The voices of 45 Irish nurses form the backbone of this comprehensive study of the invaluable contribution made by Irish nurses to the NHS. It is a story crying out to be told, as “ ... while the Irish male migrant is immortalised in the ‘Mick’ and ‘Paddy’ stereotypes of navvies and construction workers, Irish women, despite their prevalence, have been largely invisible in Britain”.
Louise Ryan, Gráinne McPolin and Neha Doshi approach their subjects sensitively, allowing the voices to show how this history is represented. In so doing, they also reveal an extraordinary, progressive health scheme that from its inception in 1948 “struggled to recruit sufficient local staff ... Irish nurses made up a very large proportion of the staff recruited to work in the NHS”.
The voices are wonderful – charming and funny, yet serious and revealing. All aspects of their working lives from their initial recruitment as teenagers (the NHS were actively recruiting in mid-20th century Ireland) through their work on the wards, their early social lives and changing careers, the clear appreciation of their work in Britain, “‘Oh, when I go into hospital, as soon as I hear an Irish voice,’ she said, ‘I feel faith, I know I’ll be well looked after.‘”
The warmth of these women’s voices is palpable, one feels what they must have been like on the ward, busy, hardworking but also chatty and fun. Many grew up on farms, part of big families who all had to pitch in and this early grounding gave them an edge when it came to the challenge of nursing. The NHS opened a door for these bright youngsters at a time when “networks (‘pull’) seemed to have been absolutely fundamental to securing nurse training positions in Ireland” and they made the best of it, many of them continuing to study and develop in the decades ahead.
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But this thoughtful study acknowledges the darker side of the migrant experience too, most poignantly in one doctor’s comment that must have been burned in this nurse’s memory, “‘Oh, you stupid Irish woman, what would you know?‘” While this level of anti-Irish comment was rare, the interviewees’ experience of the more subtle forms of prejudice (in particular during the IRA bombing campaign in England) is teased out judiciously without ever losing the overriding sense of adventure that rises from these pages.
