1947 RCSI graduate celebrates 100th birthday today
The Bible says that man is allotted three score and ten years for a full lifetime, but for Dr Anthony Leahy, RCSI graduate of 1947, that merely covers the length of time he has been a qualified doctor.
He will be celebrating his 100th birthday today – 74 years after graduating from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland – with a special cake and a letter from RCSI President Prof. Ronan O’Connell, acknowledging his longevity and good health.
Prof. O’Connell said in the letter that the RCSI was ‘an institution that is both proud and tremendously grateful to be able to count you amongst its global alumni community’.
Now living in Gateshead in the UK, Dr Leahy started work as a GP in the UK during the first year of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) in 1948.
A progressive doctor, he was one of very few GPs at the time to take a keen interest in hypnosis and acupuncture and was an early supporter of pain-free childbirth.
Married to Ivy for 68 years before she died last year at the age of 91, Dr Leahy has five children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, to whom he is a ‘legend’.
