The Migration Museum's Heart of the Nation exhibition featured several stories from Professor Louise Ryan's Irish Nurses in the NHS research project, and toured the UK through 2023-24.
Date: 21 August 2024
The Migration Museum launched its award-winning exhibition Heart of the Nation – celebrating the contribution of migrants to the NHS – in 2023. The exhibition toured the country from Leeds, to Leicester and on to London. It also ran for several months throughout 2024 at the Museum’s base in Lewisham, south London. You can now explore the exhibition online here.
The exhibition curators worked closely with Prof. Louise Ryan, Director of the Global Diversities and Inqualities Research Centre, to ensure that the stories of Irish nurses – who made such a remarkable contribution to the NHS – were included in the exhibition.
The research was underpinned by the oral history project, Irish Nurses in the NHS, led by Louise with Grainne McPolin and PhD student Neha Doshi.
A London-based nurse – Ethel Corduff – had an entire display cabinet devoted to her story including many photos and other memorabilia from her long nursing career in Croydon.
Three Leeds-based nurses – Josie Caulfield, Ann Fergurson and Peggy Sarsfield – also featured in the exhibition, with story boards compiled by Louise Ryan based on their oral history interviews as part of the Irish Nurses in the NHS project.
The exhibition received broad national media coverage and Josie’s story was picked up by the BBC.
Ethel Corduff said: 'I enjoyed sharing my experience of migration and particularly my early nursing days, and the items relating to it, with the Heart of the Nation exhibition. It was so important to share and record the stories of Irish nurses who have contributed so much to the National Health Service over many years so they will be remembered for their enormous input. I am proud to have been part of their celebration.'
Louise Ryan said: 'It was wonderful to see the contributions of Irish nurses to the NHS being celebrated through this exhibition and all the coverage it has generated. It was my great pleasure to work with the curators on this award-winning exhibition.'
Heart of the Nation won Museums + Heritage Awards 2024 Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year.
Photo: Two Irish nurses – Olive McKeown and Ethel Corduff – who participated in the Irish Nurses in the NHS oral history project, with Louise Ryan at the exhibition launch party in Lewisham.