Individual Details
James GORDON
(23 Apr 1876 - 18 Jun 1955)
James became a doctor, having studied in Dublin and London. Between 1898 and 1902 he was Medical Officer in Cliffoney, Co. Sligo, after which he moved to Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, where he became a surgeon at the Sheil Hospital (he had become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1906). James, who never married, remained in Ballyshannon for the remainder of his life. There is a plaque dedicated to him in the Sheil Hospital.
The following evocative description of James is taken, with the kind permission of the author, from an article on the Canadian Vindicator website (www.vindicator.ca). This site was developed by Ballyshannon-born newspaper editor John Ward who, in his youth, knew James, "at six foot six inches a compelling presence as he entered sick room or hospital ward. His tall frame carried a lean body, and his long legs were normally encased in stockings and knickerbockers...His house was kept by his sister in an immaculate state of cleanliness. In pre-telephone days, patients turned up at his doorstep without appointments...Such patients were, of course, in a minority. In actual practice, if someone was at all ambulatory, consulting a doctor was a rarity in those times. The vast bulk of people waited until they were bed-ridden before seeking medical assistance, and the good Dr. Gordon, for all his forbidding appearance, was regularly routed from his sleep at all hours of the night to make house calls on an emergency basis. During 'the Emergency', as the Second World War was known in Ireland, he was one of the very few who had a petrol allowance that enabled him to continue to drive his motor car in order to answer the innumerable emergency calls that were part and parcel of his daily and nightly practice. His car could be found all over town, all throughout the countryside, up mountainy lanes, parked outside the homes of sick people...He was, for years, the only surgeon attached to the Sheil Hospital...There he plied his trade with scalpel and suture, and there he left his trademark on many whose appendices were removed by him...In Ballyshannon people vied with each other to show their appendectomy scars, competing to see which was the largest, thanks to Dr. Gordon's ministering surgery. This is no snide comment on the good doctor's work. In the absence of x-rays he believed in seeing with his own eyes any other potential danger spots... What is today amazing in retrospect is Dr. Gordon's billing practices. Pre-state medicine, pre-hospitalization insurance plans, pre-regional health boards and bureaucracies, Dr. Gordon practised medicine the old-fashioned way. If you could pay, he billed you. If you couldn't pay, you never saw a bill from him. He had been so long in practice, in the town and surrounding country, that he knew who could, and who could not."
The following evocative description of James is taken, with the kind permission of the author, from an article on the Canadian Vindicator website (www.vindicator.ca). This site was developed by Ballyshannon-born newspaper editor John Ward who, in his youth, knew James, "at six foot six inches a compelling presence as he entered sick room or hospital ward. His tall frame carried a lean body, and his long legs were normally encased in stockings and knickerbockers...His house was kept by his sister in an immaculate state of cleanliness. In pre-telephone days, patients turned up at his doorstep without appointments...Such patients were, of course, in a minority. In actual practice, if someone was at all ambulatory, consulting a doctor was a rarity in those times. The vast bulk of people waited until they were bed-ridden before seeking medical assistance, and the good Dr. Gordon, for all his forbidding appearance, was regularly routed from his sleep at all hours of the night to make house calls on an emergency basis. During 'the Emergency', as the Second World War was known in Ireland, he was one of the very few who had a petrol allowance that enabled him to continue to drive his motor car in order to answer the innumerable emergency calls that were part and parcel of his daily and nightly practice. His car could be found all over town, all throughout the countryside, up mountainy lanes, parked outside the homes of sick people...He was, for years, the only surgeon attached to the Sheil Hospital...There he plied his trade with scalpel and suture, and there he left his trademark on many whose appendices were removed by him...In Ballyshannon people vied with each other to show their appendectomy scars, competing to see which was the largest, thanks to Dr. Gordon's ministering surgery. This is no snide comment on the good doctor's work. In the absence of x-rays he believed in seeing with his own eyes any other potential danger spots... What is today amazing in retrospect is Dr. Gordon's billing practices. Pre-state medicine, pre-hospitalization insurance plans, pre-regional health boards and bureaucracies, Dr. Gordon practised medicine the old-fashioned way. If you could pay, he billed you. If you couldn't pay, you never saw a bill from him. He had been so long in practice, in the town and surrounding country, that he knew who could, and who could not."
Events
| Birth | 23 Apr 1876 | Sheepwalk, Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon | |||
| Death | 18 Jun 1955 | Carrickboy, Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal | |||
| Burial | Shankhill Cemetery, Elphin, Co. Roscommon |
Families
| Father | John GORDON (1838 - 1895) |
| Mother | Mary Josephine O'CONNOR (1843 - 1906) |
| Sibling | Patrick GORDON (1870 - 1912) |
| Sibling | Mary GORDON (1871 - 1944) |
| Sibling | Martin GORDON (1873 - 1918) |
| Sibling | John (Johnny) GORDON (1874 - 1969) |
| Sibling | Catherine (Kate) GORDON (1877 - 1950) |
| Sibling | Ellen (Helen) GORDON (1879 - 1962) |
| Sibling | Ann (Annie) M. GORDON (1879 - 1975) |
| Sibling | Thomas GORDON (1880 - 1937) |
| Sibling | Cormac GORDON (1881 - 1927) |
| Sibling | Michael GORDON (1883 - ) |