The psychiatrist explains why more resources should be invested in acute conditions
Professor Brendan Kelly is pictured with Trixie, the family cat, at his home in Dublin. Photo: Frank McGrath
Technology does not cooperate. A Zoom call with Professor Brendan Kelly at Tallaght Hospital didn’t work properly: we can see each other and I can hear him, but he can’t hear me. “I’m literally in an echo chamber,” he jokes, before he shows her a note with my phone number. And so we conduct our business arcanely: perhaps an apt metaphor for the isolating states of mental illness.
Kelly is a professor of psychiatry at Trinity College, a clinical lecturer at UCD Medical School and a consultant psychiatrist at Tallaght Hospital. He has written extensively on the history and treatment of mental health in Ireland and will appear at Galway University on 21 July in conversation with Caitriona Crowe.
