Barry O'Meara
{{Short description|Irish surgeon (1786–1836)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2021}}
File:Barry Edward O'Meara, holding a copy of his book, A Voice From St. Helena (1822).jpg
Barry Edward O'Meara (1786 – 1836) was an Irish surgeon and founding member of the Reform Club who accompanied Napoleon to Saint Helena and became his physician, having been surgeon on board {{HMS|Bellerophon|1786|6}} when the emperor surrendered himself. He was a medical graduate of Trinity College Dublin.{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.ie/life/home-garden/homes/ten-bedroom-mansion-on-10-acres-for-price-of-a-city-four-bed-semi-36987927.html|title=Ten-bedroom mansion on 10 acres for price of a city four-bed semi|website=independent}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcd.ie/medicine/alumni/stories/barry-omeara.php|title=Dr Barry Edward O'Meara Physician to Napoleon (1783 – 1836) - School of Medicine - Trinity College Dublin|website=www.tcd.ie}}
Life
O'Meara is remembered as the author of Napoleon in Exile, or A Voice From St. Helena (1822) a book which charged Sir Hudson Lowe with mistreating the former emperor and created no small sensation on its appearance. Less known are his secret letters he sent clandestinely from Saint Helena to a clerk at the Admiralty in London. These letters shed a unique light on Napoleon's state of mind as a captive and the causes of his complaints against Lowe and the British government.{{Cite web |title=Inside Longwood - Barry O'Meara's clandestine letters |url=https://www.napoleon.org/en/magazine/publications/inside-longwood-barry-omearas-clandestine-letters/ |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=napoleon.org |language=en-US}}
O'Meara was also the physician to have performed the very first medical operation on Napoleon: by extracting a wisdom tooth in the autumn of 1817.See the story of {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20131014105933/http://www.inside-longwood.com/inside-longwood-articles-tooth.html Napoleon's Tooth]}}
Legacy
O'Meara's granddaughter, Kathleen O'Meara was a Catholic writer based in Paris.Flaherty, M. (1911). Kathleen O'Meara. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 6 December 2014 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11250b.htm
O'Meara was portrayed by Michael Williams in the 1972 Anglo-American historical drama film Eagle in a Cage.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}}
See also
- François Carlo Antommarchi, physician, 1780-1838
- Dermod O'Meara, physician, c. 1614-42
- Edmund O'Meara, physician, c. 1614-81
- Kathleen O'Meara, writer, 1839-1888
Notes
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References
- O'Meara, Barry Edward, pp. 806–07, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 41 - Norbury - Osborn, Oxford, 2004.
- {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20121211020132/http://www.inside-longwood.com/ Inside Longwood, Barry O'Meara's clandestine letters]}}, Albert Benhamou, 2012, {{ISBN|9780-9564654-12}}.
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Category:19th-century Irish medical doctors
Category:Irish officers in the Royal Navy
Category:People from Blackrock, Dublin
Category:Military personnel from County Dublin
Category:Medical doctors from County Dublin
Category:Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
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