An Irish Country Doctor
By Patrick Taylor
(352 pages, fiction, 2007)
Barry Laverty has just become a doctor and is almost late for a job interview, but he is having trouble finding the small village of Balleybucklebo in Northern Ireland. He loves Ireland and wants to work in a rural practice. But he has to find the place first.
The interview is with Doctor Fingal Flahertie O’Reilly. O’Reilly is a larger than life character who has his own unorthodox way of doing things. Barry first sees O’Reilly as he throws a patient into the rose bushes outside of his surgery. Barry is very concerned, but he soon finds that O’Reilly has a frightening, tough exterior, but a very soft heart for the villagers. O’Reilly goes out of his way to help them.
There is quite a cast of characters. O’Reilly’s housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Kincaid, has the sight and knows things before they happen. A major and his wife are always convinced that the Major is very ill and call the doctors out at night again and again. But they cannot find anything wrong with him. There’s a pregnant, unwed young woman who won’t say who the father is. And an eccentric older couple who won’t marry because of a dispute over a cottage roof, and more.
Barry gradually realizes that he is becoming part of the village life. And despite his first misgivings, he just might stay.
This is the first in a series of books about the Irish doctor. If you liked the stories by veterinarian James Herriot, or the stories of small town life by Jan Karon, you should give this charming series a try.
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Robbin Bailey
