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Collection News: The O'Flynn Papers

PRCSI (1992-1994), Mr. James Dermot O’Flynn Recently, the cataloguing of the James Dermot O’Flynn papers has been completed within RCSI Heritage Collections! The collection, which was generously donated by the O’Flynn family, contains records relating to the medical career and life of Mr. James Dermot O’Flynn, RCSI President between 1992 and 1994. As today would have marked his 106th birthday, we are choosing to celebrate by sharing some highlights from the collection and exploring more about who James Dermot O’Flynn was. Who was J. Dermot O’Flynn? James Dermot O’Flynn was born on January 27th, 1920, in Cobh, County Cork. In 1937, he passed the matriculation examination which was necessary to gain entrance to university and after five years, in 1942 he graduated from the Medical Faculty, University College Cork with an M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O. Work in hospitals could be difficult to come by in Ireland at this time for a variety of reasons and O’Flynn made the decision to emigrate to England...
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Digitally Preserving RCSI’s History

The World Digital Preservation Day theme this year is Why Preserve?   This is a question many digital archivists ask themselves as they wait hours for content to upload, painstakingly attach metadata to files and spend dizzying amounts on preservation systems. I’ll be answering this question in the context of the RCSI Digital Heritage Collections and also highlighting some of the gems of our collections along the way. First, it’s important to explain what I mean by "digital preservation". It’s a term that gets a lot of blank looks when I try to explain my job to people at parties. The official Digital Preservation Coalition definition is digital preservation "refers to all of the actions required to maintain access to digital materials beyond the limits of media failure or technological and organisational change".  At RCSI, digital preservation involves a combination of preserving born-digital files and preserving digitised physical materials. "Born-digital...
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Sleepless in Surgery: A History of Anaesthesia at RCSI and Beyond

 Death or Surgery: The Quest for a Painless, Waking Sleep  On October 16th, 1846, William Thomas Green Morton, a dentist, completed the first successful public demonstration of inhaled ether, relieving surgical pain at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. It is because of this first successful public demonstration of the use of an anaesthetic that each year on October 16th we celebrate the history and discovery of anaesthesia for use in surgeries. If one can imagine that before these pioneering doctors, surgeons and dentists, any kind of medical procedure and the inevitable pain that came with it meant copious amounts of alcohol, herbal mixtures containing opium alkaloids, hypnotism or pieces of leather/wood to bite down on. This was the backdrop to which Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829); Henry Hill Hickman (1800-1830); William Clarke (1819-1898); Crawford Williamson Long (1815-1878); Horace Wells (1815-1848); William Thomas Green Morton (1819-1868); John MacDonnell (1796...
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Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson Collection: A Dose of History

In celebration of World Pharmacists Day, RCSI Heritage Collections are highlighting materials in the Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson (HCR) Pharmaceutical Chemists collection and marking events which have occurred to celebrate the release of the collection to the public.  The collection was donated to RCSI Heritage Collections in October 2023, by Michael and Christopher Shiell, both great-grandsons of one of the company’s founders, Henry Conyngham. The Shiell brothers worked as joint-managing directors of the company until the pharmacies were sold to Boots in 1998. The following blog post will outline brief historical context of the company and its founders and will then explore some collection highlights and end with how researchers can access the collection.  Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson Pharmaceutical Chemists:  Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson Pharmaceutical Chemists was founded in 1897 by William Hayes (1843-1918), Henry Conyngham (1845-1931) and Sir Thomas W. Robin...
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RCSI Dentistry: A Bite-sized History

  As RCSI’s new School of Dentistry opens this week, we thought we’d look back at its predecessor. RCSI has the distinction of creating the first Professorship in Dental Surgery in Ireland or Britain.   This was in 1884, when the inaugural appointee was Richard Theodore Stack (1848 – 1909).   Curiously, Stack never intended to be a dentist.   He had studied medicine at Trinity College, coming first in his class and winning various scholarships, and seemed destined for a glittering medical career – until, that is, a bout of rheumatic fever left him so deaf, at the age of 26, that he could no longer use a stethoscope.   He switched his focus, graduating in dentistry from Harvard University in 1877.   For the rest of his life, he actively disliked being called ‘Doctor’ – his door-plate, visiting cards and book stamp all read ‘Dentist Stack'. Dentist Richard Theodore Stack by Walter Osborne  (courtesy of the British Dental Association Museum). Returning to...
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