Nurses, plumbers, carpenters and roofers: The women of the Royal Hospital
Dates
25/06/2025 - 25/06/2025
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Location
Royal Hospital Kilmainham
The recent discovery of the ‘lost’ records of the royal military hospital at Kilmainham offers new perspectives on the social and cultural history of the institution. The site has traditionally been seen as an exclusively male community. Yet, the records show there were a surprising number of women living in and working there throughout the more than 230 years of its existence. There were nurses, kitchen and domestic staff, but also the wives and children of some of the Pensioners, as well as those of the military and civilian officials of the hospital. Some women unconnected to the hospital rented lands or houses on the site, and a number entered into commercial contracts to provide services such as plumbing and glazing in the hospital. Throughout the entire eighteenth century, the Providores responsible for the profitable contracts to provide food and drink for the substantial community of almost 500 people resident on site were exclusively female.
This talk will explore what the records tell us about the lives and status of these women, as well as their interactions with the resident old soldiers and the military authorities who managed the hospital. It will trace the outlines of a decline in the status of women at the hospital in the years before and after the Act of Union, as well as tensions during the late nineteenth century around the professionalisation of nursing services at the hospital.
Jason McElligott is the Director of Marsh’s Library, founded as the first public library in Ireland in 1707. He is a native of Cabra in Dublin and did his undergraduate and MA degrees in history at UCD and his Ph.D. at St John’s College Cambridge. He is a former Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and is writing a monograph on book theft in 18th-century Dublin.
Booking is essential via Eventbrite only.
Meeting place is the Johnston Room, located in the west corner of the North Range, just off the central courtyard of the Royal Hospital. Doors open 5:50pm. Look out for OPW signage.
Getting Here
By Luas: Red line to Heuston Station (8 minutes walk via Military Road.)
By Bus: Buses to Heuston Station (8 minutes walk via Military Rd): C1, C2, C3, C4 from Aston Quay. Buses to James Street (8 minutes walk via steps to Bow Lane onto Irwin Street and Military Road): 13 from O’Connell Street or Dame Street; G1 and G2 from Eden Quay.
By Car: Paid car parking – €3 for the first 3 hrs
On Foot: Approx. 30 to 40 minutes from the city centre.
By Train: 8 minutes walk from Heuston Station.
Cycling: There is bike parking onsite and a number of Dublin Bikes stations located nearby.
Click the relevant icon below to open Maps directions
