Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor Read Free

touched the sprain and said he, ‘Bone to bone, blood to blood, nerve to nerve, and every sinew in its proper place.’” She straightened and opened her eyes. “If it does you any good, and I hope it does, you’re welcome to it.”
    “T’ank you, missus,” said the man, “and I’m sorry I called yer granny a culchie. It’s the oul’ back makes me grumpy.”
    Fingal smiled. Dubliners. It would be good to be working with them in their own neighbourhoods.
    “Doctor O’Reilly?”
    He turned. “Doctor Corrigan is just finishing,” said Edith O’Donaghugh. “He says to go straight in as soon as his patients come out.”
    “Thank you.” As he headed for the hallway, he heard her say to the pregnant woman, “Come on now, Mary, down to my room and we’ll have a look at you. And you just bide, Lorcan O’Lunney. You and your back’ll get their turn after Doctor Corrigan has finished with Doctor O’Reilly.”
    The door to the surgery opened and a woman came out carrying a squalling infant in her shawl and holding the hand of a little girl of about eight. Fingal would have known her cornflower blue eyes anywhere. He bent and said to her, “Hello, Finnoula Curran, Finnoula of the fair shoulders. Nice to see you again.”
    She smiled shyly at him. “I remember you comin’ to Francis Street. You’re the Big Fellah, Paddy’s doctor when he was in hospital.”
    “The very one,” Fingal said with a smile. Not long ago, a feisty, one-armed ex-army sergeant named Paddy Keogh from here in the Liberties had called Fingal the “Big Fellah”—the same name given to Michael Collins, a hero of the war of independence fifteen years ago. The nickname had stuck and by it Fingal had become known around Francis Street. Fingal straightened and said to the woman, “It’s all right, Mrs. Curran. Finnoula and I are old friends. I hope she’s keeping well.”
    “Finnoula’s grand, but Aidan’s teethin’. His bawlin’ has the whole family up at night. Doctor Corrigan’s given me a scrip’.”
    Fingal guessed it would be for chloral hydrate, one grain to be taken by the noisy Aidan at the adults’ bedtime.
    “I’m sure it’ll work,” he said, and leaving them, went through the door.
    In a sparsely furnished room Doctor Phelim Corrigan sat on a tall stool behind a desk that could have come from a Dickensian counting house. He was a short, rotund man in, Fingal guessed, his middle fifties. His pinstripe-trousered legs dangled well above the floor, and the man wore a badly fitting brown toupee with its parting exactly centred on his head. Wire-rimmed spectacles blurring a pair of pale, watery eyes sat on a bulbous nose. “O’Reilly?” He didn’t get down or offer to shake hands.
    “Yes, sir.” Fingal’s naval training had him standing at attention. Today he’d worn the new suit he’d bought for graduation, a good choice because Doctor Corrigan obviously believed the dignity of his profession should be reflected in the practitioner’s attire. He wore a wing collar and dark tie under the jacket of his suit.
    “Ye sounded like an Ulsterman on the phone?”
    “I am. Originally from Holywood, County Down.”
    Fingal could hear neither distaste nor approval of his northern roots when Doctor Corrigan said, “I’m a Connaught man meself. Mainistair na Búille, County Roscommon.”
    Fingal knew the town of Boyle and its ancient monastery and he’d already placed Doctor Corrigan for a Roscommoner. They always said “ye.”
    “Ye’ve already told me all I need to know professionally, Doctor O’Reilly. As long as I take a shine to ye, ye can have the job. I’m desperate for help.” He yawned. “Delivery at three this morning then back here in the trenches at nine.”
    Fingal hid a smile. Babies didn’t keep bankers’ hours.
    “Now ye’re fresh out of Trinity and want to be a dispensary doctor?” He yawned again and made no attempt to cover his mouth. There were dark circles under his eyes. “Ye need yer