RCSI Heritage Collections

  It’s Bloomsday this Sunday, celebrating the day on which Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) takes place.   RCSI has many Joycean connections, probably the most prominent of which is the appearance in Dubliners (1914) of the clock over the front door of 123 St Stephen’s Green (‘He went as far as the clock of the College of Surgeons: it was on the stroke of ten’).   RCSI Professor and President (and bon viveur ) Charles Cameron is one of the real-life people named in Ulysses itself (‘The annual dinner you know.   Boiled shirt affair.   The lord mayor was there… and sir Charles Cameron’). But did you know that Joyce had originally aspired to a career in medicine?   In April 1902, he enrolled at the Catholic University Medical School in Cecilia Street (now the Temple Bar home of Urban Outfitters).   At the time this School opened, it was unlicensed and unchartered, meaning its students were on the road to receiving essentially worthless qualifications.   But...

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that took place along the Normandy coast during World War II. The historic operation saw the Allied Forces mount a large-scale invasion of occupied France that ultimately tipped the course of World War II in the Allies favour.   Douglas W. Montgomery , a Fellow and Past President of RCSI and member of the Royal Army Medical Corps was one of those whom landed on that historic day. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Douglas W. Montgomery received an Irish education and graduated with an MB from Trinity College Dublin in 1940. He was awarded the Haughton Medal and awards for clinical medicine and surgery at St Patrick Dun’s Hospital, as well as the Bennett Medal and Surgical Prize. He went on to receive his Fellowship from RCSI. On 6 June 1944 while serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Montgomery took part in the D-Day landing. He was to be the first allied surgeon on the beach. Shortly after landing and having travelled f...