One of the pioneers of open heart surgery in Ireland, Mr Keith Shaw (81), died yesterday at the Tallaght Hospital in Dublin.
The new £6 million cardiac unit at St James's Hospital, opened last May by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, is named after him.
He was also instrumental in setting up the heart surgery unit in Dublin's Mater Hospital with Prof Eoin O'Malley, where Mr Maurice Neligan and Mr Freddie Wood conducted the first heart transplant in Ireland in 1987, the year Mr Shaw retired.
He was born in Dublin in 1919 and attended Mountjoy School before going to Trinity College where he qualified as a doctor in 1942.
He later became a consultant specialising in heart surgery and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (FRCSI).
Mr Shaw lectured in thoracic surgery at Trinity. He also worked for a time as a surgeon at the London Chest Hospital.
He began work as an open heart surgeon in the 1960s.
He worked as a cardiac surgeon at the Royal City of Dublin Hospital (Baggot Street) and as a thoracic surgeon at the National Children's Hospital.
He also served as a thoracic surgeon at the Adelaide, Meath and Sir Patrick Dun's hospitals in Dublin.
He was president of the RCSI between 1978 and 1980 and his research has been published in many leading medical journals.
His funeral service is at the Church of Ireland cemetery, Tullow, Carrickmines, Co Dublin, on Friday following cremation of his remains.