Psychiatric Bulletin (2005) 29: 438. doi: 10.1192/pb.29.11.438
© 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Psychiatric Bulletin (2005) 29: 438
© 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Thomas Lynch
Formerly Professor of Psychiatry, Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, Eire
T. J. Fahy
Tom was born in Eire on 10 October 1922, and spoke only Irish until he
learned English at school. By his own account his athletic prowess carried him
through school with minimum scholastic effort. Useful at rugby, he excelled at
golf and bottomed out at a handicap of four. Consistently gaining first place
and attendant scholarships at the Royal College of Surgeons Medical School
(RCSI), he qualified LRCPI, LM in 1946 with first class honours and with a
desire to practise as a physician. Following his intern year and with MRCPI in
mind, he accepted Norman Moore’s invitation to be an assistant physician
at Swift’s St Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin. Duly gaining MRCPI in
1948, he also passed the DPM and was finally persuaded to pursue a career in
psychiatry.
He spent 1952 at the Maudsley Hospital with Felix Post. Returning to
Dublin, in 1956 he was appointed staff physician at St Patrick’s and
visiting consultant to the Meath Hospital in Dublin. In 1961 he became
Resident Medical Superintendent at St Otteran’s Hospital, Waterford,
where he set up the first psychiatric unit in a general hospital in the
Republic of Ireland which included contractual responsibilities for the pigs
and sheep on the hospital farm!
Now at last, he was running his own show but could not resist when the
first professorship of psychiatry was advertised by the Royal College of
Surgeons of Ireland. His successful candidacy saw him returning to Dublin in
1968 as Clinical Director and Foundation Professor with his clinical base at
St Brendan’s Hospital, Grangegorman. In subsequent years he set up a
modern community-based service, opened a general hospital unit at James
Connolly Memorial Hospital outside Dublin and rapidly developed undergraduate
psychiatric teaching at RCSI. In his foreword to his lecture notes he observed
that the contribution of psychiatry to the understanding of the principles and
practice of medicine must ultimately be to underline the wholeness and dignity
of man. He advised students that physicians are always practising psychiatry
simply because they are dealing with sick people.
‘We are all members of a caring profession, but being human, our
motives are mixed and our performance may sometimes be flawed. A dose of
personal humility is required as maintenance therapy.’
Tom was a staunch supporter of the Royal College of Psychiatrists without
compromising his loyalty to RCPI and his alma mater RCSI. He was elected a
Foundation Fellow in 1971 and served as Senior Vice-President
(1981–1983) and subsequently on the Court of Electors. He perceived the
aspirations of a small number of Irish colleagues towards an Irish National
College as premature and unlikely to command wide support: in this he had the
support of his professorial colleagues, with whom he formed an Irish National
Psychiatric Postgraduate Training Committee even before the new College came
into being in 1971.
At home in Ireland, Tom served on a number of important boards, including
The National Drugs Advisory Board, The National Rehabilitation Board, the
Central Remedial Clinic and the Eastern Health Board. In his professional
practice he was dedicated to excellence of care in public service provision,
the furtherance of Irish psychiatry and the teaching of his subject to medical
students. He belonged to a generation of Irish psychiatrists dedicated to
replacing the largest national complement of Victorian mental hospitals in the
world with modern psychiatric services - a task as yet unfinished. He was a
foundation member and chairman of the Irish Mental Health Association, which
he continued to actively support well into his retirement. While Chairman of
the Irish Division he organised a successful joint meeting of the College and
the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in Dublin in recognition of which
he subsequently was awarded a Corresponding Fellowship by the APA.
In 1956 Tom married Sheila O’Donovan, a Cork medical graduate. The
famously hospitable Lynch home was, and is, appropriately sited near Milltown
Golf Club in Dublin of which Tom, like his father before him, was captain. On
6 January 2005 Tom died peacefully surrounded by his family after a long
period of ill health. All five of his children are leaders of caring
professions and with one exception are based in Dublin. There are, to date,
ten grandchildren.
