RCSI Heritage Collections

As Explore Your Archive week draws to an end, RCSI Heritage Collections decided to look at an explorer and surgeon who has for many decades lived very quietly in the archives. But today is his day to shine! Put your archive loving hands together for..... David Walker! David Walker (1837-1917) by Stephen Pearce (NPG 922) National Portrait Gallery, London David Walker was the surgeon and naturalist who accompanied Sir Francis Leopold McClintock to the Arctic on the yacht Fox in 1857, to try and locate the missing Franklin expedition. Sir John Franklin , his two ships Erebus and Terror and 129 crew had left London in the summer of 1845 to try and discover a navigable north-west passage and had not been heard of since.  After numerous unsuccessful public search expeditions, Lady Franklin decided to finance a private search expedition to uncover some evidence of what had happened to her husband and his men. She contacted McClintock, who was in Dublin on a leav...

Of all our national assets, Archives are the most precious; they are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care  of them marks the extent of our civilisation. - Arthur G. Doughty Explore Your Archive (EYA) 2016   begins tomorrow, Saturday 19th and runs until Saturday 26th November. To find out more visit the   website  and read about the fascinating material that lives within a variety of Irish archives. Once your interest has been aroused why not explore some other archives that highlight the wide diversity and wealth of material available to research, read, admire and, in the case of some fashion archives, covet!!                  The Waldorf Astoria Archive                                                                  ...

Few doctors can have had so varied a career or experienced the triumphs and vicissitudes that were the lot of Kevin Izod O'Doherty. Izod was born in Gloucester Street, Dublin in 1823 and was one of four children. His father, William, was an attorney and died when Izod was only nine years old. After William's death the family moved from Gloucester Street to Blackrock and lived in the neighbourhood of Frascati House. John, one of Izod's brothers, became an attorney, William became a dentist and his sister Gertrude entered the Dominican Order. Izod set his sights on medicine. Ledwich School of Surgery and Medicine In 1842 he was apprenticed to Michael Donovan and studied at RCSI and the Ledwich School of Surgery and Medicine. Izod attended the Meath and St Vincent's Hospital and trained under Sir William Wilde at St Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital. He became involved with the Young Ireland movement and in June 1848 established the Irish Tribune with Richard D...