Dr. Jeremy Swan, one of the world’s leading Cardiologists and longtime friend of The Ireland Funds, passed away in February of 2005.

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Dr. Swan attended many Ireland Fund events over the years including our annual conference in Dublin and the work of the organization was dear to his heart.

What follows is the eulogy that was given by Professor Davis Coakley in the College Chapel of Trinity College Dublin in May of 2005.

“In the early 1930’s a visitor to Sligo might have noticed a young boy walking about the busy quays and gazing in fascination at the many ships and boats sailing in and out of the harbour. Little would the visitor have realised that this boy would one day use his knowledge of sailing to invent a flotation catheter, which would revolutionise the care of critically ill patients in hospitals throughout the world.

Jeremy Swan was born in 1922 in Sligo, where his father and mother were general practitioners. Jeremy’s grandfather, William, had a printing business in Dublin. He married Sarah Tynan, sister of the poet Katherine Tynan who is remembered today for her lyrical hymn All in the April Evening. One of Jeremy’s uncles became an authority on traditional Irish music. Jeremy’s father, Harold, studied medicine at UCD where he fell in love with a classmate Marcella Kelly from Ballymote in Sligo. So medicine and Irish culture were strong elements in Jeremy’s family heritage.

Jeremy remembered his childhood in Sligo as ‘one of the most enjoyable periods of his existence’. He loved to explore places such as Rosses Point, Glencar, Ben Bulben, Balisodare and Knocknarea, all close at hand and all imbued with the mysteries of Celtic mythology. This area was also explored by the young William Butler Yeats and it inspired some of his finest poems such as The Stolen Child with its hauntingly beautiful refrain:

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than
you can understand.

Jeremy remembered meeting the elderly W. B. Yeats at Drumcliffe Rectory when his father treated the poet.

During his childhood Jeremy began to develop the analytical and philosophical qualities which would distinguish him throughout his life. As he later recalled:

‘I became interested in stamp collecting and thus learned a great amount about the various parts of the world. I would wonder where ships were going, how long they would take to get there and what things would be like at their destination. In many ways, I still feel very much a product of Sligo and of those events.’

It was as a boarder at Castleknock College that he was introduced to the enjoyment of beautiful music and he loved to sit and listen to the organist in the college chapel. ‘The quietness of the chapel and the beauty of the melodies’ all aroused sensations, which he still recalled with pleasure in the closing years of his life.

Jeremy was accepted to study medicine at Trinity College. However when his parents’ marriage ended in 1938, his mother moved to London and it was decided that Jeremy should study at St. Thomas’s Hospital.

Jeremy’s father died in 1948 and so he had to abandon his plan of going back to Sligo to join him in general practice. Instead he embarked upon a research programme in cardiovascular physiology in London with the support of the distinguished physiologist Henry Barcroft and the Nobel Laureate, Sir Henry Dale. Jeremy moved to the Mayo Clinic in 1951 where he continued his brilliant career. He brought one of the first research grants to the Mayo Clinic and he established the first training programme in the history of the institution. He moved to UCLA in 1965 where he was appointed professor of medicine and director of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre. It was here, as we shall hear later in the evening from Brian Maurer, that he did the ground-breaking research which would bring him international fame and which has already earned him a place in the history books of cardiology.

Jeremy’s unit became one of the leading departments of cardiology in the world. He empowered and valued all those who worked on his team and he was particularly attentive to the technicians in his laboratory. He became a mentor to generations of young cardiologists and he evoked great loyalty from all those who worked for him. As a role model, he influenced numerous trainees by his caring approach to patients. He went out of his way to help Irish graduates who wished to do advanced training in the United States. His colleagues held him in high esteem because of the great personal integrity which marked every facet of both his personal and academic life. Although Jeremy was to become one of the most highly honoured cardiologists of the twentieth century, he was always modest about his own achievements and generous in his praise of others. Young doctors were still calling to his home seeking his advice and counsel until a few weeks before his death. Some years ago he was asked to list some Rules for Successful Research. He concluded his list with a characteristic axiom:

‘The greatest threat to truth is your own ego.’

His first marriage ended in 1970 and he married Roma in 1973. Roma became a great source of strength and love for him and as their mutual friend, the eminent cardiologist, James Forrester wrote, Roma ‘brought a new dimension into his life. Roma helped him understand that what lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are little compared with what lies within us.’

The bonds of love and affection with his children grew deeper as they grew older and this was a great source of happiness for him.

I first came into contact with Jeremy about fifteen years ago when I was writing my book Irish Masters of Medicine. And this began what has been for me and for my wife Mary a very great privilege—our friendship with Jeremy and Roma. Their friendship has enriched our lives as their friendship has enriched the lives of many others who are here this evening.

I was requested to write a more detailed biography of Jeremy in 1995 and I asked him if he would send me some reflections on his life. At the conclusion of his reveries he wrote:

‘I cannot finish without mentioning my deceased daughter, Katherine, who has been with me every day of my life since her death three years ago. There is a Hebrew word for the sorrow of a parent on the death of a child. It has a meaning beyond sadness and pain and it indicates an unbearable loss.’

Jeremy was devastated in 1990 when he learnt that his youngest daughter who had followed her father into medicine was suffering from cancer. Katherine was just 32, a physician and research fellow in the Department of Rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston and at Harvard Medical School. In the brief interludes between treatments and operations, she continued to care for her own patients, passed her American Boards in Rheumatology, and wrote a seminal paper on her research work which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in December, 1992, three months after her death. The same issue of the journal carried a short and moving paper about Katherine and her last illness by her father entitled On Being a Doctor. He has described it as ‘the best paper I ever wrote.’

Jeremy was a strong supporter of The American Ireland Fund. He received many international honours, but his Irish honours were particularly valued by him. In 1990 he received the Stokes Medal of the Irish Cardiac Society. He was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1994 and on that occasion he also delivered the Corrigan lecture. It was characteristic of Jeremy that he did not emphasise his own major contribution to intensive care medicine in his address but rather he spoke to his audience about the paramount importance of a caring, compassionate and ethical approach in medicine.

Two years later he was awarded an honorary degree by Trinity College. His children came to Ireland to be with their father and Roma on this special occasion. After the ceremony the family travelled together to Sligo so that Jeremy could show them the places associated with his childhood.

As he grew older and he began to reflect on his life’s journey, Ireland and his youth in Sligo assumed a central significance for him. Like the pigeon in Seamus Heaney’s poem Gravities he was ‘heading home, instinctively faithful’.

In March 2001 Jeremy suffered a stroke, which despite intensive rehabilitation, left him with significant disability. However, his speech and cognition were unaffected. He returned to Ireland for the last time in 2002 with Roma and his daughter, Dodi. On arrival friends took them to Dun Laoghaire on a beautiful evening and I remember watching him, sitting in his wheelchair, looking thoughtfully out to sea at the boats sailing in and out of the Irish harbour. On the following evening here in Trinity, at a dinner hosted by the Provost and his wife Neasa, I also remember the impression which he made on everyone at the table by the range and depth of his conversation.

Jeremy’s death on the 7th February marked the passing of one of the great minds of twentieth century medicine. It was reported in the New York Times and in newspapers throughout the world. All those whose lives he had touched in his own special way experienced a sense of loss, but the loss was keenest for his wife Roma and his loving family. This evening we have gathered to remember Jeremy and to celebrate his life.

Roma is fulfilling Jeremy’s request to have his ashes brought back to Ireland—home to the Sligo of his youth.”