… During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Feeley raised a profoundly important question, one that has aged far better than the policies it challenged: Was the State’s response proportionate to the actual risk faced by the population, particularly children and young adults?

Dr. Feeley did not deny the virus or downplay the risks. He simply raised a measured, evidence-based concern, which was that the restrictions being imposed were doing real and lasting harm. Drawing on clinical experience and moral clarity, he warned of the damage being done, especially to children and young people, through shuttered schools and colleges, cancelled sports, and the loss of everyday human connection. He believed that those at low risk could, in time, build natural immunity, helping to reduce the danger to the most vulnerable.

His critique wasn’t vague or emotional. It was specific, well-informed, and in hindsight, remarkably prescient. Among the key points he raised:

• Restrictions should have focused on those most at risk, not applied as blanket rules to everyone. - - - - Healthy younger people, he argued, could have built immunity more safely, helping society reopen sooner and more fairly.
• He condemned the government’s communication strategy, especially the daily case counts, calling them a form of “deliberate, unforgivable terrorising of the population.”
• His concerns were later echoed by others, including former HSE infection control chief Professor Martin Cormican who suggested that Dr. Feeley wasn’t alone in his thinking, just in his willingness to say it out loud.
• He examined ICU projections and found they didn’t match the alarmist tone of official briefings. On the ground, he was seeing only a handful of Covid patients in intensive care, far fewer than the public had been led to expect.
• He urged staff to keep perspective, pointing out that statistically, a healthy person under 65 was more likely to be injured cycling than to die of Covid.
• He objected to the new definition of a “case”, expanded to include any positive test result, even in people with no symptoms, a shift that he believed inflated fear and distorted the public understanding of risk.

And Dr. Feeley never backed down. If anything, he felt that the passing of time only confirmed the accuracy and necessity of what he said. …

Dr. Feeley’s voice may be silent now, but what he stood for must continue to be heard. He spoke with reason, compassion and integrity in a time of hysteria and institutional cowardice. He recognised the true human cost, not just in lives lost, but in lives unravelling, in relationships strained or severed, in connections broken, and in communities turning on themselves.

Dr Feely understood that this harm was not abstract but deeply personal and that it fell heaviest on those least equipped to bear it, those children and young people whose milestones were stolen, the elderly who were isolated and forgotten, and the already marginalised who were pushed further to the edges of society.

To honour him now is to face what we did, not in blame, but in truth. We must reject the whitewashing of history that elevates bureaucrats and silences decent and honest people. We have to ensure that in any future crisis, conscience will not be a sackable offence.

We lost Dr. Feely too soon, and with him, a voice the Irish people sorely needed. I would have loved the chance to meet him, shake his hand, and thank him for speaking up for all of us, for humanity, and for decency. I wish I could have told him that in person. Still, I write it now in the hope that someone, somewhere might read about this remarkable man and find courage and inspiration in his example.