From Cork to Maidenhead: An Irish nurse's story

A nurse who moved from Ireland to Berkshire in 1948 at the age of 19 to join the newly created National Health Service (NHS) was a "pioneer", her daughter has said.

Nora McCarthy was one of thousands of Irish women recruited to train and work in British hospitals after the end of World War Two.

Janie Davies said her mother, who died last year aged 95, "absolutely loved" her job as a nurse.

Speaking to Radio Berkshire ahead the 77th anniversary of the NHS on 5 July, she said her mother told her it had been "very strict" in the early days.

The NHS took control of 480,000 hospital beds in England and Wales in 1948 but it was short of 48,000 nurses so an active recruitment drive was launched in Ireland.

At the time, nurse training opportunities in Ireland were limited and expensive, making the chance to train for free in British hospitals with live-in accommodation highly attractive.

By the 1960s there were about 30,000 Irish nurses working in the NHS.

Ms Davies said her mother saw an advert and decided she wanted to help.

Nora first spent a year working at a hospital in Highgate, London, on an orthopaedic ward before an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB), she said.

"About summertime 1949, mum and her friend wanted to apply for a job in Maidenhead," she said.

"I think working a year on the TB ward was just getting to them, they were seeing a lot of death."

Nora spoke fondly of her time in the NHS, said Ms Davies, adding that during the early years she had said it was "very strict" but there was "a lot of camaraderie too".

She said her mother had told her of dances at the local church hall which the off-duty nurses would attend and where Nora met her future husband.

Ms Davies' daughter Ciara has retraced Nora's journey from Cork to working at Maidenhead General Hospital in Berkshire, as part of her university dissertation.

She said: "I started in Ireland, we went to the original green rooms in O'Donovan's where the [nursing] interviews had taken place.

"Then to where she caught the bus from in Cork. We saw a little bit of Maidenhead but the original building for Maidenhead General Hospital was no longer there.

"There were some surprises about her life that I didn't know, such as learning about tuberculosis and what her life was like on the TB ward."

Nora worked as an NHS nurse for 50 years, retiring at the age of 69.

Her story has been featured in a book, titled Irish Nurses in the NHS - An Oral History, which explores the life experiences of the Irish migrant nurses.

Its co-author Prof Louise Ryan said the NHS described how it was "actively recruiting" in Ireland, with advertisements in national and local papers.

NHS recruiters travelled throughout the country and carried out interviews with young women in local hotels.

Prof Ryan said: "Their travel was paid, they earned a salary while they trained - plus they got accommodation in the nurses' home.

"If you can image parents waving their children off on this mammoth journey across the sea to England – knowing there was secure accommodation was very reassuring – they were very well looked after."

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