My mother, Connie Fahey, who has died of complications from peripheral vascular disease aged 92, was a GP in Oldbury, near Birmingham, for 35 years. She was part of the Irish medical generation who emigrated to the UK in the 1950s; she initially trained in anaesthesia in Preston, Lancashire.
After meeting and marrying her husband, Seán, she joined him in general practice in 1960, initially in Wolverhampton and then in Oldbury. Together they ran a busy general practice in a deprived area during a time of significant unemployment and its accompanying social and medical challenges.
They were part of a large group of Irish GPs in Birmingham who enjoyed mutual friendship and support. Holidays were always spent back in the west of Ireland visiting family.
She was born Bridget Concepta MacDonagh in Galway, to Edmund, a farmer, and his wife Masie (nee Cottingham). After attending Taylor’s Hill school in the city, she trained in medicine at University College Galway, graduating in 1952.
All changed in Birmingham when my mother was suddenly widowed in 1973. My father died of rheumatic heart disease and Connie was left to bring up four young children aged between eight and 11 on her own. During the next 20 years she dedicated herself to her family and her patients, running a busy general practice with commitment, kindness and good humour.
She liked the egalitarian ethos of the NHS, enjoyed the multicultural nature of her work and was frequently invited to patients’ houses for meals. A self-contained person who never sought attention, she quietly got on with her clinical practice. Throughout this period she also acted as medical doctor in support of pilgrims who travelled from Birmingham to Lourdes, in south-west France.
Connie enjoyed a happy retirement for nearly 30 years between Britain and the west of Ireland. A constant and eclectic reader, she also liked walking in the countryside, cinema and the theatre. She was an understated but shrewd bridge player and invariably finished the Guardian crossword every day.
She is survived by her children, Peter, Mary, Cecily and me – two of us followed her into medicine as general practitioners – and nine grandchildren.
