THE remarkable women medics who emerged from the national struggle for independence were "wonderfully romantic at times and quite irresponsible." These were the words of James Deeny, former chief medical adviser to the Department of Health, writes Anne Mac Lellan
However, they do less than justice to three doughty doctors who made substantial contributions to the health of an often less-than-grateful Irish State.
Dr Kathleen Lynn (1874-1955) co-founded St Ultan's, the first Irish hospital dedicated to infants, and the first run entirely by women. Dr Dorothy Stopford Price (1890-1954) became an internationally renowned expert on childhood tuberculosis, introducing the anti-tuberculosis vaccine, BCG, into Ireland in 1937. Dr Brigid Lyons Thornton (1896-1987) specialised in public health medicine.
At the time of the Easter Rising, Lynn was 42. The daughter of a Church of Ireland clergyman, she was an advocate of fresh air and cold baths and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Politically, she had moved from suffragism to socialism and then to republicanism.
Stopford, also a Protestant, was 26. The daughter of an accountant, she had spent part of her schooling at St Paul's Girls School, London, and was about to embark on the study of medicine at TCD. She was not particularly interested in politics.
Lyons was the youngest - a 20-year-old medical student in Galway, a self-described fat country girl from a Catholic family with strong republican credentials.
On that sunny Easter Sunday in 1916, when an armed uprising plunged the middle of Dublin into bloody chaos, Lynn was at the epicentre, Stopford was in the Phoenix Park, and Lyons was in Longford. Lynn, an officer in the Irish Citizen Army, was posted to City Hall.
Following the death of Capt John (Jack) O'Reilly, Lynn, chief medical officer and herself a captain, became the highest-ranking officer of the Irish Citizen Army in City Hall. Later, she tendered the surrender and, when apprehended, her surgical bag was found to contain iodine, lint, bandages, and 50 rounds of ammunition.
Asked if she was there in a medical capacity, she is supposed to have replied that she was there as a "Red Cross doctor and a belligerent". She was imprisoned in Kilmainham jail, and later sent to England. After her return to Ireland, she became a member of the Sinn Féin executive in 1917.
Meanwhile, Dorothy Stopford noted in her diary (now held in the National Library) that, on Easter Sunday, 1916, she cycled to early service. She was staying in the Phoenix Park with Sir Matthew Nathan, under-secretary to the British administration based in Dublin Castle. She knew there was trouble afoot but was unsure what was happening.
On Easter Monday, she, Mrs Nathan (Sir Matthew's sister-in-law) and the children walked to a part of the Phoenix Park known as "the furry glen" and enjoyed the sun. On their return, a phone call from the Vice Regal Lodge (now Aras an Uachtaráin) informed them that "the Sinn Féiners were out", that Dublin Castle was surrounded but Sir Matthew was safe.
In Longford, news of the Rising was also filtering through. On Easter Tuesday, Lyons, her uncle Frank McGuinnes and three others left Longford to drive to Dublin. In Bolton Street they met the first barricades, which included sofas, go-carts and Guinness barrels.
But Lyons and her uncle made it through to the Four Courts where she joined members of the women's organisation, Cumann na mBan, in the basement, cooking and making tea. She put her budding surgical skills to use, employing a bayonet to cut up meat.
She was subsequently imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol but obtained early release in May. She returned to her studies in Galway, later transferred to UCD and qualified as a doctor in 1922.
The aftermath of the Rising radically altered Stopford's political views. By the time she qualified as a doctor in 1921 and went to work in Kilbrittain, Co Cork, she was a nationalist. She became medical officer to an IRA brigade and, in later life, proudly wore a gold watch given to her by the IRA in recognition of her services.
All three women forsook national politics and concentrated on medicine in their subsequent lives. Lyons was commissioned as an Army medical officer in 1922, and demobbed in January 1924. She was already a long-term patient in the Richmond Hospital, Dublin, having been diagnosed with pulmonary TB. She spent most of her working life as a paediatrician with Dublin Corporation Public Health Service.
Lynn's biographer Margaret Ó hÉagartaigh argues that her most radical contribution was in medicine: she was a pioneering paediatrician whose neglect is part of a wider historiographical neglect of socio-medical history.
Similarly, while medical history has to date relegated Stopford Price to a footnote, she was, during her lifetime, an acknowledged international expert on childhood TB, author of a textbook and numerous scientific publications, widely cited worldwide, the instigator of a national anti-tuberculosis league, and an advocate of tuberculin testing and BCG vaccination at a time when they were not widely accepted.
As part of Science Week, Women in Technology and Science (WITS) is hosting an afternoon of talks entitled "Lab coats and lace" next Saturday, November 15th, in the National Botanic Gardens.
To hear more about these revolutionary doctors, and also about other Irish women scientists, come along at 2.30 pm. Admission is free.
Anne Mac Lellan is researching a PhD on the contribution of Dorothy Stopford Price to the eradication of tuberculosis in Ireland.