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Tag Archives: Bartholomew Woodlock


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Birth of Physician Sir Dominic Corrigan, 1st Baronet

Sir Dominic John Corrigan, 1st Baronet, Irish physician known for his original observations in heart disease, is born in Thomas Street, Dublin, on December 2, 1802. The abnormal “collapsing” pulse of aortic valve insufficiency is named Corrigan’s pulse after him.

Corrigan is the son of a dealer in agricultural tools. He is educated in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, which then has a department for secular students apart from the ecclesiastical seminary. He is attracted to the study of medicine by the physician in attendance, and spends several years as an apprentice to the local doctor, Edward Talbot O’Kelly. He studies medicine in Dublin later transferring to Edinburgh Medical School where he receives his degree as MD in August 1825.

Corrigan returns to Dublin in 1825 and sets up a private practice at 11 Ormond Street. As his practice grows, he moves to 12 Bachelors Walk in 1832, and in 1837 to 4 Merrion Square West. Apart from his private practice, he holds many public appointments. He is a physician to St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the Sick Poor Institute, the Charitable Infirmary Jervis Street (1830–43) and the House of Industry Hospitals (1840–66). His work with many of Dublin’s poorest inhabitants leads to him specialising in diseases of the heart and lungs, and he lectures and published extensively on the subject. He is known as a very hard-working physician, especially during the Great Famine of Ireland. At the 1870 Dublin City by-election he is elected a Liberal Member of Parliament for Dublin City. In parliament he actively campaigns for reforms to education in Ireland and the early release of Fenian prisoners. He does not stand for re-election in 1874. His support for temperance and Sunday closing (of pubs) antagonises his constituents and alcohol companies

In 1847, Corrigan is appointed physician-in-ordinary to the Queen in Ireland. Two years later he is given an honorary MD from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). In 1846, his application to become a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) is blocked. In 1855, he gets around this opposition by sitting the college’s entrance exam with the newly qualified doctors. He becomes a fellow in 1856, and in 1859 is elected president, the first Catholic to hold the position. He is re-elected president an unprecedented four times. There is a statue of Corrigan in the Graves’ Hall of the college by John Henry Foley.

Corrigan is President of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland, the Dublin Pathological Society, and the Dublin Pharmaceutical Society. From the 1840s he is a member of the senate of the Queen’s University and in 1871 becomes its vice-chancellor. In 1866, he is created a baronet, of Cappagh and Inniscorrig in County Dublin and of Merrion Square in the City of Dublin, partly as a reward for his services as Commissioner of Education for many years. He is a member of the board of Glasnevin Cemetery and a member of the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Committee. Armand Trousseau, the French clinician, proposes that aortic heart disease should be called Corrigan’s disease.

The Corrigan Ward, a cardiology ward in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin is named in his honour. Part of his family crest is also part of the Beaumont Hospital crest.

Corrigan marries Joanna Woodlock, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and sister of the Bishop Dr. Bartholomew Woodlock, in 1827. They have six children, three girls and three boys. Hus eldest son, Captain John Joseph Corrigan, Dragoon Guards, dies on January 6, 1866, aged 35 years and is interred at the Melbourne General Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia.

Corrigan dies at Merrion Square, Dublin, on February 1, 1880, having suffered a stroke the previous December. He is buried in the crypt of St. Andrews Church on Westland Row, Dublin. His grandson succeeds him to the baronetcy.


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Birth of Sarah Atkinson, Writer & Philanthropist

Sarah (née Gaynor) Atkinson, Irish writer, biographer, essayist and philanthropist, is born in Athlone, County Westmeath, on October 23, 1823.

She is the eldest daughter of John and Anne Gaynor, of Athlone. At the age of fifteen she moves with her family to Dublin where her education is completed. Two of her sisters, Anna and Marcella, become nuns with Religious Sisters of Charity. At twenty-five, she marries the much older George Atkinson, a medical doctor and, with Sir John Gray, joint proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal. They are both interested in art and she accompanies her husband on many trips abroad, taking in the cultural centres of Europe. At home they make the acquaintance of prominent politicians, journalists and musicians. Regular guests at their house are Dr. John Shaw, editor of the Evening Mail, Rosa Mulholland and Katharine Tynan.

The loss of her only child in his fourth year deeply affected Atkinson and she throws herself into charitable and other good works. She moves with her husband to Drumcondra in Dublin, where she makes the acquaintance of Ellen Woodlock. Woodlock, a sister of Francis Sylvester Mahony, is born in Cork, County Cork, in 1811 and is married in 1830 and widowed quite young, just before the birth of her only son. Woodlock is the sister-in-law of Rev. Dr. Bartholomew Woodlock, who is President of All Hallows College. She intends to join a religious community in France but after spending a few years in that country (with her son in a nearby school) returns to Cork and then moves to Dublin. At this time the post-famine city is inundated with poverty-stricken families and abandoned children. Fever and disease are rife, and the Poor Law of the day is insufficient to meet the needs of the starving population. Many evictions are taking place in deplorable circumstances, which force the poor, however reluctantly, to seek refuge in the workhouses. The most vulnerable sections of the community are single women (including widows) and children. Woodlock is totally against placing children in workhouses and founds St. Joseph’s Industrial Institute in 1855 to rescue girls from that situation. With her, Atkinson interests herself in the female paupers of the South Dublin Union. With much difficulty in the 1860s, she gains permission for ladies like herself to enter and inspect the condition of young girls in the North and South Dublin Unions, after which she opens a better home to which many were transferred. She campaigns for years to improve the state of the workhouses and provide better conditions for the poverty-stricken. One of her sisters runs the Our Lady’s Hospice in Dublin, to which she donates funds. She helps Woodlock establish the Children’s Health Ireland at 9 Buckingham Street in 1872, which later moves to Temple Street, which she visits every day. Every week she visits hospitals and prisons, in the 1880s accompanying Katharine Tynan to visit the last of the Land Leaguers incarcerated in Kilmainham Gaol.

From the 1850s Atkinson contributes a large number of historical and biographical articles and essays to several publications, including Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine, The Month, The Nation and the Freeman’s Journal. She later writes for the Irish Monthly after it is established, and for the Irish Quarterly Review. Her Life of Mary Aikenhead is published in 1875 and is very well received. She follows this with biographies of the Irish sculptors John Henry Foley and John Hogan and also a life of Catherine of Siena. A collection of her essays, with a preface and biography by Rosa Mulholland, is published posthumously in 1895.

Atkinson dies in County Dublin on July 8, 1893, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, where the cemetery committee places a Celtic cross as a monument to her and her husband after his death on December 8, 1893.


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Death of Sir Dominic Corrigan, 1st Baronet, Irish Physician

Sir Dominic John Corrigan, 1st Baronet, an Irish physician known for his original observations in heart disease, dies in Dublin on February 1, 1880, following a stroke. The abnormal “collapsing” pulse of aortic valve insufficiency is named Corrigan’s pulse after him.

Corrigan is born in Thomas Street, Dublin, on December 2, 1802, the son of a dealer in agricultural tools. He is educated in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, which then has a department for secular students apart from the ecclesiastical seminary. He is attracted to the study of medicine by the physician in attendance and spends several years as an apprentice to the local doctor, Edward Talbot O’Kelly. He studies medicine in Dublin later transferring to Edinburgh Medical School where he receives his degree as MD in August 1825.

Corrigan returns to Dublin in 1825 and sets up a private practice at 11 Ormond Street. As his practice grows, he moves to 12 Bachelors Walk in 1832, and in 1837 to 4 Merrion Square West. Apart from his private practice, he holds many public appointments; he is a physician to St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the Sick Poor Institute, the Charitable Infirmary Jervis Street (1830–43) and the House of Industry Hospitals (1840–66). His work with many of Dublin’s poorest inhabitants leads to him specialising in diseases of the heart and lungs, and he lectures and publishes extensively on the subject. He is known as a very hard-working physician, especially during the Great Famine. At the 1870 Dublin City by-election he is elected a Liberal Member of Parliament for Dublin City. In parliament he actively campaigns for reforms to education in Ireland and the early release of Fenian prisoners. He does not stand for re-election in 1874. His support for temperance and Sunday closing of pubs apparently antagonises his constituents and alcohol companies.

In 1847, Corrigan is appointed physician-in-ordinary to the Queen in Ireland. Two years later he is given an honorary MD from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). In 1846 his application to become a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) is blocked. In 1855 he gets around this opposition by sitting the college’s entrance exam with the newly qualified doctors. He becomes a fellow in 1856, and in 1859 is elected president, the first Catholic to hold the position. He is re-elected president an unprecedented four times. There is a statue of him in the Graves’ Hall of the college by John Henry Foley.

Corrigan is President of the Royal Zoological Society of Dublin, the Dublin Pathological Society, and the Dublin Pharmaceutical Society. From the 1840s he is a member of the senate of the Queen’s University and in 1871 becomes its vice-chancellor. In 1866 he is created a baronet, of Cappagh and Inniscorrig in the County of Dublin and of Merrion Square in the City of Dublin, partly as a reward for his services as Commissioner of Education for many years. He is a member of the board of Glasnevin Cemetery and a member of the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Committee. Armand Trousseau, the French clinician, proposes that aortic heart disease should be called Corrigan’s disease.

Corrigan marries Joanna Woodlock, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and sister of the Bishop Dr. Bartholomew Woodlock, in 1827. They have six children, three girls and three boys. His eldest son, Captain John Joseph Corrigan, Dragoon Guards, dies on January 6, 1866, and is interred at the Melbourne General Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia.

Corrigan dies at Merrion Square, Dublin, on February 1, 1880, having suffered a stroke the previous December. He is buried in the crypt of St. Andrew’s Church, Westland Row, Dublin. His grandson succeeds him to the baronetcy.

The Corrigan Ward, a cardiology ward in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, is named in his honour. Part of his family crest is also part of the Beaumont Hospital crest.


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Opening of the Catholic University of Ireland

The Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin is opened, and lectures commence on November 3, 1854, with the registration of seventeen students, the first being Daniel O’Connell, grandson of the notable Catholic politician Daniel O’Connell.

The university is founded in 1851 following the Synod of Thurles in 1850, and in response to the Queen’s University of Ireland and its associated colleges which are non-denominational. Cardinal Paul Cullen has previously forbidden Catholics from attending these “godless colleges.” On May 18, 1854, the university is formally established with five faculties of law, letters, medicine, philosophy, and theology with John Henry Newman as the Rector.

In 1861, Dr. Bartholomew Woodlock, the rector from 1860–1879, tries to secure land for a building near Holy Cross College Clonliffe, the establishment to be known as St. Patrick’s University. Plans are drawn up by architect J.J. McCarthy and a foundation stone laid. Cardinal Cullen is against the idea of educating lay and clerical students on the same premises. However, this plan is shelved because of the expansion of the railway line. A church and monastery are eventually built on the site. Under the name St. Patrick’s University night classes are advertised by the University under Dr. Woodlock’s name.

Some feeder secondary schools are established for the Catholic University of Ireland. The nearby Catholic University School is joined by St. Flannan’s College in County Clare and Catholic University High School in Waterford.

The Catholic University is neither a recognised university so far as the civil authorities are concerned, nor an institution offering recognised degrees. Newman has little success in establishing the new university, though over £250,000 has been raised from the laity to fund it. Though they hold the foundation money as trustees, the hierarchy in 1859 spends most of it to support an Irish Brigade led by Myles O’Reilly to help defend Rome in the Second Italian War of Independence. Newman leaves the university in 1857.

Subsequently the school goes into a serious decline, with only three students registered in 1879. The situation changes in 1880 when the recognised Royal University of Ireland comes into being and students at the Catholic University are entitled to sit the Royal University examinations and receive its degrees.

In 1909 the Catholic University essentially comes to an end with the creation of the National University of Ireland, with University College Dublin as a constituent, however the Catholic University of Ireland remains a legal entity until 1911.

(Pictured: J. J. McCarthy’s design for the Catholic University of Ireland)