Kelleher, Michael Joseph (1937–98), psychiatrist, was born 11 September 1937 at St Patrick's Place, Cork, one of six children, two girls and four boys, of Denis Patrick Kelleher, manager in an insurance company, and Sophie Kelleher (née Köss). Educated locally, he entered UCC where he graduated MB, B.Ch., BAO, with honours, in 1963. During his undergraduate years he took time from studying to spend two years in the Dominican order before returning to complete his medical training. Having graduated in medicine, he elected to take a degree in science at UCC and was awarded the B.Sc. with honours in 1966.
After graduating Kelleher moved to England and worked at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital in London (1966–76). There he completed postgraduate studies in psychiatry with some of the pre-eminent practitioners in the subject; he gained his M.Phil. in 1970 from University College London and his MD from the NUI the following year. His reputation was well established early in his career and he was assistant director (UK division) of the influential US/UK Diagnostic Project Group (1971–6). Later he became an honorary consultant at the Maudsley (1975–6) and lectured at the Institute of Psychiatry of London university (1972–4 and 1975–6).
Kelleher returned to Cork in 1976 to take up a position as clinical director of the Cork North Lee Hospital, based at St Anne's Hospital. There he met and worked with Dr Maura Daly and developed an interest in suicide research – formerly a taboo subject in Ireland – which would occupy him for the remainder of his career. On the basis of his training at the Maudsley, he was invited to take a sabbatical at the University of Heidelberg, where he assisted in setting up the Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit at Manheim (1977–8). Back in Cork in 1978, his workload increased when he was appointed clinical director of psychiatric services for the southern health board as well as visiting psychiatrist at the Mercy, Bon Secours, and Shanakiel hospitals and the South Infirmary. Regarded by students as a gifted teacher, he lectured in clinical psychiatry to nurses and medical students at his alma mater and was a member of the ethics committee of the Cork teaching hospitals group.
It was while working at St Anne's that he opened up the area of mental illness and suicide as a subject for debate, and he is credited with destigmatising the issue of suicidal behaviour in Ireland. In 1995 his work in this area culminated in the founding of an organisation to coordinate multi-disciplinary research on suicide in Ireland, the National Suicide Research Foundation, of which he was the first medical director. Early on in his career he wrote several papers on the psychiatric aspects of alcoholism and depression, as well as a few papers on medical education. As his interest in suicide and parasuicide developed, he published more and more in this area, mainly in Irish and British journals, focusing especially on the profile of suicide in Ireland. He was the assistant editor of the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine and a member of the editorial boards of several other journals including the Irish Journal of Psychiatry, Psyche, the Archives of Suicide Research, and Crisis. His book Suicide and the Irish (1996), dedicated to Maura Daly, is still regarded as the definitive text on the subject.
Although recognition for his pioneering work came late in life, he was the first European to be invited to become director of the US Association of Suicidology, and at the time of his death he was vice-president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and chairman of the Irish Association of Suicidology. His commitment to, and authority on, the subject of suicide were widely respected and he was a member of the government task force on suicide which reported in 1998. He was a regular columnist in several psychiatric journals, and an editorial he had written for the prestigious British Journal of Psychiatry was published posthumously in September 1998. He was a fellow of both the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the RCPI.
A man of great warmth, humanity, and dignity, Kelleher was popular with patients and colleagues alike. His hobbies all revolved round outdoor activity: he enjoyed hill-walking, swimming, and sailing. He married Margaret Fitzsimons, a general practitioner, with whom he had five children, a girl and four boys. After a long illness he died 9 August 1998 at home in Cork.