An exhibition opens next month at the Whittington Hospital in Archway with stories of these nurses from across the Irish Sea taken on to help on the wards in the new National Health Service after it was set up in 1948.
There were 30,000 Irish nurses looking after patients by the 1960s, for example, representing 12 per cent of all staff.
The exhibition features photographs by Fiona Freund and first-hand testimonies gathered by Professor Louise Ryan, Gráinne McPolin and Neha Doshi, the authors of an oral history of Irish Nurses in the NHS.
“They have made an immense contribution to the health service right from its creation,” Whittington NHS Trust’s chief executive Selina Douglas said. “They remain an important part of our shared history.
“The NHS has always been built on the skill of people from around the world, a diverse workforce past, present and future.”
The collection of stories are from 1948 onwards, when women and men were actively recruited from Ireland to work in hospitals across Britain. It captures their experiences in their own words with the challenges they faced and the rewards.
The exhibition has been compiled by sociology professor Louise Ryan from the nearby London Metropolitan University in Holloway.
Prof Ryan said: “The display includes four nurses who worked at The Whittington over many decades, as a tribute to their years of dedication to the NHS.”
The hospital trust has been working with Prof Ryan and Grainne McPolin, who was a nurse for 30 years, now living back in Ireland.
The project involved interviewing women who emigrated to Britain from the 1950s onwards, with the London Irish Centre in Camden Town coming on board in 2022 with funding and setting up some of the interviews with retired nurses.
Irish Nurses in the NHS opens in the Whittington Hospital in Magdala Avenue, off Highgate Hill, on December 3, running till December 18 in the fourth-floor atrium, entry free.
An oral history of Irish Nurses in the NHS published by Four Courts Press with 45 interviews is in bookstores and on eBay from £14.39.
