In a neat stone cottage, surrounded by a well kept garden, among the
rocky mountain sides that overlook Bantry Bay, lives Lacia Walshe,
strong in body, strong in mind, and strong of purpose. She goes among
the wretched hovels in this locality attending maternity cases which
occur with amazing frequency, for the poorer the family the more
children is the rule. Miss Walshe does not give her entire attention to
midwifery, however, but treats every case of illness that comes within
her ken, from sore fingers to delirium tremens. That is not a figure of
speech, but an actual fact, for many a time at midnight has she been
called from her cottage to some miserable stone hovel in the mountains
to quiet with opiates a drunken ruffian who is haunted with reptiles and
raving in his dreams. Miss Walshe belongs to the poor, and is kept here
by a society with a name of fifteen words--"Lady Dudley's Scheme for the
Establishment of District Nurses in the Poorest Parts of Ireland." She
wears a badge the shape of a heart supporting a crown and in the center
is a shamrock leaf encircled with the words of Another One who went
about doing good as she does: "By love serve one another."
The Countess of Dudley organized this work in 1903, beginning with two
nurses in Geesala and Bealadangan, County Galway. And they did so much
good that the number has now been increased to fifteen and they are
located at as many places in the poorest districts of Ireland, where
there are no physicians and where the people are too poor and the
population too scattered to support a doctor if one could be induced to
go there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account