Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 6, line 9, after “section 5” to insert “, known as the Kathleen Lynn National Children’s Hospital”.

This amendment is close to my heart. I first wrote to a Minister for Health in 2013, or perhaps it was even before that, when Senator Reilly was in charge of the health portfolio. I subsequently wrote to his successor, now Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar. I also wrote to the current Minister, Deputy Harris. The reason I wrote to the Ministers for Health is that they are ones overseeing the development in St. James's Hospital, in what was the South Dublin Union, of a new children’s hospital. I always felt that in naming the hospital it would be appropriate for us to pay homage to those who were the front runners in children's health in this country. We know of the earlier attempt to name it when with some fanfare the name Phoenix hospital was chosen. That debacle came to an abrupt end when the Phoenix Children's Hospital in the United States reminded those who could not do a Google search that it existed and that it would possibly sue if the name was used.

That brings me back to the letters I wrote asking for Kathleen Lynn who was a pioneer in every sense in the medical field for children to be remembered by naming a hospital after her. We should remember that it was she who in 1919 set up the first children's hospital in this city, Saint Ultan's Children's Hospital. Would it not be appropriate, almost 100 years later, to name the new, far-reaching state-of-the-art hospital after someone who in her time showed such vision? Kathleen Lynn was from County Mayo. She attended the Catholic University Medical School on Cecilia Street and graduated in 1899. She was a pioneer because at that stage few women qualified as nurses or doctors. She qualified as a doctor. She also attended the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She set up in private practice where she was living at the time on Belgrave Road in Rathmines. She was a pioneer and also a radical in many other fields. She was a leading member of the Irish Citizen Army.

Originally I wrote my request prior to the centenary of the 1916 Rising. In 2016 I said it would be appropriate to remember Kathleen Lynn because of her role as the only female commandant during the 1916 Rising. She came to that position having been second in command of the Irish Citizen Army garrison that took over City Hall and the Rates Office. The first in command, Sean Connolly, who had been an actor in the Abbey Theatre, was shot dead on the roof and Kathleen Lynn became the commandant, a fact that is forgotten. Ms Markievicz is always regarded as the female volunteer who had the highest status during the 1916 Rising, but, in fact, she was in second in command.

Kathleen Lynn has left a legacy beyond politics in the city where she was both a Deputy and a councillor. She stood for election in the Rathmines area. If nothing else, she should be remembered for her work in the health service and setting up Saint Ultan's Children's Hospital. I am not the only who is making the case for her. Sometimes people say it is simply because she was a Sinn Féin woman for a certain period, but that is not the reason I have come to believe Kathleen Lynn should be remembered. It is also because of her pioneering nature. During the years I have talked to historians and others who have views on the naming of buildings and the like. I know that I am supported in the demand that the hospital be named after her by the likes of Diarmaid Ferriter, Dr. Mary McAuliffe and Martin Mansergh, with whom I had a long discussion. He believed it was appropriate that the hospital would be named after her. Diarmaid Ferriter wrote an article in October last year after the debacle surrounding the name Phoenix for the hospital. He quoted others, including Professor Mary Morgan, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, who supported the idea that the hospital should be named after Dr. Lynn. The idea was also promoted by the ophthalmologist Tim Horgan. There are others also. In his article Diarmaid Ferriter outlined starkly how, in the midst of the revolution in Ireland in the first two decades of the 20th century, Kathleen Lynn had established Saint Ultan's Children's Hospital on Charelmont Street in 1919 with her confident, Madeleine Ffrench-Mullen. It was to provide medical and educational facilities for impoverished infants and their mothers. That underlines the seriousness with which the women had taken the point made in 1917 about tacking social problems. Diarmaid Ferriter outlined earlier in the article what was happening at the time. Dr. Dorothy Stopford Price also worked in the hospital. She was the first doctor to introduce the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine. That illustrates the pioneering nature of the hospital.

I am trying to encourage the Government to accept the amendment in recognition of the work done and the woman who led it and stood by it. Kathleen Lynn's legacy is significant, not only in terms of the work done by the hospital or her revolutionary involvement but also in terms of her medical and social work for Irish children because she battled the sectarianism and prejudice that faced women and the poor in this city.

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