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William Henry Drummond (1854 - 1907):
Physician and poet


William Drummond was born in Mohill, County Leitrim, and grew up in County Donegal. When he was about eleven years old his family emigrated to Canada and on his father's death his education was interrupted. He worked in Quebec as a telegrapher and completed his education at Montreal High School, McGill College and Bishop's Medical College, where he graduated in medicine. Before setting up a practice in Stornaway near Lake Megantic, he worked at the Western Hospital. After practising for a time in Knowlton, he returned to Montreal. He was a renowned athlete, excelling in weight-throwing, snow-shoeing and fast walking. Although he was a successful practitioner and professor of medical jurisprudence, it is for his poetry that he became known. He published The Habitant and other French-Canadian poems; Johnny Courteau and other poems and The Voyageur and other poems. The poems are remarkable in so far as they are written in the patois. Drummond's Poetical Works includes many poems about Ireland, but in Canada it is his dialect verse that won him fame. On his headstone are engraved lines by Moira O'Neill, the poet from the Glens of Antrim

Born: 13 April 1854
Died: 6 April 1907
Kate Newmann