RCSI Heritage Collections

It being the day of Samhain the door to the other world slowly creaks open and the desire to visit one of Dublin's oldest and lesser visited cemeteries has struck the RCSI Heritage Collections. Mount Jerome Cemetery was established in 1836 and is the resting place of a number of prominent Irish surgeons. So who has made Mount Jerome there eternal home? Only a man with a name that couldn't be more fitting for Samhain, Mr. Robert Graves . Graves' tombstone in Mount Jerome Robert Graves (1797-1853) Graves was a distinguished scholar who started his studies in Trinity College Dublin under the tutelage of Rev. Ralph Wilde, the brother of the Sir William Wilde. Graves graduated in Arts in 1815 and deciding upon medicine graduated with an M.B in 1818. Graves recognised the importance and promoted the need for post mortem examinations by the pathologist. He studied in a number of European universities (Berlin, Austria, Paris,Italy) and, according to Charles...

This being the day of Samhain, when the doorways to the Otherworld open allowing spirits and the dead to come back to our world for one night, I thought a ghost story would be most appropriate. Dr. Richard Carmichael was born on 6th February 1776 in Bishop Street in Dublin. He began his studies in the RCSI under the indenture of Robert Moore Peile in 1794. On the 15th September 1795 at the tender age of 20 he passed the College examinations qualifying him to act as a surgeon's mate. In May 1803 he became a Licentiate of the College and was elected a member that November. Carmichael became President of the College for the first time in 1813 at the age of 34. Dr. Richard Carmichael (1776-1849) Carmichael went on to have an eminent career being appointed to such positions as Surgeon to St. George's Hospital and Dispensary in 1803; Surgeon to the House of Industry Hospitals in 1816; President of the RCSI for a second time in 1826; running his own very successful practice...