Sylvester O'Halloran

Sylvester O'Halloran (31 December 1728 – 11 August 1807) was an Irish surgeon with an abiding interest in Gaelic poetry and history. For most of his life he lived and practised in Limerick, and was later elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA).

O'Halloran was the third son of Michael O'Halloran, a prosperous farmer at Caherdavin, County Limerick, and his wife Mary McDonnell. He was named after Sylvester Lloyd, the titular Catholic bishop of Killaloe in 1728–39. His mother's cousin Sean Claragh McDonnell taught him much at an early age, including some Greek and Latin. He went on to a Limerick school run by Robert Cashin, a Protestant clergyman, which was unusual at the time as the O'Hallorans were Roman Catholics during the difficult time of the Penal Laws.

Sylvester and his brothers engaged successfully in areas of life that worked around the restrictions of the Penal Laws. Joseph became a Jesuit and held chairs in rhetoric, philosophy and divinity at the Jesuit College at Bordeaux in France. George became a jeweller and in time a property-owner. Sylvester went to London to learn medicine at the age of 17, particularly studying the methods of Richard Mead, as well as the oculists Taylor and Hillmer. After further study at Leyden, and in Paris under the anatomist and academician Antoine Ferrein, he set up practice as a surgeon in Limerick in early 1749.

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