First use of Ether
as an Anaesthetic in Ireland
There is an old game called "Ten Steps from Kevin Bacon."
Basically after being given a random word you have 9 connections from that word to connect a word directly to the actor Kevin Bacon.
My posts seem to be getting somewhat similar in their headings, however thankfully they are generally describing the ninth step in the process.
And so it is with the first use of Ether as an anaesthetic in Ireland and Kilsharvan Church ruins and graveyard in County Meath.
On January 1st 1847 (coincidentally Black 47) John McDonnell
carried out the first surgery in Ireland and quite possibly anywhere outside the U.S.A. or England
using ether as an aesthetic, amputating the arm of 18 year old Mary Kane.
He died at his home in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin in 1892
and is buried at Kilsharvan graveyard.
The graveyard at Kilsharvan dates from the 13th century
while the Church ruins are of a later date.
The window tracery is reminiscent of many later Gothic style Churches of the continental religious orders.
The rounded arch entranceways and Sandstone blocks beside the windows however are suggestive of earlier Romanesque Churches and may well have been incorporated into the later structure and ruins that sit there now.
The Church was known as "the Church of the bitter tongued" named such
after John the Baptist apparently.
I had no idea myself that John the Baptist was a bitter chap
but you learn something new every day.
Keep the wheels turning.
