I can remember early childhood now in old age, but what event came first and at what age? I can see myself in the sun, in our backyard by the river in Cork, making mudpies, a favourite and clear vision, my mother in the kitchen behind me. Perhaps I was then two or three years old; I know that this picture comes more often than most, but I don’t know why and cannot be sure if it is my first memory.

Easily recalled is being carried on the cross-bar of a bicycle by one of my brothers out the Carrigrohane Road on the way for a swim in the Lee; or days with my oldest sister, now long dead, with me just able to walk, or in my go-car. She left home to be a Nun (the traditional hostage to religion of the times) when I was only three, and I never saw her again as she went as a Missionary to Cairo.

Clear recollections are those of the old Jail off Western Road, and also the Asylum, as my sisters would point both out to me with implied threats of my future place of residence if I did not “behave”. Whether I “behaved” well or badly in my future existence is not for me to be the judge.
It is not clear if the happy or sad memories are the stronger, for mixed equally with the sunny days and buttercups by the Lee fields are those black scenes of my parents of an evening, with sudden eruptions of shouting and hatred, the cause never known to me, and perhaps obscure to them, as they fought against their burdens of too many children and too little time left, and those strange menopausal shadows that can haunt the middle years for us all.

I wonder how they lived and fought, and if they ever tried to analyze what socio-psycho-religious conglomeration of circumstances made them cry out so in their agony, or were they just eating, working, mating and sleeping creatures with no end in view, taking what their instincts bade them, seared much of the time by threats and visions of eternal fires presented to them on Sundays?

We lived in a small house by the Lee, our family large and close, happy and unhappy, loving and hating and fighting, it seemed for no more than minutes in any one state at any time. I got a fair education from the Presentation Brothers, my only remnant of this being my clear handwriting, as I enjoyed copying scripts. I think that much of my education of value was gathered from the streets of my hometown.

My Father’s promotion in the Garda brought us to Dublin, and me to the care of the Jesuit Fathers for a further eight years of schooling. A lasting memory of my senior years at school is of the good Fathers trying to guide us in the path of righteousness.

On one such occasion I was reduced to near celibacy by the intricate and oblique references to sexual activity and its terrible hazards and possible consequences– these delivered by a cadaverous Cleric in a dimly lit Chapel.

It says much for the inherited instincts of man that I recovered within weeks of leaving school, even taking pleasure in the occasional bad thought. My recovery was hastened by the choice of Medicine as a career and the process was not retarded by my introduction to Arthur Guinness in the pubs of central Dublin.

It was in the mid-thirties that I arrived in the capital, and the disappearance of Mrs. Ball was a sensation of the time; I had many a swim at the bottom of Corbawn Lane in Shankill where her remains may have been a companion for a time– her body was not recovered.

In retrospect, a recurring thought is the dismantling of the human body, layer by layer. I spent several years as a student, and later as a demonstrator, in my favorite subject of anatomy.

Never in all those years did I see, or hear of, a body being dishonored in the slightest degree– entry into that great hall seemed to bring a temporary reverence to even the most light-hearted. We seemed to share with the dead a sacred act in the donation of their remains, and their wishes to benefit humankind.

After graduation I spent early years in traditional posts in teaching hospitals around Dublin then migrated to Britain, like so many others, in search of enough money to get married. Then with wife and child to support, I had the need and impetus to get a higher degree in medicine, and this I obtained after another two years of intensive study.

Then, suddenly, I found my niche. It seemed a religious vocation as I became a Geriatrician, caring day-by-day for the elderly– life was good at last, busy with happy days in the clinic, visiting the wards knowing that my sympathy was much appreciated; gradually my real work was realized.

At the end of each life I could see the countenance of one after another portraying something like a benediction as the relief from pain and anxiety spread gently across aged features.

My merciful syringe was always ready– the dose delivered usually toward evening, so often coinciding with the change-over of nursing staff from day to night duty rosters.

My Grandmother was one of my dearest triumphs, smiling at me in trust and slowly receding from the scene of her earthly trials. As she slipped to her reward, I was reminded of the lines from Thomas Hood– “We thought her dying when she slept, and sleeping when she died”.

It could not go on indefinitely, for this is life on earth, a place of imperfections and torment, man, as so often, his own worst enemy.

After some 37 cases of beautiful deliveries from this vale of tears, that last Coroner was far too suspicious and probing, with critical questioning.

I have served enough, the dead have given me a mission served faithfully, so my time has not been wasted.