Edmund Coyle was born in the little village of Carrigart in Co Donegal but for some odd reason after his father died, his mother took himself and his younger brother, Danny, across the border into Derry where they went to St Columb’s College.

He never quite knew why she, a widow, moved away from the security of her own family. But whatever her motivation, that decision shaped the rest of his life.

After leaving Columb’s he went on to UCD, qualified as a doctor and emigrated to America in the late 1940s and practised as a consultant anaesthetist in a huge hospital in California.

I met him by chance in the early 1980s when he was home on holidays and running the family pub - the Crock O’Gold – in the wee townland of Glenree.

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Looking back, I think when he died they broke the blueprint. He was a total one-off.

For starters, he managed to get five months in Ireland each year by making a unique arrangement with his hospital bosses. The deal was he worked for seven days a week for seven months, often doing 12-hour shifts from seven in the morning.

It was one........

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