For today’s post, I will analyse developments in nurse training in Ireland between 1950-1960. I will examine the influence of the Catholic Church over nurse training.

From the 1890s, nursing training was confined to voluntary hospitals established by female religious institutions. Robins (Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland in the twentieth century: fifty years of an Bord Altranais (the Nursing Board) 1950-2000, p.20) states that nurses were required to pay a fee in order to train at one of these hospitals which led to the development of nursing as a middle class profession. However, the moral character of nurses was emphasised due to the influence of Florence Nightingale and the Sister of Mercy during the Crimean War. By 1900, nurses were ‘obedient, hardworking, gentle and vigilant’ and most importantly they were ‘moral’ figures (Preston, Charitable Words: Women, Philanthropy and the Language of Charity in Nineteenth Century Dublin, p.139). However, free medical services were distributed in poor parts of Western Ireland by Lady Dudley’s Nursing Scheme, founded in 1903, and nurses trained by Queen Victoria’s Institute of Jubilee Institute. These organisations were outwardly non-denominational as they trained both catholic and protestant nurses. However, they were trained in separate centres confined to Dublin (Pendergast, ‘Jubilee Nurses’ p.63).

In 1919, the General Nursing Council was established to supervise nurse training, examinations and to conduct inspections of training hospitals and centres. The Nurses Registration (Ireland) Act created a register for nurses and set up separate divisions of nursing such as psychiatric nursing and district nursing. Nurses had to be enrolled in a training hospital in order to join the register (Nurses Registration (Ireland), section 3.2 b). District nurses were also provided with refresher courses organised by the Irish Nurses Organisation. They usually ran for a week and were held in Dublin. Postgraduate included topics such as midwifery and child welfare (Moore, ‘Ireland and the Queen’s Institute’, p.508). As early as 1928, the Department of Local  Government advocated for the establishment of a training scheme for public health nurses (See Report of the DLGPH 1925-28, p.66).

In 1950, An Bord Altranais was formed when the General Nursing Council and the Central Midwives Board were amalgamated and the Midwives Committee was set up. The redefinition of district nursing, public health nursing and domiciliary midwives duties coincided with an interest in the creation of a district nursing course. District nurses carried out a range of duties to communities including preventative health services and child welfare services and therefore, they needed a training course. Under the 1953, Health Act, An Bord Altranais had the authority to approve nurse training hospitals and to appoint lecturers. However, the Catholic Church were against State interference in areas traditionally operated by Catholic religious orders such as hospitals. Robins (Nursing and Midwifery, p.33) argues that ‘nurses were seen as being on the front line of the defence of traditional family values and sexual relationships’. The Catholic Church sought to control subjects studied by student nurses in order to ensure that Catholic values were present in the nursing profession. They had objected to the free choice of doctor in Noel Browne’s Mother and Child Scheme due to fears that Protestant doctors would attend Catholic mothers and educate them on matters related to sexuality such as contraception. Under the 1953 Health Act poor women given a free choice of doctor and although the Maternity hospitals were divided in different zones in Dublin, however, patients could also apply to another hospital outside of her zone (Earner-Byrne, Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60 p.159). The same arguments were also emphasised when first Minister for Health, James Ryan proposed that sex education would be provided through the school medical service in the 1945 Health Bill.

From 1954, Archbishop McQuaid met with members of An Bord Altranais to address how ethics and psychology were taught in University College Dublin (Robins, Nursing and Midwifery, p.33). It was decided the syllabi would be reviewed by McQuaid (Ibid). The Catholic Church gained further control in nursing as they also ensured ‘that the lecturers chosen were to be appointed by each training hospital but only after the approval of the local bishop’ (Ibid, p.34). The Catholic Church also influenced the nursing syllabus. They proposed that there would be no official examinations for ethics and psychology for nursing students and these reforms also applied to Protestant students (Ibid).

In1956, the division pf public health nursing was founded and designated community health services such as undertaking vaccination schemes, operating maternity and child welfare centres and the school medical service. By 1959, the first short public health nursing course was established in UCD (Ibid, p.37). The nursing board were in charge of the refresher courses and existing public health nurses could qualify to practise and enter the register (Irish Nurses’ Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 8 (August 1960), p.9).

However, local authorities were reluctant to employ nurses who attended the new course. The Irish Nurses’ Magazine (Vol. 28, No. 9, p.10) argued that .Public health nurses who had undertaken the new public health nursing course found it difficult to acquire permanent jobs because ‘their additional training and experience [was] rated so low’. Subsequently, the creation of the public health nursing division contributed to the gradual decline of the voluntary nursing organisation (Robins, Nursing and Midwifery, p.39). Moreover, community nurses services were disorganised and inadequate in some areas outside of main cities and public health nurses duties required to work during off duty hours.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Health Act, 1953.

Nurses Registration (Ireland). A bill to provide for the registration of nurses in Ireland.

Irish Nurses’ Magazine (August 1960-September 1962).

Irish Nurses’ Magazine, Vol. 28, No. 9, p.10.

Secondary Sources

Earner-Byrne, Lindsey, Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007.

Moore, John W., ‘Ireland and the Queen’s Institute of District Nursing’, British Medical Journal, Vol. 2 No. 3532 (September 1928), pp.508-509.

Elizabeth Pendergast, ‘Jubilee Nurses’, Old Dublin Society, Vol. 66, No.1/2 (Spring/Autumn 2013), p.63.

Preston, Margaret H., Charitable Words: Women, Philanthropy and the Language of Charity in Nineteenth Century Dublin, Prager, Westport, 2004.

Robins, Joe (ed.) Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland in the twentieth century: fifty years of an Bord Altranais (the Nursing Board) 1950-2000, An Bord Altranais, Dublin, 2000. fffff