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personal story which is sometimes lost in traditional social histories of medicine, yet
rather than being traditional narratives of ‘great men’ and ‘great women’, they are
narratives of ordinary women who trained at Irish institutions in the period and
which demonstrate the themes considered in previous chapters.
This thesis is important because up until now, there had been no comprehensive
study of women in the medical profession in Ireland. It portrays Irish medical
schools as being liberal-minded with regard to the admission of women to the
medical profession. Moreover, it suggests that women were treated fairly by Irish
institutions during their time in medical education. The thesis thus broadens our
understanding of women in the medical profession in Ireland and of women’s
experiences at university more generally.
Importantly, it will highlight the distinctiveness of Irish medical education in contrast
with Britain, suggesting that there were important differences that existed between
Ireland and Britain: most significant, the fact that Ireland, in particular, Dublin, was
seemingly more liberal than Britain with regard to attitudes towards women’s
medical education and that the Irish system of medical education appears to have
been very much inclusive and paternalistic towards women students. At the same
time, the study highlights the fact that despite this, women medical students, in
common with their British and American sisters, were certainly seen as a separate
cohort from the men with a distinctive social identity which was crafted both by and
for them.
Pertinently, this is also a study of women’s careers within the medical profession in
Britain and Ireland. It demonstrates that women doctors did not necessarily enter
the careers that had been prescribed for them by advocates of women’s medical
education in the nineteenth century. In addition, it highlights patterns of migration of
women doctors between Britain and Ireland as well as illuminating differences in
career trends between the two countries.
Most importantly, the thesis will change the way we consider the history of women
in medicine in Ireland. Previously, women’s entry to Irish higher education and the
admission of women to medical education has been depicted as a ‘struggle’ against
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