Formerly FRCPsych Consultant Psychiatrist, Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, UK

Mary Headley Welsh, who died aged 58, was part of a group of enthusiastic trainee psychiatrists responsible for transforming practice of the specialty in Northern Ireland throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Born in Lurgan, Co. Armagh on 7 September 1953, Mary was one of seven children. She attended the Assumption Convent Grammar School in Ballynahinch, Co. Down. She was a natural leader who became a very effective head girl.

She began her undergraduate medical training at Queen's University Belfast in 1972. However, in her 5th year she had her first encounter with serious illness – Hodgkin's lymphoma. Treatment interrupted her studies and delayed her graduation until 1979.

She obtained her first consultant post at St Luke's Hospital, Armagh, in 1988 where she developed services for the elderly. In 1990, when general management was introduced to Northern Ireland, she was appointed to the newly created post of Unit General Manager of the Mental Health Unit of the Southern Health and Social Services Board. Following the introduction of trusts, she returned to full-time clinical work in 1996. She was a member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal for Northern Ireland from 1995 to 2000.

When she married her husband Chris Welsh in 2000, Mary left Northern Ireland to take up a consultant post with Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. In 2001, she moved to a job with Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust based at Wedgewood House, West Suffolk Hospital, in Bury St Edmunds. Illness forced her to retire in 2005.

Mary had an enviable zest for life. She combined a formidable intellect with a keen sense of humour, great warmth and abundant compassion. She cared deeply about work and about mental health issues. She was articulate, vocal and not afraid to speak her mind. Dinners in her home were memorable. She was a fine hostess and a skilled cook and flower arranger. She loved opera and the theatre and was an adventurous traveller.

Mary faced her final illness with characteristic good humour and fortitude, dying from breast cancer on 13 May 2011. She was caring and supportive to her husband Chris who was also seriously ill. In her all-too-short life she touched and enriched those who knew her. She will be remembered as a devoted wife, a loving sister, a loyal colleague and a truly professional psychiatrist.