John Robb was a consultant surgeon at Route Hospital, Ballymoney, Northern Ireland. Born on 24 February 1932 in Downpatrick, County Down, he was the son of John Charles Robb, a general practitioner, and his wife Jessie Bannatyne née Wilson. Her father, a judge, had been the last Solicitor-General of Ireland before the role was abolished in 1922. After attending Rockport Preparatory School in Craigavad, County Down, John was sent to Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh (1945 to 1950), before finishing his education in Belfast for a year. He won a first year scholarship to Queen’s University Medical School Belfast and graduated MB, BCh BAO in 1957. In the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s he did various house jobs at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, where he was mentored by H. W. Rodgers and M. C. Hughes. In 1968 he was appointed consultant and senior lecturer at the Royal Victoria and Queens. Working throughout ‘The Troubles’ he was meticulous at preserving medical standards and strove to treat the entire community equally. Over time he became a world-leading surgeon for kneecap repair, retiring in 2002. He served on the councils of various medical bodies including the Royal Academy of Medicine in Dublin, and was a member of Queen’s University's Senate and Convocation. Coming from a liberal Protestant tradition he wrote extensively on matters relating to political and social reconciliation on the island of Ireland. A member of the Wolf Tone Society from the 1960’s, he helped to found the New Ireland Movement in Lombard’s Café in 1972 and, ten years later, set up the New Ireland Group which advocated a much wider view of harmony in Irish society. In 1982 the Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, appointed him to the Irish Senate (Seanad Éireann). He served for seven years until 1989, being one of only a few Ulster Protestants to have served in the upper house of the Irish parliament. Outside medicine and politics he enjoyed flying. In 1968 he married Sylvia née Sloan. She was the daughter of medical missionaries and had been born in Peking. They had two daughters and two sons. When he died on 14 February 2018, aged 85, he was survived by his wife, children Susannah, Martha, Daniel and William, their partners Scot and Niamh, and grandchildren Alica, Sam, Alannah, Amélie, Élodie and Chloe. The Irish President, Michael D. Higgins said, in paying tribute to him, that he was *”A voice not only for peace but for reconciliation, for recognising all traditions and beliefs on the island of Ireland, and the making of a future which all Ireland could share....At a personal level he was a joy to meet, always optimistic, an all-islander in the best sense.”*