Dr Noël Browne: ‘Mesmerising’ and ‘infuriating’

SOCIALIST politician and health reformer Dr Noël Browne was both “mesmerising” and “infuriating”, and an “inveterate individualist”, a conference marking the centenary of his birth heard at the weekend.

However, had it not been for the outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in Ireland, he might have worked as a doctor in Dublin and "no one would have heard of him", his grandson, Glyn Carragher, noted at the event, hosted by NUI Galway's Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class.

Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins and Irish language campaigner Donncha Ó hÉallaithe were among the contributors to a discussion on Dr Browne's political career, chaired by Siptu senior researcher Tish Gibbons.

While Dr Browne was a “riveting public speaker”, Mr Higgins said they had different political perspectives. He said he found him to have “confused political positioning” on issues such as coalition government – which Mr Higgins opposed during his time in Labour. In that sense he was “infuriating” and an “inveterate individualist”, Mr Higgins said, while acknowledging the influence of the “trauma” of Dr Browne’s childhood.

Preventable disease

Dr Browne, who spent his latter years in Connemara, was born in 1915 and died in 1997. Having lost most of his family to preventable disease, including TB, he played a crucial role in eradicating it as minister for health in the State’s first coalition government.

He was instrumental in creating the hospital network that helped to tackle TB and other illnesses, and resigned as health minister in 1951 when the Mother and Child scheme, a limited free health care measure in the 1947 Health Act, met opposition from the Catholic Church, the medical establishment and Cabinet colleagues.

Mr Carragher , a film-maker and activist studying at UCC, said Dr Browne may have been “a difficult man to work with”, but it would have been during a political atmosphere marked latterly by “greed, corruption and lies”.

Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington recalled Dr Browne's friendship with her father, Owen , and how he was a "caring" rather than "career" politician, who was "committed to what he did".