Author, jazz-lover and true pioneer – Psychiatrist Ivor Browne dies aged 94

Written By Barbara McCarthy

Ireland’s most famous psychiatrist, Ivor Browne, has died at the age of 94.

The author, jazz-lover, pragmatist and friend to many made a huge contribution to public and private life both in Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Professor Browne helped to change the country’s attitude towards mental illness and stood up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves.

He was one of just a few in his profession globally, who managed to operate inside and outside of the “system”.

On one hand, he was a chief psychiatrist of the Eastern Health Board and professor emeritus of psychiatry at UCD, who was best known for his theory of trauma, which he said was the root cause of many psychiatric diagnoses.

On the other, he went all-day drinking with Brendan Behan, practiced meditation before it was trendy and experimented with psychedelic drugs.

He was not afraid of criticising oversubscription of psychiatric drugs.

Born in 1929 to a middle-class family from Sandycove, Dublin, Prof Browne went to Blackrock College, where he discovered his love for jazz music and began playing the trumpet.

Despite wanting to become a jazz musician, he took up medicine to suit his parents, gaining admission to the Royal College of Surgeons.

He became a qualified doctor in 1955, although he had little interest in modern medicine and became a psychiatrist.

He said of choosing the profession: “I wasn’t really interested in medicine as a career, but one day a professor, who had a great sense of humour, looked at me and said, ‘You’re only fit to be either an obstetrician or a psychiatrist’.”

Despite describing himself as a mediocre medical student, who couldn’t get a job in Ireland, when he first qualified he went to Warneford Hospital in Oxford, before receiving a fellowship at Harvard University, where he studied public and community mental health.

In Harvard he was introduced to an initiative, which took the care of mental patients away from large institutions and into the community.

When he returned to Ireland, Prof Browne conceived and became a director of the Irish Foundation for Human Development.

He set up the first Community Association in Ireland in Ballyfermot – one of the early large housing estates in Dublin.

With a professional team, he created a thriving community there. An offshoot of the project was created in Derry, called the Inner-City Trust, which transformed the city after years of conflict.

Prof Browne was not afraid to break rules to save lives, which gained him a reputation as a maverick.

In the 1990s, he famously supported Phyllis Hamilton, Fr Michael Cleary's partner, when she decided to tell the story of her secret relationship with one of Ireland’s best-known priests.

After Fr Cleary’s death, Ms Hamilton and Ross, her son by Fr Cleary, were largely abandoned by the church, family and friends who didn’t believe Ross was the priest’s son.

Prof Browne, who met Phyllis when she was 12, defended her from accusations that she was a liar and a blackmailer. Ross called him “a life saver”.

He suffered the consequences from the Medical Council for taking a controversial stand as Fr Cleary was also a patient of his before his death.

Ms Hamilton and Prof Browne remained friends and he was with her when she died on January 25, 2001.

Between the 1960s and 1990s, during his time as the chief of the then-Eastern Health Board and professor of Psychiatry at University College Dublin, he challenged what he called a dehumanising system, pioneering new experimental therapies.

This included ground-breaking work on treating post-traumatic stress in patients which, according to an article by Matt Wall titled "The secret history of psychedelic therapy in 1990s Ireland," included the experimentation with ketamine.

Mr Wall wrote that in his clinic in Dublin, ketamine was used to treat mostly patients with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

"The head of the clinic at the time was noted Irish psychiatrist Prof Ivor Browne. This is highly intriguing, as I’d never heard of any such treatments being used at that time."

Browne's book, Ivor Browne: Music and Madness revealed that trauma stored in the body, as “the frozen present”, comprised unprocessed emotions, rather than something that just happens.

A concept he had originally published decades before.

Despite not becoming a full-time musician, he was popular on the jazz scene and founded the record label Claddagh Records with Guinness heir Garech Browne, who died in 2018.

It specialises in Irish traditional music and the spoken word. The record label, which signed a global licensing agreement with Universal Music in 2020, operates from Temple Bar to this day.

A documentary directed by Alan Gilsenan, Meetings with Ivor, which aired in 2009 featured a number of well-known personalities including Tommy Tiernan, Mary Coughlan and Nell McCafferty among others talking about meeting the psychiatrist.

At the IFI cinema in Dublin, where the documentary was screened, demand was so high, extra screenings had to be added, with the documentary garnering four and five-star reviews.

Upon hearing about his death, Gilsenan said: "A remarkable figure and true pioneer in the area of mental health. A man with a huge heart. It has been an honour and joy to have known him, and his hugs will echo forever."

Until recently, Prof Browne, who was extremely tall and described by many as teddy bear-like was still seeing patients. True to his fearless form, he spoke out against cocooning of the elderly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an article in the Sunday Independent in 2020, he revealed that he did not hold the view that life be preserved at all costs.

“I am not interested in perpetuating my existence any longer than I have to. So I'm not taking any measures to try and prolong my life. I have been around long enough."

He believed "it would be better if God took me”.

His friends and admirers feel otherwise.

He leaves behind a legacy of someone who challenged the status quo and stood up for truth and justice. He was ahead of his time.

Prof Browne married twice and had four children. He lived alone since the death of his second wife, June Levine, in 2008.