Kathleen Lynn | |
|---|---|
 Lynn as she appeared in a 1927 piece of election material | |
| Vice President of Sinn Féin | |
| In office 1923–1927 | |
| Leader | Éamon de Valera |
| Teachta Dála | |
| In office August 1923 – June 1927 | |
| Constituency | Dublin County |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1874-01-28)28 January 1874 Killala,County Mayo, Ireland |
| Died | 14 September 1955(1955-09-14) (aged 81) |
| Education | Alexandra College |
| Alma mater | Royal University of Ireland |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Irish Citizen Army |
| Rank | Captain/Chief Medical Officer |
| Battles/wars | Easter Rising |
Kathleen Florence Lynn (28 January 1874 – 14 September 1955) was an IrishSinn Féin politician, political activist and doctor.
Lynn was so greatly affected by the poverty and disease among the poor in the west of Ireland that, at 16, she decided to be a doctor. She was educated in England and Germany, before enrolling in theRoyal University of Ireland, a forerunner to the UCD School of Medicine. Following her graduation in 1899, Lynn went to the United States, where she worked for ten years, before returning to Ireland to become the first female doctor at theRoyal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital (1910–1916). In 1919, she foundedSaint Ultan's Children's Hospital.
Kathleen Lynn was born on 28 January 1874 in thetownland of Mullafarry, nearKillala inCounty Mayo,[1] to aChurch of Ireland clergyman, Robert Young Lynn, and his wife, Catherine Wynne,[2][3][4] and was their second of four children. Her mother, Catherine, was a great granddaughter ofOwen Wynne ofHazelwood House, County Sligo.[5]
In 1882, the family moved toShrule in CountyLongford where her father took over as the clergyman of the Ballymahon parish. Later on in her young life, in 1886 Lynn and her family moved toCong, a village bordering Mayo and Galway, to where her father's parish was being funded by theLady Ardilaun ofAshford Castle. She was sent to theAlexandra College, of which Lady Ardilaun was the patron, in Dublin, which she attended till she was sixteen years old. She was distantly related toCountess Markievicz through her aunt's marriage.[6] Growing up in the aftermath ofThe Great Famine (1845 – 1852), She was deeply saddened by the deadly diseases and poverty suffered by the people in her local area. This led to her desire at sixteen, when she left school, to become a doctor.[7]
Lynn's family didn't approve of her role in the Rising. In fact, at the time, Lynn's family were so disgusted with her activities that they would not let her return home to Cong, County Mayo, for Christmas. She instead had to spend Christmas 1917 with her aunt Florence in Dublin. She did the same the following year. This personal split was eventually settled before her father's death in 1923.[8]
Lynn lived inRathmines from 1903 to her death in 1955, sharing her home with her life partnerMadeleine ffrench-Mullen. She also had a holiday cottage inGlenmalure,County Wicklow - not far fromGlendalough where a number of her Wynne cousins lived. She left the cottage toAn Óige, the Irish youth hostel association, on her death.[9]
Lynn wrote a diary from Easter 1916 until 1955, beginning with her involvement in the 1916 Rising until two months before her death.[10]
In 1891 Lynn went as a boarder toAlexandra College,Dublin, from where she matriculated in 1893 from theRoyal University of Ireland.[11] From October 1897 Lynn took classes at theCatholic University of Ireland's school of medicine in Cecilia Street,Dublin, and in theRoyal College of Surgeons of Ireland. In 1898 she won the Barker anatomical prize awarded by the college. She graduated MB BCh BAO from theRoyal University of Ireland in 1899. Lynn conducted her internships at Holles Street Hospital (1897–99), theRotunda Hospital (1899), theRoyal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital (1899), and at the Richmond Lunatic Asylum. In 1898 Lynn was appointed the first woman resident doctor atDublin'sAdelaide Hospital, but staff opposition to her appointment meant she did not take up the post. She completed postgraduate work in theUnited States in the early 1900s before working as a duty doctor at hospitals in the city ofDublin as part of her wider general practice based at her home at 9 Belgrave Road,Rathmines,Dublin. Lynn became a fellow of theRoyal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1909, and was promoted to clinical assistant in theRoyal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital in the same year.[12]
Lynn was a member of the executive committee of theIrish Women's Suffragette and Local Government Association (IWSLGA) from 1903, and remained on the executive until 1916.[13] Lynn was a member of the radical British Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) from 1908 and she was also said to be on friendly terms with the suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst.[14] She was part of a mass meeting in 1912, demanding that women's suffrage be included in theThird Home Rule Bill of that year.[14]
Lynn supported the workers during the1913 lock-out and worked withConstance Markievicz and others in the soup kitchens in Liberty Hall, becoming close to Markievicz and James Connolly.[15] In 1913, at Markievicz's request, she treatedHelena Molony. Molony, who was active in a number of political movements, stayed with Lynn in her Rathmines home following an illness. As a result of the influence of Molony and Markievicz, Lynn became an active participant in the suffragist, labour and nationalist movements. "We used to have long talks and she converted me to the National Movement," Lynn wrote.[16] She joined theIrish Citizen Army and was chief medical officer during the1916 Easter Rising. She described herself as "a Red Cross doctor and a belligerent" when she was arrested.[17]
For her part in the Rising, Lynn was imprisoned for a week in theShip Street Barracks, before being transferred toRichmond Barracks and then toKilmainham Gaol,[18] where she was held with her comrades Markievicz, Molony andMadeleine ffrench-Mullen. Lynn remained active in the Nationalist movement; she was elected vice-president of the Sinn Féin executive in 1917[16] and in 1923, Lynn was elected toDáil Éireann as an anti-Treaty Sinn FéinTeachta Dála (TD) for theDublin County constituency at the1923 general election.[19] In accordance with Sinn Féinabstentionist policy of the time, she did not take her seat in Dáil Éireann. She lost her seat in theJune 1927 general election.[20] She unsuccessfully contested theAugust 1927 by-election for Dublin County. Lynn claimed, many years after the 1916 rising, that it was suffrage that converted her to republicanism, saying: "I saw that people got the wrong impression about suffrage and that led me to examine the Irish question."[21] She was given a gold fibula bone-shaped brooch as a token of gratitude from the Irish Citizen Army for her help in the medical preparation for the Rising.[14]
During theIrish War of Independence, Lynn assisted Michael Collins in evading capture by the British.[22]
Lynn eventually left politics in 1927, increasingly frustrated by Sinn Féin's refusal to embrace social reform and health care.[23]
Lynn decided to become a doctor when she was 16. She was one of the first female medical graduates fromUniversity College Dublin. Lynn became politically active and worked in Liberty Hall providing food and care for the poor and destitute families during the turbulent time of the 1913 Dublin Lock-Out.[24] Lynn's medical career was defined by her work atSaint Ultan's Children's Hospital, which she established in Dublin in 1919, with a group of female activists. Lynn's work with Dublin's inner-city poor had convinced her of the need for a hospital to provide medical and educational facilities for impoverished mothers and infants. Earlier in her career, Lynn had experienced discrimination in applying for hospital positions due to her gender, and Saint Ultan's was the only hospital in Ireland entirely managed by women.[25] Saint Ultan's Hospital grew rapidly, and from 1937 became the centre forBCG vaccination in Ireland. The hospital closed in 1983.
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Lynn was the chief medical officer for theIrish Citizen Army. At the request of rebel leaderJames Connolly she joined the Irish Citizen's Army during the 1916 rising and was appointed as Captain and Chief Medical Officer. She provided medical training to members of the ICA and also taught theCumann na mBan.[26] Lynn (along with writerSeán O'Casey) advocated the use of theIrish language inChurch of Ireland liturgy and many events for Saint Ultan's Hospital were advertised in the Irish language.[27]
Lynn died on 14 September 1955, and was buried in the family plot atDean's Grange Cemetery with fullmilitary honours in recognition of her role in the Rising and theWar of Independence.[24][28] She was so well known that crowds in Dublin lined the streets to show their respects.[23]
After Lynn's death,Éamon de Valera set up the Kathleen Lynn Memorial Committee, which lasted for eight years and resulted in the opening of a surgical unit at Saint Ultan's Children's Hospital in 1964, but ended in 1975 due to funding difficulties.
Four diaries recorded by Lynn between 1916 and 1955 were transcribed over two years by librarian Margaret Connolly. The detailed diaries chronicle her medical, political and social life and were donated to theRoyal College of Physicians in Ireland archive by her family in 1997,[29] which also holds the administrative papers of Saint Ultan's Hospital. They provided source material for the 2010 documentary entitledKathleen Lynn – An Dochtúir Reabhlóideach by Loop Line Film and director Sé Merry Doyle.[30]The Diaries of Kathleen Lynn: A Life Revealed through Personal Writing edited by Mary McAuliffe and Harriet Wheelock were published in October 2023.[10]
HistorianMargaret Ó hÓgartaigh wrote her biography,Kathleen Lynn, Irishwoman, Patriot, Doctor (Irish Academic Press, 2006).[31]
Lynn is used as a character in the novelThe Pull of the Stars (2020) byEmma Donoghue, set in a Dublin hospital in 1918.[32]
Modern examinations of their lives have led many people to consider that Lynn andMadeleine ffrench-Mullen were a same-sex couple.[33] The remarkable closeness they shared, the fact they never married men, and the fact that they lived together in the same house until Madeleine's death, are all now taken into account when discussing their lives. It has also been suggested that their fellow 1916 Rising comrades,Julia Grenan andElizabeth O'Farrell, were in a similar arrangement, and thatMargaret Skinnider was anotherlesbian participant in the rising.[34][35][36][37][38][10][39] These women were featured, along withEva Gore-Booth and others, in the 2023TG4 documentaryCroíthe Radacacha (Radical Hearts) about "the radical queer women at the very heart of the Irish Revolution": .[40][41]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Vice President of Sinn Féin withP. J. Ruttledge (1923–1926) 1923–1927 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
