Dr Leonard Leader (b. 1918)

Track 1: Leonard Leader’s youth in the 1920s in Lishershane in Cullen, North Cork, and the background to his branch of the Leader family in Keale House. Track 2: Remembering the War of Independence and the Civil War. His cousins in Stakehill House and visits to Mount Leader. Track 3: Memories of the local parish priest, Fr. Ferris, and the Sisters at Drishane Convent, Millstreet. Track 4: He discusses his return to education at the College of Surgeons in 1939. After qualifying in 1942, he practised in England and returned to Boherbue to establish a practice with his wife Irene O’Callaghan, from Longueville House, Mallow. Track 5: The changes in medical practice over the years and a discussion on pandemics and epidemics. Track 6: Maternity practices in the 1950s in Ireland. Track 7: Superstitions associated with medicine, and the doctor-patient relationship and the outbreak of polio in the locality.