Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly made most readers' acquaintance in Patrick Taylor's bestselling novel An Irish Country Doctor, he appeared in a series of humorous columns originally published in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour. These warm and wryly amusing vignettes provide an early glimpse at the redoubtable Dr. O'Reilly as he tends to the colourful and eccentric residents of Ballybucklebo, a cozy Ulster village nestled in the bygone years of the early sixties. Those seminal columns have been collected in The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories. In this convenient volume, Patrick Taylor's legions of devoted fans can savor the enchanting origins of the Irish Country series . . . and newcomers to Ballybucklebo can meet O'Reilly for the very first time. An ex-Navy boxing champion, classical scholar, crypto-philanthropist, widower, and hard-working general practitioner, Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly is crafty and cantankerous in these charming slices of rural Irish life. Whether he's educating a naive man of the cloth in the facts of life, dealing with chronic hypochondriacs and malingerers, clashing with pigheaded colleagues, or raising a pint in the neighborhood pub, the wily O'Reilly knows a doctor's work is never done, even if some of his "cures" can't be found in any medical text! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A British Army bomb disposal expert goes undercover to try to identify the source of the bombs being used by the Provisional IRA.

Recalls young Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly's World War II service aboard the HMS Warspite, and the challenges he faces two decades later tending to the needs of the residents of Ballybucklebo.

After landing in jail for making bombs for the IRA, Davy McCutcheon escapes and seeks out his ex-fiancée, who has tried to move on with her life in Vancouver, Canada.

Discover how Dr. O'Reilly began his medical career in the tenements of Dublin in Patrick Taylor's New York Times bestselling series. Fans of Taylor's bestselling Irish Country novels know Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as the irascible senior partner of a general practice in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. Newly married to his long-lost sweetheart, he's ready to settle into domestic bliss, but there's always something requiring his attention, be it a riding accident, a difficult patient with a worrisome heart condition, a spot of grouse-hunting, or even some tricky shenanigans at the local dog races. The everyday complications of village life are very different from the challenges Fingal faced nearly thirty years earlier, when, fresh out of medical school, the young Dr. O'Reilly accepts a post at the Aungier Street Dispensary, tending to the impoverished denizens of Dublin's tenement slums. Yet even as he tries to make a difference, Fingal's tireless devotion to his patients may cost him his own true love. . . . Shifting back and forth between the present and the past, Patrick Taylor's captivating Fingal O'Reilly brings to life both the green young man O'Reilly once was and the canny village doctor readers have come to know and admire. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"This book was previously published in 2004 under the title The apprenticeship of Doctor Laverty, by Insomniac Press, Toronto"--T.p. verso.

Doctor O'Reilly experiences both love and loss during World War II in this new novel in Patrick Taylor's beloved Irish Country series Long before Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly came to the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, young Surgeon-lieutenant O'Reilly answered the call of duty to serve in World War II. Fingal just wants to marry his beloved Deirdre and live happily ever after. First he must hone his skills at a British naval hospital before reporting back to the HMS Warspite, where, as a ship's doctor, he faces danger upon the high seas. With German bombers a constant threat, the future has never been more uncertain, but Fingal and Deirdre are determined to make a life together . . . no matter what may lie ahead. Decades later, the war is long over, and O'Reilly is content to mend the bodies and souls of his patients in Ballybucklebo, but there are still changes and challenges aplenty. A difficult pregnancy, as well as an old colleague badly in denial concerning his own serious medical condition, tests O'Reilly and his young partner, Barry Laverty. But even with all that occupies him in the present, can O'Reilly ever truly let go of the ghosts from his past? Shifting effortlessly between two singular eras, bestselling author Patrick Taylor continues the story of O'Reilly's wartime experiences, while vividly bringing the daily joys and struggles of Ballybucklebo to life once more.