eighteen brothers and sisters between them?
“Och, sure, the priests are everywhere. Our concern is how the system’s being run now, and I don’t think the new setup’ll make bugger all difference to us. There’ll be no raise in salaries. We might get the occasional paying patient, but the insured pay our salaries. Being situated where we are, the poor, to misquote Saint Mark, will always be with us. They’ll still get their tickets for free care.” He inhaled and blew out his breath past nearly closed lips. “And many of the toffs from places like Ranelagh and Ballsbridge, rather than going to a posh local doctor, will come here because even though the gurriers can afford to pay, they can get tickets from their upper-class cronies on the overseeing committee for free care, diddling us out of our pittances. Despite all the political manoeuvrings, for us poor buggers in the trenches it’ll be plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose . My two partners here had had enough. One’s gone to Canada, the other to Liverpool.” His smile was lopsided. “So if ye do take the job, don’t say ye weren’t warned.”
“Thank you for being honest, but—but if it’s so terrible, why do you stay? I mean, I keep wondering myself exactly why I’m so attracted to this kind of practice. I think I know, but may I ask you why you like it here?”
Doctor Corrigan frowned, said, “Huh,” and shook his head. “I sometimes wonder myself, but I will tell ye a couple of things. When I was a youngster, a country boy from County Roscommon, I came to Dublin to train at the College of Surgeons. The bishops won’t let Catholics attend a Protestant university like Trinity. Like a lot of kids back then I was full of ideals. I always thought the poor people weren’t treated fairly. I saw the lot of the tenement folks firsthand. Somebody had to do something. I’ve no time for politics, as I told ye, and I’m not a bloody evangelist either. I just thought I could make a difference.”
“I see,” Fingal said. “I think you and my mother would hit it off. She and her friends are trying to get the council to move on slum clearance.”
“Fair play to her, boy. Most of Dublin’s toffs pretend poverty simply doesn’t exist. Or they blame it on inborn character defects of the poor that make them unable to benefit from help. When I was training, I liked looking after poor people. They were grateful for my efforts and needed medical help a damn sight more because of their poverty, their lousy—and I mean that literally—housing, and appalling diets. The crowding in those neighbourhoods is so atrocious, infections go through the tenements like a gorse fire in summer. I thought the system of free care for them, partly provided by workers’ and employers’ contributions and from city taxes levied on the rich, was a good way to help.”
“It is,” Fingal said, “and from what I saw as a student, we need more of it.”
Doctor Corrigan shifted from one buttock to the other. “True, and how much have ye seen of the other side of medicine? The one for the rich?”
“Not a lot. My folks’ friend Mister Oliver St. John Gogarty, the ENT surgeon, has a private plane and a primrose Rolls-Royce. He charges three hundred pounds for one operation done privately. He taught me at Sir Patrick Dun’s,” Fingal said, “and to be fair, he was absolutely meticulous when he operated on the charity cases.”
“I’d expect that of the man. I know him too, and I know about how private practice works in Blackrock and Ballsbridge.”
“My folks live in Ballsbridge,” Fingal said.
“I’ll forgive ye,” Doctor Corrigan said, “and I know about practising among the rich because, apostate that I am, I let my principles slide. I was an assistant in Merrion Square for a year after I qualified. Money was good, but I got fed up being treated like a minor tradesman at the beck and call of the idle rich. Half of them had nothing better to do than
“Och, sure, the priests are everywhere. Our concern is how the system’s being run now, and I don’t think the new setup’ll make bugger all difference to us. There’ll be no raise in salaries. We might get the occasional paying patient, but the insured pay our salaries. Being situated where we are, the poor, to misquote Saint Mark, will always be with us. They’ll still get their tickets for free care.” He inhaled and blew out his breath past nearly closed lips. “And many of the toffs from places like Ranelagh and Ballsbridge, rather than going to a posh local doctor, will come here because even though the gurriers can afford to pay, they can get tickets from their upper-class cronies on the overseeing committee for free care, diddling us out of our pittances. Despite all the political manoeuvrings, for us poor buggers in the trenches it’ll be plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose . My two partners here had had enough. One’s gone to Canada, the other to Liverpool.” His smile was lopsided. “So if ye do take the job, don’t say ye weren’t warned.”
“Thank you for being honest, but—but if it’s so terrible, why do you stay? I mean, I keep wondering myself exactly why I’m so attracted to this kind of practice. I think I know, but may I ask you why you like it here?”
Doctor Corrigan frowned, said, “Huh,” and shook his head. “I sometimes wonder myself, but I will tell ye a couple of things. When I was a youngster, a country boy from County Roscommon, I came to Dublin to train at the College of Surgeons. The bishops won’t let Catholics attend a Protestant university like Trinity. Like a lot of kids back then I was full of ideals. I always thought the poor people weren’t treated fairly. I saw the lot of the tenement folks firsthand. Somebody had to do something. I’ve no time for politics, as I told ye, and I’m not a bloody evangelist either. I just thought I could make a difference.”
“I see,” Fingal said. “I think you and my mother would hit it off. She and her friends are trying to get the council to move on slum clearance.”
“Fair play to her, boy. Most of Dublin’s toffs pretend poverty simply doesn’t exist. Or they blame it on inborn character defects of the poor that make them unable to benefit from help. When I was training, I liked looking after poor people. They were grateful for my efforts and needed medical help a damn sight more because of their poverty, their lousy—and I mean that literally—housing, and appalling diets. The crowding in those neighbourhoods is so atrocious, infections go through the tenements like a gorse fire in summer. I thought the system of free care for them, partly provided by workers’ and employers’ contributions and from city taxes levied on the rich, was a good way to help.”
“It is,” Fingal said, “and from what I saw as a student, we need more of it.”
Doctor Corrigan shifted from one buttock to the other. “True, and how much have ye seen of the other side of medicine? The one for the rich?”
“Not a lot. My folks’ friend Mister Oliver St. John Gogarty, the ENT surgeon, has a private plane and a primrose Rolls-Royce. He charges three hundred pounds for one operation done privately. He taught me at Sir Patrick Dun’s,” Fingal said, “and to be fair, he was absolutely meticulous when he operated on the charity cases.”
“I’d expect that of the man. I know him too, and I know about how private practice works in Blackrock and Ballsbridge.”
“My folks live in Ballsbridge,” Fingal said.
“I’ll forgive ye,” Doctor Corrigan said, “and I know about practising among the rich because, apostate that I am, I let my principles slide. I was an assistant in Merrion Square for a year after I qualified. Money was good, but I got fed up being treated like a minor tradesman at the beck and call of the idle rich. Half of them had nothing better to do than
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