Barry White is a former journalist and commentator with the Belfast Telegraph
FOLLOWING the collapse of the Stormont talks on Wednesday, the day grew even more sad as it was announced that former Irish Senator and surgeon John Robb had passed away.
The son of a surgeon at Downe Hospital, Downpatrick, and educated at Rockport, Edinburgh and Queen’s University, Belfast, he operated on many victims of the Troubles at the Royal Victoria Hospital during the 1970s, saving countless lives.
He worked hard to find means of reconciling the unionist and nationalist communities.
Unlike most professionals, Robb felt obliged to involve himself in contacting the combatants and devising ways of tackling the basic causes of the conflict.
He founded the New Ireland Movement in 1972, which morphed into the small, but influential New Ireland Group in 1981, to promote new thinking among traditional unionists and nationalists in both parts of Ireland.
Many articles and publications
Respected: John Robb
followed, challenging outdated policies, and he was rewarded by Taoiseach Charles Haughey — and later Garret FitzGerald — with a seat in the Irish Senate.
For seven years, from 1982, he would carry out his early rounds in the Route Hospital, Ballymoney, drive to Dublin to take part in Senate debates and the next morning return for his surgeon duties. He also campaigned to retain rural hospitals.
Before deciding on a medical career, he spent time working in the abattoir in Belfast and, with another student, went to South Africa, where he joined demonstrations against apartheid in rugby.
He was descended from radi- cal Ulster presbyterians, based in Dundonald, who were forced to flee after the 1798 United Irishmen Rebellion, and after retiring to Portrush he took up learning Irish, passing it at A-Level.
As a widely respected surgeon, he used his position to contact the leading political and paramilitary figures north and south of the border and could claim to have had considerable influence on their thinking prior to the Good Friday Agreement.
Much of his life was devoted to devising original schemes for voting and government in Northern Ireland, in an effort to minimise tribal division.
Two years ago he was admitted to a nursing home after a stroke. He is survived by his wife Sylvia (nee Sloan), herself the daughter of a Belfast surgeon, two sons who are both surgeons — Daniel, who lives in the States and William, now living in Dublin.
He also has two daughters, Susie, living in Barcelona, and Martha, who resides in Belfast.