Dr Karl Daniel Mullen was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 Rugby Union

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 player and Consultant

Consultant

A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...

 Gynaecologist who captained the Irish rugby team

Ireland national rugby union team

The Ireland national rugby union team represents the island of Ireland in rugby union. The team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship and every four years in the Rugby World Cup, where they reached the quarter-final stage in all but two competitions The Ireland national rugby union...

 and captained the British Lions

British and Irish Lions

The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...

 on their 1950 tour to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Mullen was born in Courtown Harbour, Co. Wexford and educated at Belvedere College

Belvedere College

Belvedere College SJ is a private secondary school for boys located on Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Ireland. It is also known as St. Francis Xavier's College....

, Dublin and The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland , is a Dublin-based medical institution, situated on St. Stephen's Green. The college is one of the five Recognised Colleges of the National University of Ireland...

. He played as hooker, winning 25 caps for Ireland during the 1940s and 1950s. He captained the Irish team to their first Grand Slam

Grand Slam (Rugby Union)

In rugby union, a Grand Slam occurs when one team in the Six Nations Championship manages to beat all the others during one year's competition...

 in the 1948 Five Nations Championship

1948 Five Nations Championship

The 1948 Five Nations Championship was the nineteenth series of the rugby union Five Nations Championship. Including the previous incarnations as the Home Nations and Five Nations, this was the fifty-fourth series of the northern hemisphere rugby union championship. Ten matches were played between...

 and was one of eight players from that team who lived to see the country's next Grand Slam in 2009

2009 Six Nations Championship

The 2009 Six Nations Championship, known as the 2009 RBS 6 Nations because of the tournament's sponsorship by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was the tenth Six Nations Championship, an annual rugby union competition contested by the six major Northern Hemisphere rugby union national teams...

.

He was also selected to captain the 1950 Lions Tour to Australia and New Zealand

1950 British Lions tour to New Zealand and Australia

The British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand and Australia in 1950 was the first post-war tour made by the Lions; there had not been one since 1938....

, during which the Lions lost the Test series against the All Blacks

All Blacks

The New Zealand men's national rugby union team, known as the All Blacks, represent New Zealand in what is regarded as its national sport....

 3-0, with one game drawn. He played four tests for the Lions on that tour; two against New Zealand

New Zealand national rugby team

New Zealand national rugby team may refer to national teams in the different varieties of rugby:* New Zealand national rugby union team, better known as the All Blacks, administered by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union....

 and two against Australia

Australia national rugby union team

The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

. He missed the third and fourth tests against New Zealand through injury.