Limerick's 'Flying doctor' set to expand his horizons on retirement

KIERAN Murphy, who has been the GP in Athea and Carrigkerry for the past 37 years, retired from his practice at the weekend.

Happily, for his patients and for the community he serves, his replacement, Dr Brid Wallace, has taken over seamlessly from him, and took up her post on Monday.

Meanwhile, Dr Murphy is hoping to spend some of his retirement hours in the air. A keen pilot, he has retained his share in a Piper Cherokee 180 four-seater, single engine plane based at Farranfore and plans to get back into the cockpit more next year.

With just 330 hours clocked up, he would have loved to have done more flying over the years. “But there were just so many other things,” he explained.

On any given free day, he added, the airfield had to be right, the weather had to be right, the plane and pilot had to be right before he could take off.

But he also has plans to have some more family time, and perhaps also to put pen to paper to describe his many years as a practicing rural GP.

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However, he isn’t intending to “hang up the stethoscope” completely and will retain his aviation links, providing medicals to pilots and commercial pilots on a part-time basis.

But Friday’s retirement still comes as a bit of wrench. “Of course there are mixed feelings,” he said this week. “I have loved doing the job. I still love it. I enjoy the contact with people, meeting people and using the skills I have to help people.

“But I will be 67 next week and what I am looking forward to is the freedom to not have to be here in the surgery every Monday morning,” he continued.

During most of his 37 years in Athea and 43 years as a qualified doctor, Dr Murphy has been involved in training. “We were one of the first training practices in this part of the country,” he explained. A key element of that involved the men and women registrars doing their two-year GP training but his practice also hosted trainee occupational therapy students, nursing students and medical students on placements. Dr Murphy was also deeply involved in training community first responders and in supervising advanced paramedics.

He is particularly pleased that with Dr Wallace taking over, there will be significant continuity within the practice.

There was, he admitted, enormous relief in Athea and Carrigkerry when it was confirmed that there would be a full-time replacement from December 6.

A number of local politicians, among them Minister of State Niall Collins TD and Cllr Liam Galvin, cathaoirleach of Newcastle West Municipal District, had raised the issue and lobbied to ensure that Athea and Carrigkerry would not be left without a doctor, like so many other towns and villages in rural Ireland.

Minister Collins welcomed the confirmation of a full-time replacement for Dr Murphy as “very good news”.

And he thanked him for his many years of dedicated service and commitment to the people of Athea and beyond and wished him and his family a happy and long retirement.

Community events in Athea and Carrigkerry to mark Dr Murphy’s retirement have been postponed until the New Year because of the high Covid-19 figures.