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Irish Hospitals Editor: Roman Catholic women’s religious orders founded nursing in Ireland, as they did in many countries. However, ‘‘the modern secular professional nurse [in Ireland] emerged as a result of an Anglican social reform movement in the late nineteenth century,’’ concluded Irish nursing historian Gerard M. Fealy. Greta Jones and Elizbeth Malcolm have further said that the reforms that began in the Protestant voluntary hospitals were ‘‘based on the Nightingale model of hospital apprenticeship training.’’506 St Thomas’-trained nurses and matrons were appointed to Protestant hospitals, both in Belfast and Dublin in the 1870s. Nightingale in time contemplated having in effect a daughter institution of the Nightingale Fund in Dublin and Belfast (as in Edinburgh). We know that Nightingale had visited Dublin in 1852, hoping to obtain nursing experience at a Catholic hospital, St Vincent’s, to which Henry (later Cardinal) Manning had arranged an introduction, but it was closed for repairs.507 At different times St Thomas’-trained nurses were superintendents at the Belfast Children’s Hospital (Jessie Lennox); the Royal Hospital, Belfast (Ellen Notcutt); the City of Dublin Hospital (Helen Shuter); the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin (S.E. Hampson); Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital and the Dublin Nurses’ Training Institution (Susan Beresford and Ulrike Linicke); Stevens Hospital, Dublin (Louisa Franks); the Fever Hospital, Cork St., the Royal Hospital for Incurables, Donnybrook .508 Margaret St Clair (c1865-?) was lady superintendent of the St Lawrence’s (District) Home in Dublin.509 She remained until 1898. Surviving letters by Nightingale to the various superintendents and nurses are scarce, but enough is available, with notes and related correspondence , to provide at least an overview of the spread of the Nightingale School’s influence in Ireland. Belfast hospitals were the 506 Gerard M. Fealy, A History of Apprenticeship Nurse Training in Ireland 59; Greta Jones and Elizabeth Malcolm, eds., Medicine, Disease and the State in Ireland, 1650-1940 102-17. 507 In European Travels (7:714). But, according to Agnes Pavey, in The Story of the Growth of Nursing, they would not take her because she was a Protestant (135). 508 See the list in Seymer, Florence Nightingale’s Nurses 116. 509 See Gerard M. Fealy, ed., Care to Remember: Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland 108. 384 / Florence Nightingale: Extending Nursing first to seek Nightingale nurses, followed by some in Dublin. Finally, the efforts (in the late 1890s) to develop training in Roman Catholic institutions, notably with A.L. Pringle, are recounted. The first item reports on an early inquiry, with no evident results. Source: From an exchange with Henry Bonham Carter, Add Mss 47719 f164 6 July 1876 That Irish dean’s daughter who wants to make a home (self-paying) in Dublin for ladies to be trained in Dublin hospitals, to reform their training!!!! in Dublin! I think you took away this letter. Shall I answer it? I think the poor woman was coming to London about now. Shall I address her to Mrs Wardroper or to you? HBC: She comes for a fortnight from the 13th. I will see her if you like. She may wish to make an appointment with me. Belfast Children’s Hospital St Thomas’-trained Jessie Lennox became matron of the Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in 1870, after an unsuccessful, brief, period at Netley, where she was ill. She thanked Nightingale from her new post for the ‘‘handsome present’’ of books.510 The two kept in touch, Nightingale often sending gifts for the children. Twenty-nine letters from Jessie Lennox to Nightingale are extant, from 1869 to 1896,511 but very few of Nightingale’s to her. One letter Nightingale wrote to Lennox about institutional life for children is in Society and Politics (5:241), while one on a child’s case is in Public Health Care (6:483-84). Nightingale asked Lennox for the plans for the proposed new children ’s hospital in 1879 (reported in Hospital Reform). Naturally they were sent,512 and Lennox duly reported on the opening of the new hospital. She paid Nightingale a visit when back in England in 1885, when she not only reported on actual cases at her hospital but related relevant news in the workhouse sector. After the visit, she asked Nightingale to write the board of guardians about getting trained nurses into their workhouse hospital, noting what Agnes Jones, an Irishwoman, had done for English workhouses.513 Generally Lennox’s letters show 510 Letter 22 July 1870, Add Mss 47751 f161. 511 From...

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