WB Yeats once called him "the greatest living poet of our time". He had a colourful career. Dr Gogarty was, in his time, politician, surgeon, airman, athlete, poet and wit and had friends ranging from WB Yeats and James Joyce to Biddy Mulligan, the Dublin fishwife. He was Dublin-born and educated first at Trinity College, then at the Jesuit school at Stonyhurst, and at Oxford. He trained as a medical student in Dublin.

He had a passionate love both for England and for Ireland, though he was contemptuous of individual Englishmen. He declared that it was the Irish who ran the British Empire. One of the most colourful stories about him was his "operation" on Michael Collins, the Irish leader.

Collins, hotly pursued by Black and Tans, just got into Dr Gogarty's house ahead of them. He was quickly laid out on the operating table.

Dr Gogarty performed an 'operation' while Collins emitted convincing groans.

Dr Gogarty ordered the soldiers to "get out and stay out, " adding that it was " a matter of life and death" for the man on the table. His adventures did not stop when the new Irish Free State government came to power. During the 1922 Civil War, he fell as a hostage into the grasp of the antigovernment forces and was imprisoned in an old mansion on the banks of the Liffey near Islandbridge, Dublin. One night, he crawled through a window, jumped into the river Liffey and swam to the other side to safety. After his escape, in an action typical of the man, he presented a pair of swans to the Liffey. It was the presentation of the swans which gave him the title for his second book of poems, 'An Offering of Swans, ' which was published in 1924.

ON WEDNESDAY, 16 convicts, escorted by a party of the 6th Dragoons, (or Enniskilleners) arrived in this town from Roscommon, on their way to Cork for transportation. The military guard at our jail has been increased in consequence of a detected plan of escape by the prisoners. On Saturday last a boat belonging to Mr Hynes of the New Quay in this county unfortunately foundered off Deer Island when three Policemen and two of the crew unfortunately perished. A report of the conduct of a Magistrate of the County Galway has been sent off to the Lord Lieutenant, for taking out a party of military a few nights since, and acting in a most licentious manner, killing dogs, firing shots on the road, invading the quiet of public houses, and disturbing the inmates.

On the 7th instant, while a quarryman named Denaher, was preparing a blast in Dromadda Colliery, near Newcastle, in the County Limerick, an unexpected explosion took place, owing to the incautious use of iron, by which the man had his right leg shattered in a most shocking manner, and had his face and arms much injured by the powder, a large grain of which was extracted from the ball of his eye. He was removed to the Newcastle Dispensary, where, from the nature of the injury the leg had sustained, Dr Pierce had found that amputation above the knee was unavoidable. The poor man submitted to the operation with much firmness, and is doing well.