Medicine On the Emerald Isle: The “Irish Country Doctor” series
It’s 1960, a new year and new decade for new doctor Barry Laverty, traveling up from Belfast to the village of Ballybucklebo to begin his term as a junior doctor to Fingal Flaherty O’Reilly, GP. Ballybucklebo is a literal one-traffic-light village, mostly rural, and populated by farmers or employees of the local lord and his lady sister, or Bertie Bishop, owner of the local construction company as well as a town council member.
Barry’s first introduction to “the Wiley” O’Reilly is dodging a patient the man himself throws out the front door of Number One Main Street, roaring at him to wash his feet before showing him a sprained ankle. From that moment, O’Reilly begins Barry’s education in being a country GP with Rule #1: “Never let the patient get the upper hand.” Gradually, over nine years and fourteen books, Barry learns not only more about medicine, but also how to be part of a community. He learns about more than individual ailments and helps with more than just the illnesses of his patients. In the first book, the doctors aid an older couple who have yet to marry because of a fallen roof, a girl who refuses to disclose the father of her unborn baby, and a host of other eccentric villagers, from the town gossip to the town opportunist.
For Northern Ireland in the 1960s, Ballybucklebo itself is a surprisingly laid-back place, where the Catholic priest and the Protestant minister play golf every week, and no one brings up religion or politics if they can avoid it. The greatest problems often happen between the villagers themselves, and between the doctors and the illnesses they must identify — the definition of character-driven storytelling.
Barry and O’Reilly also have their own support systems, from the women who would become their wives, to the junior doctors they would mentor, to Mrs. Maureen Kincaid, housekeeper extraordinary. Eventually, the series includes back stories of several main characters. O’Reilly’s history, from his days as a student doctor to his naval stint during WWII, to returning to civilian life in Ballybucklebo, covers three books. Mrs. Kincaid, affectionately known as “Kinky”, has her own book (An Irish Country Girl) recounting her life, from when she was identified as fey by a tinker (Irish Gypsy) fortuneteller, through her marriage to arriving to look after “her” doctors. The latest in the series, An Irish Country Family, alternates between 1969 and 1959, and Barry’s year as a houseman (or intern) in a Belfast hospital before meeting O’Reilly for the first time.
Patrick Wilson, a doctor himself, drew on his own history and experience for these books, as well as the columns he wrote for a medical-humor journal called Stitches. The collected columns (The Wiley O’Reilly) can be easily identified sprinkled throughout the fiction series with their own differences. He also includes a glossary of Irish slang words and phrases, in English and Gaelic, and an “afterword” with recipes penned by Kinky herself. In the 21st century, these books strike the right balance between medicine, history, and quaint in the tradition of James Herriot’s books.
The series is available from Forge Publishing.
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