PETER MCLEAN:PETER McLEAN, who has died, was a urologist and a former president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He worked as a consultant at a number of Dublin hospitals and was also in private practice.
In July 1972, with two colleagues, he carried out Ireland’s first “live” kidney transplant operation at Jervis Street Hospital. Up to then only frozen kidneys had been transplanted in Ireland. The donor, a priest in Galway, was the patient’s brother. Peter McLean was subsequently involved in 3,000 such operations.
Born in Murroe, Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal, in 1934, he was the youngest of seven children of John McLean and his wife Bridget (née McFadden). His father died when he was six months old.
From the local national school he went to St Eunan’s college, Letterkenny, with the support of his siblings who paid for his education.
Peter carried out his undergraduate studies at the RCSI in the early 1950s, and also trained at Hammersmith Hospital.
He later took up a residency at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, where he received the prestigious John Noble Foundation Award.
On completing his training as a urologist, he returned to Jervis Street Hospital where he had participated in the renal transplant programme.
He now took on the responsibility of expanding the programme, which increased in its scope and expertise to the point where success rates for recipients were on a par with the best results worldwide.
He was elected to the council of the RCSI in 1979, and in 1987 was appointed to the reconstituted board of Beaumont Hospital.
He was chosen by the board to resolve disciplinary problems that had arisen in the neurosurgery department.
He found there had been a “backlash” arising from the change of system that followed the merger of the Richmond and Jervis Street hospitals to form Beaumont.
Looking to the future, he obtained the anchor contribution for the building of the RCSI Smurfit Clinical Science Building at Beaumont, and his association with the Charitable Infirmary Trust ensured many bequests to the RCSI.
Probably his most famous patient was Charles Haughey. At the Moriarty tribunal in 2000 his opinion that the former taoiseach should take no further part in the proceedings because of ill health was submitted to the chairman.
However, Mr Justice Moriarty, having considered additional medical opinion, made an order that Mr Haughey should be examined on oath in private, and the transcripts made public at a later date.
Peter McLean lived in Ballsbridge, at Ailesbury Road. He disapproved of much of the redevelopment in the area and was strongly critical of the planning laws.
Interviewed in 2007 he said: “In this country you are almost encouraged to knock down what’s there and build a new monstrosity in its place.”
Peter never lost touch with his roots. He was Donegal Person of the Year in 1985 and, last year, he participated in the Green Flag award ceremony at his old school at Murroe. He had a holiday home at Horn Head.
Peter was predeceased by his wife Nuala. He is survived by his daughter Lorraine, son Kenneth and brother Denis.
Peter McLean: born April 23rd, 1934; died September 8th, 2010