Friday, 16 January 2015
738 Sir Dominic Corrigan
Constituency : Dublin 1870-4
Dominic chalked up the penultimate Liberal gain in this Parliament when he captured the second Dublin seat after the Tory Sir Arhur Guinness was unseated for bribery.
Dominic was a Dublin born doctor educated at Maynooth and then Edinburgh Medical School. He returned to Dublin and became a distinguished physician with many public appointments as well as a private practice. He came to be a specialist on heart conditions and the abnormal pulse rate in aortic valve insufficiency is named "Corrigan's pulse " after his work. In 1859 he became the first Catholic president of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland. He was created a baronet in 1866. He stood unsuccessfully in 1868
After his election Dominic campaigned for secular education in Ireland and the early release of Fenian prisoners. He defended the mass meeting in Phoenix Park in 1871.Some of his suggestions on Irish university education went into Gladstone's Irish Universities Bill. The Catholic hieararchy were not pleased ; Cardinal Cullen wrote "I hope that at the next election we shall be able to pay off Sir Dominic". His support for temperance and the closure of pubs on Sundays lost him support in the constituency and he declined to stand again in 1874. Saunder's Newsletter commented " the Liberals of Dublin have not treated their late representative with generosity. He brought to their cause a distinguished name which will always hold a high place in the history of Irish medicine, and we are not aware that his party have any reason to complain of any want of zeal on his part in their service".
He died in 1880 after a stroke aged 77.
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