This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Turlough O’Riordan. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 14 September 1914, Ireland
Died: 16 February 2011
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: Elizabeth Mary Troy
Troy, Elizabeth Mary (‘Lilly’) (1914–2011), obstetrician, was born 14 September 1914 at 1 Dartmouth Villas, Ranelagh, Dublin, the home of her parents, one of three daughters and two sons born to Joseph Troy, hatter and outfitter, and his wife Hanna (‘Johanna’) (née Doran). She was educated at the Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green. When her mother dissuaded her from studying medicine (discounting the possibility of a woman having such a career), she studied pharmacy, graduating first in her class from UCD (c.1936). Afterwards, though, she took up medicine, graduating MB, B.Ch. and BAO with honours from UCD (1940). She interned at St Vincent’s Hospital and the Coombe Lying-in Hospital, and undertook postgraduate training in those institutions and Temple Street Children’s Hospital in Dublin. During the second world war, she served in the RAF as a female medical officer for three years with the rank of squadron leader, treating members of the WAAF and RAF. She went on to train at the Jessop Hospital for Women, Sheffield, and the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital, Liverpool, and was resident obstetrician at Preston Royal Infirmary.
Returning to the Coombe, she was assistant master there (1949–52), the first woman to hold such a post in Ireland, and graduated MAO from UCD in July 1954. Appointed a consultant in 1956 (apparently Ireland’s first female medical consultant), she specialised in gynaecological surgery, working from rooms at various Dublin addresses in Fitzwilliam Street, Fitzwilliam Place and Pembroke Road. She was consultant to Bon Secours Hospital, Glasnevin, for a time, and later based her private practice at Mount Carmel Hospital, Churchtown. Retaining her medical registration into her 90s, Troy continued to see her long-standing patients in a private capacity long after retiring from obstetric and surgical practice.
She was often consulted by her friend Angela MacNamara, Ireland’s first newspaper agony aunt with an influential Sunday Press column (1963–1980), who sought her advice on reproductive issues raised by correspondents. A well-known and much-respected figure in Dublin society, Troy, who delivered the child born to Frankie Byrne and Frank Hall, who was subsequently put up for adoption, was later instrumental in helping to reunite mother and daughter.
Troy lived at ‘Rosario’, 3 Temple Gardens, Rathmines, with her brother James Troy (d. 2000), who graduated B.Comm. from UCD, where he was active in the L&H debating society. Training as an accountant, he was on the board of the Coombe, Richmond and Royal (Donnybrook) hospitals. Best man to surgeon Eoin O’Malley and a close friend of the politician Thomas Francis O’Higgins (1916–2003), James Troy was the first chairman of the Voluntary Health Insurance Board (VHI) (1957–82) and a member of the Hospitals Commission, and was quietly influential in medical politics. Their sister Mary Patricia Troy graduated in medicine from UCD (1946) and practised as a GP in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, and their other sister, Ethna Troy, graduated from UCD in dentistry, practising latterly with the South Eastern Health Board, visiting schools there in her mobile surgery.
In addition to her medical career, Lilly Troy was involved with several social, religious and cultural bodies. She chaired the Coombe Benefit Committee from 1959, was a subscriber to the Catholic Social Service Conference, and a patron of the National Concert Hall and of Focus Ireland, the homelessness charity. In her spare time she was a member of the Castle Golf Club, Rathfarnham, Dublin, travelled widely, and enjoyed the theatre and concerts with her family and her fellow doctor and close friend Rita Kirwan (1916–2008). Although outwardly shy, Troy was unmovedly determined in supporting her patients. She stoically endured ill health and major spinal surgery in her 80s and, after extensive rehabilitation, resumed globetrotting travel with friends and family. She died on 16 February 2011 at Gascoigne House Nursing Home, Cowper Road, Dublin. After her funeral at the church of the Holy Name, Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, she was buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery.