing, and it so happened that I knew the patient. The tutor who came to assess me had a white coat on, and I was very nervous. I remember it was St Valentine’s Day and it was snowing outside. During the assessment, I asked the patient if I was hurting him and said no. He exaggerated a bit, I thought he was going to say that’s the best dressing I have ever had done, but then they started talking about backing horses and the tutor must have liked a bet, and I got through that one.
The next place I went was 4 North Craigavon Coronary Care and after that to 4 South in Craigavon, and that’s where I did my medicine assessment. The assessment was going well, and I had changed the wrist bands on the patients, which shows they were legible to check against their records, and there was the ward sister observing, the tutor from the School of Nursing, a male staff nurse and myself. As I came to the last patient, I said to myself, keep your nerve and I said, ‘Mr so and so, you are number such and such’ and then there was a pause. The staff nurse said, ‘That’s not what I have here Mr McCorry.’ I said, ‘What have you got there?’ So, he says, ‘I have number such and such’, and I thought I will say what’s in the guidelines, and I said, ‘I’m taking no action in relation to the administration of this medication until a positive identification of the patient has been obtained.’ And, he started laughing and the ward sister, said, ‘alright I know, I can confirm who he is.’
I passed each assessment and although I had applied to be a State Enrolled Nurse, I did well enough in the exam, that they offered me the opportunity to be trained as a State Registered Nurse, which was a higher level of nursing. I was allowed to undertake a number of placements for the next six months to complete the training.
One of my placements was at the Mourne Hospital in Kilkeel, it was on the Newry Road into Kilkeel. I arrived on a rainy night in November, and I thought I was going to be based in the hospital building which was at the top of the yard, but it was the long Nissan hut that I was going to. Down one side were the beds for the male patients and down the other side was female and in the middle was the sister’s office or nurse’s station. It was very different to where I had nursed before, and there were no hoists, ribbed mattresses, and you had to lift patients in and out of baths. However, the nurse’s home was on site, and I really enjoyed the six months I spent working in the hospital.
The Accident and Emergency Department (then known as Casualty) at Daisy Hill Hospital in the 1980s. © John Davis
I also had to undertake a placement in the community. I remember accompanying a nurse who was visiting a breast cancer patient in her own home to change her dressing. I had to stay outside while this was being done, as at that time there were very few male nurses.
I had passed my exam, but to complete my course, I also needed to undertake a further two weeks of nursing. I was thumbing a lift back to Newry from Kilkeel, and I was near the Alexian Brothers Nursing Home in Rostrevor. I saw one of the Brothers and asked were there any vacancies, and I got to cover for someone who was on two weeks holiday. At that time the patients were in ‘Nightingale
Wards’ with two rows of beds, which did not lend itself to privacy if someone was ill during the night.
I then started in Male Medical at Daisy Hill. There was a lot of similarities in the duties of a nurse and orderly. However administering medication, giving injections and writing reports were duties that an orderly would not have done, that I did as a nurse.
I then worked for a while in various hospitals in London, before working as a nurse in the Hospice in Newry. I was there for 14 years before retiring. You got to know people in the Hospice and their families and often the same people would come in to get their symptoms managed and go home again.
Hospitals are large employers not only of medical staff but also of a wide range of support staff. The kitchen staff at Daisy Hill Hospital are seen here with Sir Patrick Mayhew, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 1992 – 1997. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection
by John Davis
Before working in Daisy Hill Hospital I was employed in the Ardmore Hotel, but it was bombed on three occasions and the hotel closed. I was looking for another job and my original plan was to join the Merchant Navy, but in the meantime, I applied for a job as a Medical Orderly at Daisy Hill Hospital and soon got word to start.
The first ward I worked on was Male Medical and I was under the supervision of Hugh McCall who was a Ward Orderly. I then worked in Male Surgical for two years. There were four wards and a side ward, with four patients to a ward. Sister Quinn and Sister O’Callaghan oversaw the wards. Each morning I would come in to the ward and Sister Quinn would say ‘John have you all the patients out of bed and sitting on their chairs?’ I would say, ‘Yes Sister’, then race around and get all patients up.
Christmas time was a very special time for the patients, as we would decorate the wards and I remember decorating the corridor from one end to the other, from Male Surgical to Female Surgical. We provided entertainment for patients who could not go home, and I remember decorating a room with lights and taking in my hi-fi equipment for background music.
It was also a tradition to take a Christmas drink around to each patient, I don’t think you would be allowed to do that now. We also had our own side ward where we entertained staff from other departments. St Vincent de Paul would also visit, and they provided
entertainment for the patients including singing and dancing.
I was then moved to Casualty where I spent five years. I remember Christmas Eve 1973, I was putting a splint on a patient and heard the fire horn and wondered what was happening. Then I heard the fire horn again, and the phones started to ring. At that time there was only one resuscitation area and two couches for patients in Casualty. A man I knew came in covered in blood and I raced toward him, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about me John, there are worse than me’. The ambulance arrived at the door of Casualty and I went out to the ambulance and was absolutely horrified by what I saw. There had been an explosion, and Casualty was absolutely packed with patients. It was an awful day, it changed everything, patients were sent home to free up beds.
There were numerous other incidents we had to deal with in Casualty including The Miami Showband Massacre, they said that was the day the music died. Mr Blundell was the Theatre Consultant Surgeon on that night and he operated on one of the band members and worked tirelessly through the night with his House Surgeon to save him.
Then there were further Troubles incidents including the murder of the Reavey brothers and the Kingsmill Massacre both in 1976 and the Narrow Water bomb in 1979. If we heard an explosion or something on the news, many of the hospital staff would come in on a voluntary basis to give a hand. You learned to cope with these incidents, and everyone knew
A Life less ‘Orderly’, working as a Medical Orderly at Daisy Hill Hospital during the Troubles
their job and what to do. Those were dark days and I witnessed many terrible things, I nearly forget there was so many. There was no such thing as counselling for staff then, and we all dealt with it in our own way and by talking to each other.
It was important that we all stuck together and worked together as a good team, and for there to be a good social life to the hospital. We would run concerts and dances for the nurses and their families to keep morale up. We also did a lot of fundraising and
raised money for the Diabetic Clinic and the Outpatient’s Department and there was a lot of good camaraderie among the staff.
Amidst all the gloom, there were funny incidents as well. I know it was the talk of the hospital the day I flew off to Belfast in a helicopter. It was a military Wessex helicopter based at Bessbrook, then Europe’s busiest heliport. We had to transfer a patient to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and I was getting on board helping with the stretcher and was in the tail section of the helicopter,
John Davis’ niece, Beverly, pictured when she was being treated in Daisy Hill Hospital. Nurses are (left to right) Aideen Bennett, Patricia Magennis and Carmel Rafferty.
© John Davis
and before I knew it we were airborne.
The nurse said to me ‘John you are on call for Casualty and Theatre’, and I looked out the door of the helicopter and I said, ‘Well, I am not jumping out 20 feet, let’s go flying’. We landed at Musgrave and from there we were transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital. We arrived in Casualty and settled in the patient. We waited in the doctor’s tearoom and there was one medical student there who said to us ‘well how’s things in Crazy Hill’ and I said, ‘we are still saving lives’. We would never let people run Daisy Hill down like that, as the staff there were excellent.
The doctors and nurses saved a lot of lives, including people who if they had had to travel to Craigavon Hospital, might not have survived. The staff were very experienced and up to date with their technology. They developed an expertise in dealing with trauma, such as gunshot wounds. We were very quick at setting up Casualty. We checked the machines every day, from the defibrillator to the ventilator to the packages (sterile dressings) to the intermediate trays that held instruments. Everything was left ready for an emergency, which could be anything from a road traffic accident, a bee sting to a Troubles related incident.
During my time in Daisy Hill Hospital I took a lot of photographs, recording the staff that worked there, and the events that took place. I always had a keen interest in photography and won first and second place in a 1989 hospital photography competition focusing on the environment of a hospital.
I retired in 2001 and enjoyed working in Daisy Hill Hospital, many of the permanent staff at that time had been there for thirty or forty years, and everyone knew each other, and we were like a big family.
John Davis pictured with an Engstrom 300 respirator and heart monitor in the 1980s.
© John Davis
Mr James Blundell who was Consultant Surgeon at Daisy Hospital in Newry from 1963 until 1985. He attended to many of those soldiers and civilians who were injured in the bombings and shootings in the Newry area during the Troubles. Other medical staff who worked through the Troubles included Dr Patrick Donnelly, Consultant Anaesthetist, and Mr Michael McCann, Casualty Officer. Courtesy of Daisy Hill Hospital
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the following staff and volunteers of Newry and Mourne Museum for their assistance in this exhibition and accompanying booklet:
Declan Carroll Rosemary Cunningham
Joanne Glymond Caroline Hegarty
Joanne Mallon
Caitriona McDonnell
Samuel McKee
Amanda McKinstry
Noelle Murtagh Méabh Rafferty Dympna Tumilty
We would also like to extend a special thanks to those who contributed to the exhibition through research, donations, loans, expertise or memories including:
Sean Barden, Armagh County Museum
Martin Carey
Rosaleen Cole
John Davis
The Geary Family Mervyn Ferris
Sonya Ferris
Catherine Hudson
William McAlpine
John McCorry
Daniel McKevitt
Dr Michele McVerry
The Mitchell Family Dr Donal O’Tierney
Kristopher Reid, Down County Museum
Dr Myles Shortall
Wendy Ward
Every effort has been made to correctly attribute photographs used in this booklet and accompanying exhibition.
Exhibition and booklet curated and compiled by Noreen Cunningham, Dr Ken Abraham and Joanne Cummins.
Nurses and ambulance drivers at Mourne District Hospital in Kilkeel, c.1970. Left to right: Wesley Campbell, Nurse McConnell, Nurse Young and Stephen Hardy. Newry and Mourne Museum Collection
From the late 1960s there had been an extensive building programme at Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry replacing the old 19th century workhouse buildings which were then still in use as hospital facilities. This culminated with the opening of the new tower black (pictured) on 12th November 1981 which provided extensive new ward accommodation.
© John Davis
Dr Arthur Mitchell visiting patients in their own homes in the Mourne area in the 1970s. Courtesy of The Mitchell Family
