Son of Olympic hero donates incredible gift to a Tipperary school

The most incredible example of giving something back to a community that reared you occurred last week when a man walked into Clonmel High School and handed over a quarter of a million euros to be used as a bursary to help students study medicine.

Doctor Terry O’Callaghan, who has had a distinguished medical career in America and is the son of the legendary double gold Olympic medallist Dr Pat O’Callaghan, stepped forward to gift the school such a phenomenal amount of money.

After getting over the initial shock the school community was proud and overjoyed to be the beneficiary of such a philanthropic gesture.

The huge sum of money was handed over to Principal Karen Steenson by 88-year-old Doctor Terry O’Callaghan who has fond memories of growing up in Roseville on the Western Road in Clonmel and of attending the High School with his brothers and friends.

“I just wanted to give something back. This school has been great to me and our family for the last two generations. It has produced quite a number of university graduates and we all appreciate what the school has done for us. It gave us a good, broad education so that we were able to hold our own with anybody we would have met at university or later in life who would have gone to the elite schools, ” said Doctor Terry O’Callaghan as he visited the school to meet Principal Karen Steenson, staff and pupils.

Terry explained that having spent so much time in America his philosophy in life was that you need to give something back to institutions that helped you.

Terry and the group of pathologists he worked with in private practice in the state of Maine donated 5% of their gross salary every year to schools, universities, and hospitals.

“So I felt the same regarding the High School where I spent 12 years so I hope that it will help people in the future,” he said.

He recalled how he was fortunate to be given a grant from Tipperary County Council when he finished in the High School to go and study medicine at UCC and how it had such a life-changing impact on his life.

“So I think it is incumbent on me to pay that back and hope it helps other students from the school to become physicians and I hope it helps people each year and that is why I have funded this scholarship,” said Terry.

Terry speaks lovingly about his years in the High School and remembers how small his class was.

“I have very happy memories of being in the school, we were very close, it was a very small class of about 20 when I graduated in 1953,” said 88-year-old Terry.

Terry was second in the family, his eldest brother Pat also went to the High School and graduated the year before him. Pat went on to study medicine at UCC and went on to practice Ophthalmology in Clonmel.

His young brother Brian was also a pupil at the High School and he went on to dental school in UCC and set up his own practice in Clonmel. Brian passed away in his early forties after being diagnosed with ALS. His brother Hughie was the youngest in the family to attend the High School did a Masters in Economics at Scranton University in the States and he had an athletic scholarship to Villanova.

He had a sister Moira, she was the youngest in the family, and attended the Loreto Secondary School in Clonmel. She became a doctor and a psychiatrist and tragically died in a car crash in her forties.

Terry has fond memories of growing up in the house in Roseville, his father won Gold medals at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam and in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“He had them in a biscuit tin or something but they were never mentioned and were never on show. He never spoke about the civic honour of being granted Freedom of Clonmel in 1984. Those were conversations I regret never happened,” he said.

“Watching the Olympics recently it would go through your mind what he achieved and I felt very proud of his achievements while watching the Olympics and I am very proud of the regard that people had for him,” said Terry(pictured above looking over a book on the history of the school with Principal Karen Steenson.

EDUCATION

Terry remembers that education was always a priority in the home and it was always understood by himself and his siblings from an early age that they would go to university and do medicine.

“My father’s surgery was in the house so we were dealing with patients all of the time I remember coming back from a school athletic meet and my father calling me, come on quick, so I ran down the road and up the stairs and there was a man lying in the bed that had cut his throat, I would have been about 15 at the time and my father involved us when he needed a hand. I had the desire to go into medicine at a young age and I cannot remember thinking about doing anything else,” said Terry.

He remembers being thrilled to achieve the grant to go to university.

“I probably would have gone to university anyway but it would have been a financial burden on the family. At that time families were very poor and there was no money around. I remember my father resoling our shoes at night. He was treating patients all of the time, he never billed anybody and if he collected he would collect but we would have got a lot, especially at Christmas. A lot of the country people would bring in a turkey, or eggs or butter, so you were paid in kind,” said Terry.

Terry interned in Cork at the North Infirmary and did specialty training in New Haven Connecticut and in Boston. Terry was in America for 35 years and when he retired from America he came home to live in Ireland in 1996. His life could have taken a different path had he been sent to Vietnam when he was drafted into the American army for two years.

“I had orders to go to Vietnam. At that time I did not have a home address only an apartment in Boston. I had a wife and two kids and one on the way and I had to go to Heuston in Texas where the doctors went for initiation into the Army. When I got orders to go to Vietnam, I learned when I was signing up that when they send you to a place where your family can’t go, they asked for details of your home of record so I went into the transportation department and I told them that my home of record was Ireland and please send my household goods and my family to Ireland. They balked at that, there was a Colonel Flynn there who told me to come back tomorrow and they sent me to Ford Gordon in Georgia, they called Washington and switched names. Somebody else went to Vietnam and I went to Georgia and spent two years there,” said Terry.

He married Eileen (O’Donovan) who was a science graduate from Cork and has a BA in the University of Maine in Psychology. Her father was Dean of the medical school in Cork.

Terry and Eileen have three daughters -Deirdre, Cliona, Orla who are all living in America where they work as lawyers.

“We exposed them to Ireland every year, brought them over to Ireland on holidays and they are all very supporting of this scholarship and very happy that it is happening,” said Terry. On his visit to the High School he was pleased to meet students and talk to them about what careers they had in mind and he offered some advice to High School students who might avail of the scholarship to study medicine in the future.

“I would tell students that you have to be prepared to put in long hours of hard work, but what you accomplish is very satisfying in helping people and I would say go as far as you can in education but also select whatever field you want to go in, not what pays best.

“Because it will be much more satisfying working at what you love,” said Terry.