In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Extension of Nursing to Workhouse Infirmaries in Ireland N ightingale was involved in workhouse infirmary nursing in Ireland, initially in Belfast, then the south. An 1885 letter to a cousin’s son described a visit from ‘‘a young Irish lady who has actually undertaken 900 beds of the Belfast Workhouse Infirmary without a single trained nurse.’’ Nightingale also explained that she could not see him any day that week as she was ‘‘still encompassed round with ‘wild bulls of Bashan.’ ’’1 The establishment of trained nursing in the Irish workhouse infirmaries was of course complicated by the religious division of the country , then entirely under English rule (home rule was defeated effectively in the British general election of 1886). The (Protestant) Church of Ireland had been disestablished in 1871 and many of the harsh anti-Catholic laws repealed but successful co-operative projects were rare enough for Nightingale to remark on them. Concerns in 1889 regarding district nursing in Ireland gave a foretaste of the problems to come on workhouse infirmary nursing there. The Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute Nurses were established in 1887 in celebration of the queen’s golden anniversary on the throne. It seemed that Pringle, still on the verge of conversion, was thought to be open to taking a Dublin position in it. Nightingale recalled how Cardinal Manning2 had helped her in the Crimean War, placing Roman Catholic sisters under her, ‘‘the first time they have served under a Protestant.’’ He had then behaved ‘‘most honourably’’ to her, ‘‘as much as a man pledged to Roman Catholicism before all things can.’’ She thought he knew what state Pringle was in and was probably ‘‘prompting’’ it and would consider it ‘‘an immeasurable triumph for 1 Letter to Arthur Coltman 12 October 1885, Boston University 5/18/4; an allusion to Ps 22:12. 2 Henry Edward Manning (1808-92); see Theology (3:342-72) for correspondence . 490 / them and downfall for us’’ if she converted to Rome. But Manning did not understand what qualities were needed for nursing: ‘‘proselytism, conversion’’ not ‘‘cleanliness’’ or ‘‘sanitary work’’ must come first with them. Belfast district nursing was only ‘‘almsgiving.’’3 In fact Pringle did not go to Dublin after being received into the Church of Rome but set up a small private nursing home. The opportunity for the reform of workhouse nursing then arose in 1896 when Nightingale was approached by Lord and Lady Monteagle,4 Church of England members but keen to work with Roman Catholics. Their Irish property , Mt Trenchard, was in County Limerick. Nightingale wanted to get trained nurses into the Irish workhouse infirmaries, but the nuns, who were doing the nursing without training , could not be trained under Protestants. The conversion of Miss Pringle, former superintendent of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and then St Thomas’, opened new possibilities, for she was the top nursing superintendent in Britain, and decidedly underemployed after she left St Thomas’ in 1889 (she felt she had to resign on her leaving the Church of England5). Discussions between Nightingale and Henry Bonham Carter, Pringle and Rathbone in February and March 1896 show them all trying to find a way for Pringle to get into an Irish workhouse infirmary. Nightingale reported to Henry Bonham Carter Pringle’s own attempts and a request from Lady O’Hagan and some ‘‘Dublin ladies’’ to the Workhouse Infirmary Association to assist them in introducing trained nurses into the Irish workhouse infirmaries. But Lady O’Hagan was a ‘‘pervert [convert] who has severed herself from the Roman Catholic Church and calls herself a Unitarian,’’ and as a result had ‘‘lost any influence she might have had with the Roman Catholic Church authorities.’’6 Nightingale hoped that Pringle would ‘‘find something to employ her great powers of self-devotion and of administration.’’7 3 Letter to Henry Bonham Carter 17 May 1889, Add Mss 47721 ff199-200. 4 Thomas Spring-Rice (1849-1926), 2nd Baron Monteagle; his father, the 1st Baron Monteagle, had been on the original Nightingale Fund Council; Elizabeth , the 2nd Lady Monteagle, was a good committee woman; the 1st Lady Monteagle had been on the Board of Management at Harley St. 5 See Theology (3:327-33) for the strained correspondence on Pringle’s conversion and Nightingale’s attempts to prevent it. 6 Letter of Henry Bonham Carter 2 February 1896, Add Mss 47727 f11. 7 Letter to Henry Bonham Carter 10 March 1896, Add Mss 47727 f28. Extension of Nursing to Workhouse Infirmaries in Ireland...

Share