AFTER achieving maximum points in her Leaving Cert in 2020, it should come as no surprise that Skibbereen’s Fódhla Daly has, after graduating from UCC, become the fifth-generation doctor in her family​ and was selected to receive the prestigious Reuben Harvey Memorial Prize. 

Fódhla’s mother, Caragh Bell, who is a novelist and a teacher, attended the presentation of the prize at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in Dublin last week.

‘It was a very proud day for the entire family. Fódhla is like our own Paul O’Donovan,’ said Caragh, a joking reference to another Skibbereen doctor who just happens to have a few credits to his name.

Dr Diarmuid O’Shea, the college president, presented Fódhla with the award which honours ‘academic excellence and dedication to patient care’ at the fellowship admission ceremony in Graves Hall.

It was presented in recognition of the fact that Fódhla also secured the highest aggregate marks in the final examinations in medicine, surgery and obstetrics across various universities.

Fódhla was University College Cork’s nominee from its class of 2025 for the prize that was established in 1882 in memory of Dr Reuben Joshua Harvey, an anatomist and physiologist, who died in 1881 at the age of 36.

In addition to being the fifth-generation medic in the family, Fódhla, or Dochtúirí Fódhla Ní Dhálaigh has the distinction of becoming the family’s third-generation medicine woman.

Her uncle and grandmother, great-grandmother and great-uncles and aunts and great-great-uncles were all doctors, and Fódhla’s family home at No 35 Bridge Street has been home to the family’s medical practice since the 1880’s.

In an interview with The Southern Star in 2020, the year she achieved maximum points, or eight H1s, in her Leaving Cert from the Sacred Heart Secondary School in Clonakilty where her mother is a teacher, Fódhla showed her determination to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother, Dr Ann Bell.

Dr Bell worked as a GP in Skibbereen for 40 years until her retirement in 2011, and her great grandmother, Dr Mary Twomey, who was considered to be exceptional in the 1950’s.

‘Growing up, I always knew I would be a doctor,’ said Fódhla who outlined the family’s history in medicine, starting with Dr Patrick Burke, who was a graduate of the Royal University and Queen’s College, Cork, in 1896, followed in 1897 by his brother, Dr Michael Burke.

Michael Burke excelled in mathematical physics and in the faculty of medicine and was the dispensary doctor for Skibbereen.

Michael was, by all accounts, adored by the public because in addition to being a good doctor he was also regarded as being a really good man. It is well established that he treated a lot of patients for free.

His concern with social inequality is something he would have discussed with his brother, James M Burke, a barrister, TD, and former editor of The Southern Star .

Their other brother William, Fódhla’s great-great-grandfather, had six children, three of whom became doctors.

One of them, Dr Patrick Burke, better known as Paddy, became the dispensary doctor for Skibbereen.

He was also highly regarded for conducting the first controlled study on prophylactic penicillin at UCC in 1947.

Paddy’s sister, Dr Nancy Renouf (née Burke) worked as a doctor in Cornwall. Her father-in-law was Professor Louis Renouf of UCC who did lots of biological studies in Lough Hyne in the twenties.

Her daughter, Dr Anne Renouf (75), Caragh Bell’s godmother, was also a doctor and Paddy’s other sister, Dr Mary Twomey (née Burke) was Fódhla’s maternal great-grandmother.

‘Dr Mary’ graduated from UCC in 1952, a time when it was considered a novelty to have a female graduate, especially one with a child who grew up to become Dr Ann Bell.

Dr Bell’s daughter, Caragh, told The Southern Star that it took Mary ‘years to be accepted in the profession. It was a real old boys’ club, but, to this day, I still meet people who talk about Dr Mary with real fondness.’

Dr Ann Bell graduated from UCC in 1970 and took over the Bridge Street practice from her mother, who died young at the age of 56 of an aneurysm.

Last, but not least, Caragh’s brother and Fódhla’s uncle, Ian, graduated from UCC in 1999 and now works as a GP, all of which makes Fódhla the fifth generation of UCC medics to set up practice at No 35 Bridge Street.