Portrait artist: Pat Phelan (Oil on Canvass)
BORN: 1917 | DIED: 2008
Patrick Meenan was born in Dublin in 1917. He was educated at the Catholic University School, Clongowes Wood College and UCD.
Having completed his primary medical qualifications in 1941, Patrick was awarded an MD Degree on published work in 1946. At the same time, he studied law and was called to the Bar in 1944. Following a year's postgraduate study in Edinburgh and London, Patrick was appointed as Assistant Pathologist to St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin and in 1955 he became Director of the hospital's Pathology Department.
In 1947 Patrick started a dedicated laboratory for virus research at St Vincent's Hospital, which was later designated as the WHO Regional Influenza Laboratory for Ireland. He was subsequently appointed as Director of the Laboratory which was rehoused in UCD and in 1954 he was appointed to a statutory lectureship in bacteriology.
In 1958, a Chair of Microbiology and associated department was established in UCD Faculty of Medicine. In 1967 the Virus Reference Laboratory was established in UCD in partnership with the Department of Health and Patrick Meenan was appointed to the Professorship.
Patrick was a member of all the major learned societies for the study of pathology and microbiology, of the Medico-Legal Society, and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.
In addition, Patrick was former Chairman of the Medical Bureau of Road Safety and in the 1970s he chaired the Food Advisory Council. From 1968 to 1970 he was President of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland and acting President of UCD from December 1985 to January 1986, a member of the university's governing body and of the NUI (National University of Ireland) Senate.
Patrick Meenan graduated from UCD School of Medicine in 1941.