Paul Whiteside Eustace was a consultant general surgeon at Castlebar General Hospital, County Mayo, Ireland. He was born on 9 October 1943 in Nelson, Lancashire of Irish parents. His father, Anthony Eustace, was chief medical officer of County Meath; his mother, Evylyn Eustace née Dick, had a MSc degree in chemistry. His sister Ruth also became a doctor. At nine he went to an Irish language college in Ring in Waterford for two years and then he was sent to Saint-Joseph du Loquidy School in Nantes, France, for three years. There he developed an enduring love of France, its cheeses and wines, and made lifelong friends. He then returned to Ireland, to the Jesuit Clongowes Wood College in Kildare. He subsequently sat his matriculation examination at the age of 16 and entered medical school at University College Dublin at 17. He qualified as a doctor in 1966 and did an extra BSc in physiology after this, with a view to choosing surgery as a specialty. After posts at Mater Misericordiae Hospital, he continued his training at Sheffield Royal Infirmary in neurosurgery, before working at Northwick Park Hospital in London under Arnold Elton and Alan Cox. He was then appointed as a senior lecturer in surgery at St Thomas’ Hospital, London and worked in research there with J B Kinmonth. He submitted his research thesis for a MCh on the ‘Inguinal iliac lymphatic pathways in normal people and in patients with primary lymphoedema’ based on his research at St Thomas’. He became a proud member of the Cheselden Club there. He returned to Dublin in the late seventies and was appointed as a senior registrar in cardiac surgery under Eoin O’Malley and Maurice Neligan. This was in the early days of cardiac surgery in Dublin when bypass machines were just starting to be used. He was also involved in the early deployment of the flexible endoscope. Also in the late seventies, he was appointed chairman of the European Junior Doctors Association and this necessitated a considerable amount of travel throughout Europe, where he negotiated for better working conditions for junior hospital doctors in Ireland and the rest of Europe. His work culminated in junior doctors in Ireland being paid overtime for additional hours worked. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon at Castlebar Hospital in January 1980 and remained working there until his retirement in 2008. Over his years at Castlebar he was involved in training many young surgeons, most of whom are now working as consultants in Ireland and around the world. He set up the first computerised system of operation procedures in the hospital and a weekly clinical-pathological conference, which continues to this day. He actively encouraged his team to engage in research and published many research papers and presented at conferences and meetings, including the Freyer meeting in Galway and the Charter Day meeting at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, where he presented a paper on laparoscopic cholecystectomies in Mayo. It is a tribute to his training that he picked one of his former registrars, John Larkin, to operate on him when he became ill. His huge interests were sailing, music and gardening. He was the navigator on the *Sundowner* in the 1979 Fastnet Race when the yacht capsized and all on board were believed to be lost at sea. They managed to steer a course to Rosslare Harbour, having lost their radio and engine and arrived at a hotel there at 5am, where they were thought to be IRA terrorists. Money changed hands and all was well when the story was heard. He owned two yachts – the *Euterpe* (named after one of the Greek muses) and *Raindrop*, which he sailed to the Aran Islands and the west coast of Ireland. Music was his lifelong love. He played the organ, piano and flute. He was conductor of the Castlebar Choral Society and took a huge interest in the establishment of the Mayo Musical Academy. He always encouraged young musicians and watched their progress. In later years, gardening became a passion and in his last days he was able to look out to his garden and see the fruits of his labour, which now adorn his grave. Paul Eustace died peacefully at home in Mayo on 13 April 2023. He was survived by his wife Jackie (née Cahill).