Stories of Irish nurses in the NHS: Recognising Irish contributions to British health care
Examination of the historical contributions of Irish nurses during the early years of the NHS
This presentation explores the historical contributions of Irish nurses during the early years of the NHS. Its target audience are students and staff interested in the histories of the NHS and health professionals in twentieth century Britain.
Following the establishment of the NHS in 1948 and given the urgent need to rapidly expand the number of nurses, there was an active campaign to recruit thousands of young Irish women as trainee nurses. Advertisements were placed in national and provincial newspapers and recruitment officers travelled to every town in Ireland interviewing potential student nurses.
As a result, by the 1960s 11% of all nurses recruited to hospitals in the south east of England were born in the Irish republic. By 1971 there were 31,000 Irish-born nurses in Britain constituting 12% of all nursing staff. This 4 year oral history project aims to relate the hitherto untold stories of Irish women, who made up a large proportion of the migrant nurses recruited to work in the early decades of the NHS.
This presentation explores why these women left Ireland as teenagers to train as nurses and examines how they experienced training and professional roles as nurses in the NHS. In particular, the presentation will consider how they negotiated their Irish identities in Britain, particularly during decades of heightened political tensions between the two states.
The book Irish Nurses in the NHS: an oral history by Louise Ryan, Grainne McPolin and Neha Doshi (published by Four Courts Press, 2025) is now a best seller and named as one of Ireland’s books of the year in 2025.
Speaker
Louise Ryan
Senior Professor of Sociology, London Metropolitan University
Professor Louise Ryan is Senior Professor of Sociology and Director of the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University. Over her 30-year career she has established herself as a leading scholar in her field and is consistently ranked amongst the most highly cited scholars in the world. Louise specialises in migration research and has won numerous research grants from UK and European funders. The author of over 100 publications, including ten books, her recent publications include her monograph Social Networks and Migration (2024) and the best-selling Irish Nurses in the NHS: an oral history (with Grainne McPolin and Neha Doshi) (2025).
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