RCSI Heritage Collections

Plaque at 1 Merrion Square (Photo by Paul Murphy, Deputy Librarian RCSI) Sir William Wilde LRCSI, FRCSI was born in Castlerea, County Roscommon towards the end of spring 1815. To mark this bicentenary the County Librarian organised an event in Castlerea over the weekend of April  16 th -18 th.  William's father Thomas was a physician and the Wilde family home fronted onto Barrack Street. There was a poignant visit to the nearby Church of Ireland cemetery to the grave of Dr Thomas Wilde which had been identified and its fractured gravestone recently restored. William accompanied his father visiting patients throughout the countryside. From this came many of his life-long interests: country lore , healing charms, social conditions and the circumstances of people's lives. William Wilde was destined for great things. His father had steered him towards Surgery and having obtained his medical education at RCSI he trained in Vienna under the leading eye and ear surgeons ...

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...

The Heritage Collections are delighted to announce that the years 1828 to 1870 of the RCSI Roll of Licentiates is now available online . Once a graduate had completed their studies, passed their exams and received their licence they signed the Roll of Licentiates. The student signed their full name and gave their place of residence. The variety of nationalities that attended the College in the 1800s is still reflected in the modern student body. In the photograph below the first signature is that of William Robert Wilde upon his qualification in March 1837. Wilde went on to become a renowned eye and ear specialist and ran his own hospital,  St Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital for Diseases of the Eye and Ear in Dublin. He was also  the  father of Oscar Wilde.  RCSI Roll of Licentiates extract from 1837 Follow this link to  RCSI Roll of Licentiates  - Researched and written by Meadhbh Murphy