A CAMPAIGN to have the new national children’s hospital named in honour of doctor and revolutionary Kathleen Lynn is to be launched shortly.
Writer and journalist Tom Stokes and biographer Marie Mulholland are spearheading the campaign and have already garnered support from actor Adrian Dunbar and James Connolly-Herron, great grandson of James Connolly.
Politicians, including Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh and trade unionists including Patrick Bolger, assistant general secretary of Impact, have also pledged their support.
Ms Lynn was born in 1874 into a wealthy protestant family. Her father was the Church of Ireland Rector of Killala in Co Mayo.
She graduated as a doctor from the Royal University of Ireland in 1899 and became active in the women’s suffrage movement and republicanism.
She worked in the soup kitchens during the 1913 lockout in support of workers and was chief medical officer of the Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Rising, for which she was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol.
In 1919, Ms Lynn founded the first paediatric hospital in Ireland, St Ultan’s, to treat poor children in inner city Dublin. She also helped introduce BCG vaccinations to Ireland.
Ms Lynn lived in Rathmines from 1903 with her partner, Madeline ffrench-Mullen, until her death in 1955.
Mr Stokes said Ms Lynn was one of the most remarkable women of the last century in terms of her lifetime dedication to the poorest children.
“She was determined the children of the tenements would have a place to go for medical treatment,” he said.
“She was an astonishing woman; way ahead of her time and a fantastic individual, a great role model for women.”
He said naming the new children’s hospital after her would be a fitting tribute and a “no-brainer”.
Planning permission for the hospital, on the site of Dublin’s Mater hospital, is expected to be lodged in the next fortnight, following the publication of two independent reports last week endorsing the location.
Minister for Health James Reilly has given the go-ahead for the planning application to be submitted to An Bord Pleanála, even though the Government will not make a final decision on proceeding with the €650 million project until an overall review of capital spending projects across the State is completed in September.
If funding is provided and planning is granted, it is now expected the hospital could be open by late 2016, a year later than originally anticipated.
