McElligott was born in Rathdown, Dublin in 1925.[1] He gained a medical degree while studying at the University College Dublin.[1] In 1948, he was part of the team that won the All-Ireland Senior Rowing Championship.[5] At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, McElligott was part of the Irish team that competed in the men's eight.[6]
Two years after the Olympics, he started his medical career in Dublin, and moved to London three years after that.[1] After six years later, McElligott returned to Ireland, becoming a consultant at Portiuncula Hospital.[1] He spent more than three decades working at the hospital,[7] where he worked in cardiology and helped to found the very first cardiac care unit in Portiuncula.[1]
In 1989, McElligott left Portiuncula and went to Baghdad with his wife,[5] with both of them developing the Ibn Al-Bitar Hospital.[1] Due to the first Gulf War, they both left Iraq, moving to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.[5] In Saudi Arabia he was the chief of internal medicine for the Royal College of Surgeons.[1] After nearly two years in Saudi Arabia, he retired and returned to Ireland with his wife.[4]
In 2012, McElligott was one of the eleven surviving members of Ireland's 1948 Summer Olympics team,[8] who were all honoured at a ceremony in Dublin.[9]
