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British medical schools. 9 However, as this thesis will suggest, this was not
necessarily the case in Ireland. Not only did Irish medical schools in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century adopt a surprisingly liberal attitude towards
women’s admission to study medicine, but women were treated favourably while
attending these colleges and universities.
After graduation, women appear to have been successful in their careers in the
medical profession in Ireland, most commonly in the sphere of general practice,
although those who emigrated to England were more likely to attain hospital or
public health posts. Thus, although Ireland appears to have been more liberal than
one might expect with regard to medical education, there were not the same
opportunities available for women graduates as there were in Britain. This was not
necessarily due to discrimination against women doctors, however, as those who
graduated prior to 1918 appear to have been successful in gaining such posts in
Ireland. Rather, it is likely to have been due to a lack of posts available in Ireland in
contrast with Britain, especially after the War as a result of the medical marketplace
becoming saturated in Ireland and more women who remained in Ireland going into
general practice.
This thesis also sheds important new light on the experiences of medical students,
an area within the history of medicine which has often been neglected, in favour of
focus on the stories of men and women in the profession. 10 Keir Waddington has
commented that in the historiography of medical education, ‘students are largely
absent or silent consumers’. 11 However, it is not just historians of medicine who
have been guilty of neglecting the history of students. There has been little research
into the experiences of students more generally. 12 Histories of Irish medical schools
tend to focus on the background to the founding of the schools, the main events in
9 Bonner, To the ends of the earth, pp.120-137.
10 Thomas Neville Bonner, Becoming a physician: medical education in Britain, France,
Germany and the United States, 1750-1945, (Oxford University Press, 1995) for an
overview of the history of medical education in Britain, France, Germany and the United
States.
11 Keir Waddington, ‘Mayhem and medical students: image, conduct and control in the
Victorian and Edwardian London teaching hospital’, Social history of medicine, 15, (2002),
pp.45-64, on p.45.
12 Anne Macdona, From Newman to new woman: the women of UCD remember, (Dublin:
New Island, 2001) and Carol Dyhouse, Students: a gendered history, (London: Routledge,
2006).
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