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...

Today is a day of celebration in South Africa; celebrating the life, trials, hardships and unwavering spirit of freedom embodied in the man that was Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Nelson Mandela and Tom PJ Hennessy, PRCSI 1994-1996. in Capetown at the conferring of the RCSI Honorary Fellowship on Mandela  On 27th March 1996 RCSI awarded Nelson Mandela it's highest honour, the Honorary Fellowship.  There is no point in trying to paraphrase the citation given by the RCSI Vice-President, Mr. Peter McClean, as it would be an injustice to the person, achievements and spirit of Mandela. So it is reproduced in full below.  Citation  read by Mr Peter McLean, Vice-President RCSI  on the occasion of the Conferring of the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of  Surgeons in Ireland on President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,  in Capetown, South Africa  on Wednesday 27th March 1996 Mr President, It is indeed a ...