John MacDonnell

John MacDonnell (11 February 1796 – 20 January 1892) was an Irish surgeon and pioneer of surgical anaesthesia in Ireland.

Life and family John MacDonnell was born in 15 Donegall Place, Belfast on 11 February 1796. His parents were James, a prominent physician and civic leader, and Elizabeth MacDonnell (née Clarke, died 1798). He had one older brother, Alexander, and a sister. He attended the Belfast Academy, and later Trinity College Dublin, graduating with a BA in 1818. From 1813 he was apprenticed to Richard Carmichael. Carmichael became MacDonnell's patron and friend, eventually bequeathing MacDonnell £5,000 and appointing him executor of his estate. MacDonnell also studied at Richmond Hospital, and in 1821 received his LRCSI. He studied in London, Edinburgh and Paris, graduating from Edinburgh with his MD in 1825.

In 1826 he married Charity Dobbs (died 1890). They had 6 sons and 5 daughters, including Robert, Alexander, and Barbara. He died at his home on Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin on 20 January 1892. He is buried in the family plot at Kilsharvan graveyard, County Meath.

In 1844, he was appointed as a member of the board of examiners, and later professor of descriptive anatomy at the RCSI from 1847 and 1851. He resigned his professorship to become medical member of the Poor Law Commission from 1851 to 1876, staying on in this post after the commission was absorbed into the Local Government Board. From 1842 to 1846, MacDonnell was editor of the Dublin Journal of Medical Science, as well as contributing a number of papers to journals. In 1884, he published a monograph on the work of Charles Darwin. In 1879 he published a history, The Ulster civil war of 1641, in which he sought to vindicate his ancestor Sir Alexander Macdonnell, 1st Baronet against charges of cruelty. He also published a pamphlet in 1886, The light of history respecting the massacres in Ireland from about A.D. 1580 to the end of the civil war of 1641.