SEAGHAN UA CONCHUBHAIR: Ponies gently nudged each other outside the church gates as the women in colourful shawls climbed down from the traps. Men in black suits with white starched shirts, their thoughts still on the recent world war, tipped their hard hats in greeting.
And a smartly dressed young man with an intellectual look stepped out of one of the few cars in Oranmore, Co Galway. The year was 1949 and the young doctor must have felt somewhat in awe as he acknowledged the respectful salutes on his way into Sunday Mass.
It was the beginning of a lifelong commitment by Dr Seaghan Ua Conchubhair, who has died aged 83, to serving the community at a time when Irish rural health services left a lot to be desired. Those who did not require his professional help were soon to be made aware of him as he campaigned to bring about vital improvements in healthcare and a variety of social and environmental needs in the area.
Two years later his medical colleagues around the country were alerted to the emergence of an energetic activist when he became a member of the council of the Irish Medical Association. His relentless commitment to medical education and research and his contributions to improvement in the evolving medical services were acknowledged by his colleagues when they elected him president of the Medical Union in 1962 and six years later president of the Irish Medical Association.
His example and dedication became a stimulus for a significant number of fellow parishioners to join his profession, including his friend Michael Coughlan, now president of the Irish College of General Practitioners.
A shrewd intellectual and astute observer with intolerance of inequality and injustice, he felt compelled to lend his leadership and motivational skills to a number of community projects including the introduction of the local water scheme and the supply of electricity to remote areas. He became well known, locally and nationally, through his frequent contributions in the national media, often very critical and controversial, as he endeavoured to generate interest and get corrective action for a variety of social needs. Anyone who ever served with him on a committee will recall his obsession with accuracy and punctuality, he dotted the i's and crossed the t's, and was punctilious about the law and the rules. There was often an element of devilment in his expression of this perfectionism. When, and it was rarely, he was proved wrong, he was always the first to admit it.
His keen interest in travel brought him around the globe, especially to Europe where he was able to put his excellent German and Russian to good use. He also represented his profession at international meetings.
He was a founding member of the Irish College of General Practitioners which is affiliated to a World Organisation of GPs (WONCA) and he worked for that organisation internationally on numerous occasions.
His leadership in academic measures and his skill in the medical-political field led to his selection as honorary secretary of the General Practitioner Association when it was founded in 1987, a post which he held until his death.
During his time as coroner for west Galway from 1968-1985 he frequently drew public attention to social and environmental issues which needed to be addressed.
He had great pride in his Irishness and was an expert in history, geography and archaeology. His love of the Irish language was contagious and he used every available opportunity to use and promote it and his patients' records are unique in that they are very carefully and neatly written in the old Irish script.
He was happily married to Peggy until her sad demise in 1980. They had seven children but had to endure the loss of two of them in their early years. He is survived by Diarmuid, Deirdre, Margaret, Paul and Fiona, all of whom excelled in their careers.
Seaghan Ua Conchubhair: born June 14th, 1920; died February 8th, 2004.