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A hero who loved to laugh

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The medical and equine fraternities across the region are in mourning this week with the passing of Tuam man, Dr. John Waldron, following a road traffic accident in Tipperary last weekend.

Dr. Waldron, who was in his early 70s, died after his car was in collision with another vehicle at Borrisokane, on Sunday evening last shortly after 5pm as he was on his way home from a point-to-point race meeting in Ballingarry.

Tributes have poured in for the Tuam doctor who was the breeder of the 2015 Cheltenham Champion Hurdle winner, Faugheen – Dr. Waldron was due to see a half-brother of his famous horse run in Listowel on Monday evening last.

Although officially retired as a GP, he continued to provide his services at point-to-point meetings around the country through the course of the season, as he actively pursued his avid interest in horseracing.

Dr. Waldron though will be remembered as one of the key men in the early days of the Galway Family Planning Clinic at Raleigh Row in Galway city, where he worked voluntarily for a number of years as a doctor and specialist medical adviser.

Founder member and first Director of the Galway Family Planning Clinic, Dorothy Melvin, described Dr. Waldron as one of the ‘coolest, most able and reassuring’ medical practitioners that she had ever met.

“We were in a difficult situation legally and in very different times when we set up the Family Planning Clinic back in 1977, but in those early years, John Waldron was our star.

“He gave selflessly of his time and he was really kind and reassuring to an awful lot of people. John was so comforting and so positive – he never saw problems just solutions,” Dorothy Melvin said.

She added that a hallmark of his work was that he never discriminated against anyone and saw the virtue of dealing, and treating, people ‘as they were’.

“All of us who knew him from that time are very upset at his untimely passing. In those years, he was such a hero to us all and he had a deadly sense of humour. He was just a ‘cool dude’ in every sense of the word,” said Dorothy Melvin.

His lifelong friend and racing colleague, former TD and Minister of State, Mark Killilea, said that he had rarely ever witnessed such a sense of mourning around the town of Tuam than when the news of John Waldron’s death broke on Sunday night last.

“We mustn’t forget, that first and foremost he was a magnificent doctor, and he was a great man for the poor people.

“But he was an absolute gentleman to know, and since his retirement, he just threw himself into the world of horses.

“He just loved horses and we had our plans made to travel to Listowel on Monday last to see a half-brother of Faugheen [Telmadela] run in the last race,” said Mark Killilea.

Back the years, John Waldron was Master of the North Galway Hunt and in more recent times was President of the Tuam Bridge Club, a game he also loved.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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