Bill Powell died recently at home in the house that he built and thatched with his own hands deep in the country that he loved. With him were his wife Pat and his family who had cared lovingly for him throughout a long illness, which he bore with great courage and determination.
He was born in Cairo in 1925 to a father, Ashley, who became an eminent Silk; his mother was Dorothy Townsend. Notwithstanding his own very successful choice of medicine as a career, he inherited great legal perspicacity and was the despair of many a cross-examining counsel. He grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Dublin with a love of country life, which he never lost despite a long career in city practice. After school in St Columba's, he qualified in medicine at Trinity College Dublin. While in university his athletic talents were to the fore as a very formidable miler. Up to the time he became ill, going anywhere with Bill on foot was likely to be exhausting! He worked initially in Dr Steeven's Hospital and then Wexford General where he met Pat, his greatly loved wife. After further medical and surgical training in England, he returned to Cork in the 1950s to join his uncle Dr Marshall Cummins in practice. He was also appointed to a post in the Victoria Hospital in Cork.
In those more relaxed days, a doctor with the talent and inclination could tackle most things and Bill displayed an extraordinary knowledge and capability coupled with judgement and intuition. As his partner in later years, I met many patients who had presented their acute abdomens in the surgery and were promptly admitted to the Victoria for appendicectomy. Similarly, bones were set, gall bladders removed, babies delivered normally or by section and once even a subdural haematoma evacuated.
He was for many years honorary medical officer to St Luke's Home and was held in high esteem by the residents there for the respect and gentleness of his treatment of them. He delivered total care. More than all this was the quality of his commitment to his patients who recognised that he genuinely cared for them and hailed him as "one of our own" - which in terms of background he patently was not.
There was far more to Bill than medicine. He will have been known to many for his love of horses and devotion to hunting and the sport of eventing to which he made a huge contribution. He hosted many cross-country events on his own small farm at Ballybrownie, designing courses with great care which were widely regarded by competitors as challenging to say the least. He loved nature and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Irish flora and fauna: any birdsong would be instantly recognised and the natural history of the songster would follow. He was a cultured man with a great love of art who was talented himself with pen and brush. He had a love of the Irish language and worked hard to perfect his knowledge of it later in his life. He had marvellous talent in his hands as was revealed in the beautiful little house which he designed and largely built himself.
Most of all he was a man from whom decency and genuine goodness shone: he was unshakeably honest and forthright when needed in a quiet and dignified way. In nearly 20 years of partnership, this writer never exchanged a cross word with him. He was a great friend who will be very sadly missed.