Tell Me About Public Lecture Series 2023-24
Lecture 1: Thursday 5 October 2023, 1.15pm-2pm
Exploring the little-known Crimean War (1854 -1856) diaries of an Irish nursing nun, Sr. Mary Aloysius Doyle RRC
Prof Paul Horan MA MA (j.o.) PGDipCHSE RNT RNID
Assistant Professor in Intellectual Disability Nursing, TCD School of Nursing and Midwifery
Prof Paul Horan biography
Paul is a nursing academic who specialises in the field of Intellectual Disability Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin. Paul started his nursing career 36 years ago in the UK and has worked in variety of roles within the profession from nursing assistant to Director of Nursing before becoming a nursing academic in Trinity College Dublin in 2002. As a keen local and nursing historian he has presented papers at international conferences and published his research across a variety of media. Paul’s key interest area of nursing historical research is that of researching the role of Irish nurses in theatres of war and conflict.
Overview of lecture
This presentation aims to present aspects of a study that aimed to elucidate pioneering nursing practices of The Crimean War (1854 – 1856) through the published diarised lens (Memories of the Crimea, 1897) of an Irish nursing nun Sr. Mary Aloysius Doyle RRC (a Crimean War nursing contemporary of Florence Nightingale) who left St. Leo’s Mercy convent in Carlow in 1854 to nurse casualties of The Crimean War almost 170 years ago. Her diary and other relevant sources are consulted to see if nursing experiences of a 19th century theatre of war are being mirrored in the current war in Ukraine.