(1802-1880)
Dominic Corrigan was one of the first of the hitherto excluded talented Irish Catholics to come to the fore. During his lifetime Dominic Corrigan gained an international reputation in medicine, he played a prominent part in national politics and he accumulated considerable wealth from his large practice. These achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers that Corrigan did not have the type of patronage often thought essential for professional advancement in Victorian Ireland. He was born in 1802 in the heart of the old city of Dublin. His father was a merchant in Thomas Street and his house stood on a site where an Augustinian church stands today and where, in the past, Dublin’s medieval hospital of St John the Baptist was situated. This hospital was suppressed by Henry VIII in the first wave of religious persecution. In subsequent years the enactment of w whole range of penal laws made it virtually impossible for the native Catholic Irish to play an active part in the professional life of the country. Towards the end of the eighteenth century these laws were relaxed and the new, more liberal approach by government opened up opportunities for young Catholics like Corrigan.
