Tom Casey was born on 8 October 1929 in Limerick, the son of Michael Casey, a farmer. He was educated at University College, Dublin, and after specialising in ophthalmology became registrar first at the Westminster Hospital and later at Moorfields. He possessed a happy combination of inspiration, surgical dexterity, administrative flair and capacity for hard work. He greatly extended the range of corneal grafting, first in the technique of deep-freezing of corneas, and later in setting up a bank of tissue-typed corneas to minimise the risk of rejection. This led him to be appointed to the staff at East Grinstead where he directed the corneoplastic unit, and to a consultant post at Hillingdon Hospital. After he had been President of the Ophthalmological Section of the RSM he became Honorary Treasurer of the Society. He organised the International Corneoplastic Congress in London in 1977 which was a resounding success. A popular colleague, Tom Casey enjoyed life fully; he loved music and the theatre and was a splendid raconteur. He married Maria Hickman in 1959; they had a daughter and two sons, both of whom became surgeons, one a consultant ophthalmic surgeon. He wrote many papers and a textbook on corneal grafting. He died on 25 February 1993 of cancer of the lung, at the age of 63.