Irish Nurses in the NHS
Capturing and telling the story of Irish women (and two men) who emigrated to Britain to work as nurses in the NHS.
In order to understand Ireland’s history, it’s important to think about outbound migration.
Through the centuries, millions of Irish people have left their home country to find a new life abroad.
One group who made a mark on their new home are those who left to become nurses in Britain’s National Health Service.
Migration research
Professor Louise Ryan of London Metropolitan University, a leading scholar on migration research, has sought to tell their stories through her research.
Irish Nurses in the NHS
Together with Grainne McPolin, a radio producer and retired nurse, she is leading the Irish Nurses in the NHS project.
This project is compiling an oral history featuring interviews with dozens of Irish women (and two men) who emigrated to Britain to work as nurses in the NHS.
“Although there were huge numbers of Irish nurses in the NHS, they’d been surprisingly under-researched,”
says Professor Ryan, who is Senior Professor of Sociology at London Metropolitan University.
Range of voices
The project’s 45 interviewees range from nurses who arrived in the 1940s, when the NHS was first established, through to those who emigrated in the 1970s.
“We had to make sure we weren’t just presenting data from one geographical area,” she explains. “We’ve had participants from Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and Luton, as well as London. There’s a broad range of experience.”
Telling the story
The aim of the Irish Nurses project is to tell the stories of this cohort, and in the process to produce a book on the topic, to be published in late 2024 by Four Courts Press.
Podcast: Irish Nurses in the NHS
Along the way, McPolin and Ryan, assisted by PhD student Neha Doshi, have made a podcast series also named Irish Nurses in the NHS - a format that lends itself well to oral history.
There’s also a documentary film in production, from Tom McGorrian, with input from Ryan and McPolin, which features interviews with the nurses of the project.
Academic projects that centre around interviews such as these inevitably require funding to sustain them. The Irish Nurses in the NHS project has benefitted from several funders, including the Emigrant Support Programme.
75 years of the NHS
The NHS celebrated its 75th anniversary in July 2023, with renewed focus placed on the people who made the health service what it is, from young Irish women leaving home for the first time to the Windrush generation who came to Britain from Caribbean countries in the 1940s.
Professor Ryan says that the extent of the role played by Irish nurses is not always recognised in Britain.
Media coverage
“Around the 75th anniversary, I was interviewed at length on Morning Ireland and on Radio Ulster. There was a full-page spread in the Irish Times and a slot on RTE Six O’Clock news. In the British media, there was nothing at all, it wasn’t being picked up.”
Rectifying this is one of her aims in this project, which will end in 2025.
“It’s important to try to get this conversation into the public consciousness in Britain, beyond our Irish circles. That’s one of the challenges that lies ahead of us.”
Pictured: Professor Louise Ryan, Mrs Maureen Ryan, one of the retired nurses who participated in the research, the Irish Ambassador Mr Martin Fraser and Grainne McPolin.
Podcast series
Irish Nurses in the NHS
Since the NHS was set up in 1948 thousands of women and men from Ireland have come to train and nurse in the UK.
The Irish Nurses in the NHS podcast launched July 2023 to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the inception of the NHS.