[1] He was educated at a Dominican convent, then at Clongowes Wood College, where by his own admission, he applied himself more to sports than his studies, excelling at rugby, cricket, and water polo.

[1] After graduating in 1938, he was unable to obtain employment as a doctor in Ireland so he moved to the United Kingdom, working first in Cardiff, then in London.

[3] In 1940, he was posted to France and was evacuated from Dunkirk where he attended wounded Allied soldiers while under fire from German aircraft.

[4] The following year he was awarded the George Medal for his part in the rescue of the crew of a crashed and burning Wellington bomber at RAF Honington.

[5] The aircraft had crash landed after its undercarriage had failed to lower and it came to rest on the airfield's bomb dump, where it caught fire.

Together with Group Captain John Astley Gray, MacCarthy entered the burning wreck and rescued two crewmen, but were unable to save the pilot.

MacCarthy continued to serve in the RAF as a senior medical officer at bases overseas in Hong Kong, France, and Germany.

Although MacCarthy did not talk about his wartime experiences for many years, after his collapse in 1969 he was encouraged to write about them in order to keep his brain active.

This process proved therapeutic, and a friend encouraged him to complete his autobiography, which was published in 1979 as A Doctor's War.

[10] A 2015 documentary film A Doctor's Sword, produced by Bob Jackson and directed by Gary Lennon, tells MacCarthy's story.