‘MONTY’ MYTHEN WINS TOP PRIZE

PROFESSOR Michael ‘Monty’ Mythen has enjoyed a career as illustrious as his Kerry links are strong, and now he has to his name one of the greatest accolades a Kerry person can claim.

Professor Mythen is the Kerry Association in London’s 2019 Kerryman of the Year, as confirmed last August, and he was the toast of the association’s annual Gala Dinner, which took place in the Clayton Crown Hotel in Cricklewood, London, on Friday night.

Professor Mythen is the Smiths Medical Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care at London’s University Hospital; and Director of The UCL Discovery Lab at the London 2012 Olympic Legacy Institute of Sport Exercise and Health.

Also on his illustrious CV is his work as Assistant Professor at Duke University in the mid-1990s, and he was founding President of the International Board of Perioperative Medicine.

The professor is the son of Lios Póil woman Johanna ‘Joan’ Fitzgerald, and her parents hailed from Dún Chaoin, the westernmost corner of the county. He was a regular visitor to Kerry and the Dingle area during his childhood, a tradition he has maintained, and he is related to one of the best-known families in the locality.

His uncle, Paudie, is a well-known businessman and was also a tremendous cyclist, best-known for winning the prestigious Rás Tailteann in 1956. Another uncle of the Professor’s, Tomás Fitzgerald, was a Kerry County Councillor and a Senator, while Michael’s first-cousin, Breandán

Fitzgerald, is a sitting Councillor for Fianna Fáil.

While a Londoner himself – his mother left Kerry for London in the 1940s, one of many Irish nurses who travelled over to work for the NHS – Professor Mythen has never lost touch with Kerry having invested, for instance, in Kerry Airport and the Dingle Distillery.

He has, for over 20 years, organised a highly regarded annual medical conference in Dingle’s Skellig Hotel, and has also arranged a number of Ealing Rugby Football Club tours to the Kingdom.

“We’re delighted to have such an accomplished winner in Professor Mythen this year,” said the Association’s Chairperson Tom O’Sullivan. “Not only is he distinguished and renowned worldwide in his own field of medicine, but his contribution to Kerry over the decades has been invaluable.”