My father Pat Hogan opened his pharmacy in Upper William Street in 1940. My earliest memories of trips to town include visits to the shop where we would always get a Barley Sugar Stick. I also remember being brought into ‘Uncle’ Timmy Frawley’s pharmacy on O’Connell Avenue when I fell and cut my knee. Iodine and a plaster were applied (neither he nor Dad had any time for the Mercurochrome beloved by the school), and then I got a Barley Sugar Stick for being brave when the Iodine stung). The School of Music was near our shop, so after piano lessons we went there for a lift home. Naturally we got jobs while waiting, whether it be checking off a wholesaler’s order, buying the evening paper, or delivering messages to local customers. Saturday trips to the shop meant collecting a comic from Mrs Whelan’s Shop (mother of Bill of Riverdance fame). But the best day to work in the shop was Christmas Eve — the last-minute rush, helping people to select presents, being shown how to wrap parcels properly, the good humour, the buzz and picking out a present of a bottle of perfume for myself. Right up to my retirement, I always loved Christmas Eve at work, and I still miss it, three years later.

In my Leaving Cert year, I knew that I wanted to do Pharmacy. Then Dad came home from an IPU meeting and told me that pharmacy was moving to Trinity. As I remember it, 1977 was the first year of the CAO Application system. Because the change wasn’t announced in time, pharmacy appeared as a UCD Course on the CAO application forms, which caused a lot of confusion. Our first lecture on our first day was in the Natural Sciences Lecture Theatre, a huge room, with tiers of benches. There were over 200 between Natural Sciences and Pharmacy and there was room to spare. Quite a change from school classes of 24. Then it turned out that they had accepted 60 for first year pharmacy and it was announced that only the top 50 would get into second year. Cue our introduction to the Student Union and its President, Ian Wilson (later of RTÉ), backed up by other Union Officers Paddy Smyth and a young Joe Duffy. Eventually it was announced that everyone who passed would be allowed to progress, but between people changing courses and dropping out, in the event, 50 or maybe 51, went into second year. Trinity really wasn’t ready for pharmacy that first year. Our lecturers had just transferred in from the old College of Pharmacy, so it was all new to them too. In fact, we were the first ones to have a four-year degree cycle, and the timetable was being devised as we went along, resulting in very uneven schedules, especially in second year. Part of second year and nearly all of third and fourth years, were spent in the School of Pharmacy on Shrewsbury Road. This was a student population of 150 (including the last years of the Qualified Assistants course), so we all got to know each other and indeed continued to meet people from that time throughout our careers. However, it caused us to be removed a bit from TCD life.

Pat and Peg Hogan, Marie’s parents

Val Harte, who was one of our pharmaceutics lecturers, always stressed the versatility of a pharmacy degree. When I finished college, I was keen to explore that. My pre-reg year was with Bob Semple in Harcourt Street Hospital. I loved it there, a small 100-bed hospital, where Bob (who had previously worked in Leo Laboratories and had a keen interest in compounding), had to devise and extemporaneously prepare paediatric strengths of many medicines. Three years in retail (Noyek’s Pharmacy, Pearse Street), followed by a summer of locums (which paid for the car I had bought!), two years in St. Luke’s in Rathgar and two in B.Braun Medical, gave me a great overview of the variety of careers in pharmacy. But I suppose I always knew that I would return to Limerick to take over from Dad, which I did in 1989. My sister Elenora, a Qualified Assistant, provided support while also working in event management with bodies such as Limerick City Council and Shannon Development before taking over management of front of shop a few years later.

While working for B.Braun, I used to deal with the NDAB about product licensing and our clean room manufacturing unit. So, I was honoured and very interested when I was appointed to the first board of its replacement, the Irish Medicines Board (now HPRA) for a four-year term from 1996. It was fascinating to see the work of this body from the other side, so to speak. In more recent years I served on the board of Uniphar which was another opportunity to see a different — very complex – aspect of pharmacy, one which is taken for granted by us all, especially by government agencies.

“Three years in retail, followed by a summer of locums, two years in St Luke’s in Rathgar and two in B.Braun Medical, gave me a great overview of the variety of careers in pharmacy.”

The danger of attending an AGM is that you might get a job. That’s what happened when I went to the Midwest Pharmacists’ AGM in — I think — 1990. There was no Midwest rep on the Pharmacy Contractors Committee (PCC). Well after that meeting, there was. I had joined the IPU in 1983 and had served on the Employee Committee with Brid Farrell and Tim Doody. The PCC was a new departure, and I loved it. Change was coming — it had to come. The Department knew it, the Health Boards (forerunners of HSE) knew it, the GMS (Payments) Board (now PCRS) knew it. A 1990s service was being provided under a 1970s contract by a profession who were regulated by an 1870s Act of the British Parliament. Serious talks began in 1993/1994, leading to the 1996 contract. Eventually a Pharmacy Act followed in 2008. History repeats itself and pharmacies are now providing a 2020s service under a 1990s contract, with various upgrades tacked on, using 20-year-old technology resulting in an explosion of bureaucracy which is a frustrating waste of everyone’s time. Hopefully the ongoing talks will result in a modernised agreement and hopefully that will allow for ongoing development.

If going to an AGM gets you a job, you would think that you would be safe at a President’s Dinner. However, in November 1997, a chat with Brendan Quinn led to the invitation to run for the position of Vice-President and in turn gave me the honour of representing our profession as the first woman President from 2000 to 2002. The IPU provides valuable support for members on a wide range of issues throughout our careers. This is all made possible by the voluntary commitment and effort of so many dedicated committee members and the hardworking, knowledgeable staff in Butterfield House. Presidents and Chairmen get the recognition, but in truth the credit deserves to be spread wider.

2020 was a big year for us, and not just because of COVID. It marked the shop’s 80^th year in business. It was also the year in which we joined the Life Symbol Group and turned out to be our last full year in business. Across those 80 years, pharmacy as a profession underwent huge change. Compounding is largely gone, replaced by patent medicines and the growth of pharmaceutical companies; huge advances have been made in therapies, leading to increased life expectancy and improved quality of life; State funding of health services has also increased — a recent figure is that 82 per cent of pharmacy turnover is derived from State Schemes; symbol groups and chains have developed in response to changing consumer preferences and shopping habits. Two generations of our family were part of these changes and we continue to watch developments as interested, and supportive, bystanders.

Caricature caption: This caricature accompanied a business profile piece on Marie in the early noughties, when Limerick hurlers were on the rise