Listowel Connection

This blog is a personal take on Listowel, Co. Kerry. I am writing for anyone anywhere with a Listowel connection but especially for sons and daughters of Listowel who find themselves far from home. Contact me at listowelconnection@gmail.com

Tag: Irish nurses in Britain

Kindness

By

On November 10, 2023

In Listowel

Church Street Lower

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US Book published in 1985

Edited by Kathleen Jo Ryan and Bernard Share

Extract from John B. keane’s essay on The Quality of Neighbourliness.

The Ballybunion Buds

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A Shared Pain…Story in photographs

The lighter penguin is an elderly female whose partner died this year. The darker one is a younger male who lost his partner two years ago. Biologists have followed them as they meet every night to comfort each other. They stand for hours together watching the lights. 

[Photographer Tobias Baumgaertner captured this image of two widowed fairy penguins looking over the Melbourne skyline. It has won an award in Oceanographic magazine’s Ocean Photography Awards. Via: MeliMels99 on Twitter]

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Have you a Product to Sell?

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My Final Thoughts on Nurses

Based on what I have read in this book.

The overriding impression among the Irish nurses who had trained in Britain that Ethel interviewed for the book was that nurse training in Ireland was a closed shop to many. The following quote from Mary McCarthy from Limerick seems to me to sum it up.

“I had not applied to nurse in Ireland. It was whom you knew and what you knew there to get into nursing. Your education meant a lot, for instance if you went to a private school or boarding school, also if your father was a doctor, dentist or solicitor.”

As well as this snobbery, would be nurses in Ireland had to fight for places against nursing nuns whose jobs were guaranteed.

English trained Irish nurses were often from farming backgrounds. There was great camaraderie and support in the nurses’ homes which were usually on site with the hospital. Homesickness was often the biggest problem. Most seemed to have an ambition to return and work in Ireland. Many did.

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Deo Gratias

I am delighted to report that they have painted the pillar box at the end of Church Street. It looks smashing. They haven’t done the ones in the walls yet.

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A Fact

More people get heart attacks and more cars break down on Mondays than any other day of the week.

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Nurses, a Dog, a Mart and a shark

By

On November 8, 2023

In Ballylongford, Listowel

Bryan MacMahon statue in the grounds of Kerry Writers’ Museum

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Ballylongford Thanksgiving

Photo; Helen Lane

Beautiful harvest thanksgiving altar in St. Michael’s.

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Dog walking….Advice from your pouch

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More Titbits about Irish Nurses in Britain

Nursing in Ireland was held in higher regard as a career than it was in Britain. Places in nurse training were harder to get and usually there was a fee to be paid.

English trained nurses were accepted into Irish hospitals and worked side by side with Irish trained staff.

An Irish trainee nurse in an English hospital was very often expected to work on a ward on her first day in the hospital. It was very much a learning by doing type of training. It wasn’t until the 1960s that auxiliary nurses and nurses aides were employed. Before that nurses did all the washing and cleaning as well as nursing duties.

Prospects of rising to the rank of Matron in an Irish hospital were slim. Top jobs were always reserved for nuns. In Britain too, matrons were usually unmarried. the long unsociable hours and hard work were thought unsuitable for a married woman.

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A Treasure from a Charity Shop

I paid €5 for this in the Listowel Irish Wheelchair shop.

The book has stunning photographs by a lady called Kathleen Jo Ryan. She also co edited the book. It was published in the US in 1985.

There are essays by John B. Keane and Bryan MacMahon, Caoimhín ODannachair and others. I will give you a flavour of these soon.

Look at these lovely Listowel photos…copyright Kathleen Jo Ryan. These are photos of photos in a book but you can appreciate that the images are brilliant;

Listowel Mart

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A Fact

The phrase “raining cats and dogs” originated in 17th century England. During heavy downpours many unfortunate cats and dogs drowned and were washed down the flooded streets giving the impression that it had literally rained cats and dogs.

Correction;

I gave you false information last week. Loreto Weir informs us that sharks can get cancer.

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Soldiers and Nurses

By

On November 7, 2023

In Listowel

Calvary at Convent Cross

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Visiting the graves

November is the month for remembering our dead and visiting their graves. Above is our own Jerry Ryan’s grave as always adorned with flowers, plants and placques from his long lost family and his Listowel friends.

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Charles Fort

No trip to Kinsale would be complete without a trip to Charles Fort.

Charles fort is one of several forts which once protected Cork harbour.

looking out the window at the bay and the cannons that protected it.

Once upon a time there was a huge garrison billeted here.

The whole place is painstakingly preserved and restored as a visitor attraction. This fireplace has survived since the Victorian era.

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Throwback

With the advent of the EV we may be coming to the end of the gasoline era.

Mattie Lennon sent us this one of a grentleman stopping at a gas station in 1920.

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Listowel in the 1980s and 90s

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Irish Nurses in Britain

Ethel Corduff in her marvellous, well researched and well written book looks at the reasons nursing in Britain was so popular as an option for Irish school leavers.

During and after the wars there was a crying need for nurses in England. Many young women had left nursing for war work. Hospitals were catering for more and more casualties of war and infectious diseases were rampant.

In Ireland in the 1920s Boards of Guardians were replaced by religious orders  in the running of hospitals. Many of these hospitals charged for training. They also had reserved places in their nursing programme for their own nuns. The easiest way to train as a nurse in Ireland was to join a nursing order of nuns.

Meanwhile across the Irish Sea, particularly in the Greater London area many hospitals were crying out for healthy strong girls to train as nurses. They offered free training, accommodation and a career. Irish country girls were thought to be well used to hard work and were often offered a free trial period on the basis of a photograph and a well written letter of application. Travelling for interviews was not an option.

Over time Irish women rose to be matrons in some of the big training hospitals. They set up a kind of recruitment scheme with parish priests and doctors in Ireland who recommended girls for training. For rural Irish girls from large families the opportunity to travel to the bright lights of London was a welcome one. Thus began the phenomenon of Irish girls training as nurses in English hospitals.

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A Fact

The correct response to the greeting,”Top of the morning to you.” is “and the rest of the day to yourself.”

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