Bullen, Denis Brenan (1802–66), surgeon and lecturer, probably born in Cork, was baptised 2 June 1802, second son (and second child) among three sons and five daughters of William Bullen, MD, and his wife Catherine Quindan. He was educated at a private school in Cork before graduating MD from Edinburgh University, and licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh (1823). Appointed surgeon to the North Charitable Infirmary, Cork (1829–63), he raised funds to rectify its dilapidated state and wrote ‘Observations upon the cholera epidemic’ (1832), describing his experiences there when it became a cholera hospital during the epidemic of 1831.
In 1828 he was appointed chemistry lecturer at the Royal Cork Institution, the city's cultural centre. On the withdrawal of its government grant, he became the leading figure in the campaign (ultimately unsuccessful) to establish the RCI on a collegiate basis; his proposals included the foundation of faculties for arts, manufacture, and medicine, and a school of civil engineering, ideas that were adopted by the institution's proprietors; he wrote a memorial (1829) on their behalf and was a member of the delegation that presented it to the chief secretary, Lord Francis Leveson-Gower. He later presented a second memorial (1833) to the lord lieutenant, the marquis of Anglesey (qv). He gave extensive evidence before the Wyse select committee on foundation schools and education in Ireland, 1835–8, seeking collegiate status for the RCI. He claimed to have lectured twice daily to about 400 students, including a great number of women, before the government grant had been withdrawn, and hoped that the RCI would be organised as a secular college under the central board of education, which (he argued) would promote peace by bringing all sects together and diverting them from political agitation; he pointed out that the people in the south of Ireland were dependent for professional education on Scottish and French colleges. His views were reflected in the committee's report (1838), which was later expressed in legislation on the queen's colleges. Continuing his campaign, he became secretary to the Munster Provincial College Committee (established 1838), which helped to secure a queen's college for Cork, and was appointed its first professor of surgery and dean of the medical faculty (1849–64). One of only three catholic professors, he aspired to the presidency in the hope of achieving a reconciliation between catholicism and the queen's colleges. In 1864 he was forced to resign, and on government orders his name was erased from the college books because of his groundless and conflicting assertions which implicated the president, Sir Robert Kane (qv), in the causes of the fire that destroyed part of the college in May 1862.
He was appointed inspector of anatomy for Munster (1833), elected president of the Cork Medical and Surgical Society (1848), published a pamphlet on the need for secular collegiate education, and contributed articles to various medical journals. Elected councillor for Cork city's St Patrick's Ward in 1841, he was deposed in 1843 for failing to attend Cork town council for a vote (April 1843) on the petition for repeal of the union between Britain and Ireland. Bullen angered the burgesses by insisting that he had never been asked and had never agreed to vote for repeal, though apparently, when questioned earlier, he had replied that he was not only a repealer but ‘was for cutting the painter altogether’. Bullen died 21 March 1866 in Cork. He married (1827) Ellen Maria Power; they had four sons and three daughters. One son, Francis Denis Bullen (1837–95), was appointed assistant surgeon at the North Charitable Infirmary and senior surgeon of the Mercy Hospital, Cork, before emigrating to Australia.