Product Description

Often overlooked are the nurses of the Great War. Poignant testimonies of the nurses themselves bear witness to their extraordinary courage, sacrifice and hardship in this new appraisal of their work. Mass mobilisation of nurses by professional and voluntary nursing services led to considerable rivalry between different groups and working environments were very varied. Nurses were involved in the day-to-day harrowing duties of Casualty Clearings Stations, Stationary Hospitals, Hospital Barges and Trains. Many lost their lives or severely damaged their health. Some suffered war trauma or shell-shock, hitherto considered a combatants disease. The exigencies of war led to nurses pioneering new care practices and inventing a variety of adjuncts that helped with diagnosis and treatment. While the main part of 'It s a Long Way to Tipperary' inevitably focuses on the Western Front, the nurses involvement on the Home Front is also considered as is their part in the preparation for Civil War in Ireland in 1914 and the subsequent Easter Rising of 1916.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45650 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
While the fate of a generation of 'men who marched away' has been widely recorded, the lot of First World War nurses has not received similar attention. Yvonne McEwen's labour of love helps right this imbalance. Through personal stories the whole sorry but eventually uplifting tale comes to life, and the book itself becomes a tribute to those who served as nurses amid the blood and gore of the Western Front. The background is well described and the narrative takes the War year by year, encompassing politics and the military, chronicling the hope and despair through to the end. McEwen looks deep. Despite the women's sense of duty and round-the-clock work rate, much of it went unacknowledged. There were petty rules about fraternising with men and officers, sisters were not allowed 'out' singly, and there was a long-running dispute as to whether volunteers were proper nurses. The British Journal of Nursing appears to have been a constant enemy of VAD nurses, in a spiteful war-long campaign. There was no attempt to record their endeavour. Many were psychologically traumatised for life and no-one saw fit to record a Roll of Honour for the 378 nurses who lost their lives. By acting as emotional supports for long periods, the nurses themselves absorbed their patients' mental strain to their own detriment; now a known hazard of the medical profession. For most, their time on the Front was a harrowing, unthanked experience. Little is known of their contribution to medical innovations and all too often they were treated as mere orderlies. But their contribution was out of all proportion to their numbers. McEwen writes movingly, with keen intelligence and spot-on use of sources to remind us of the forgotten debt. There is particularly masterful use of anecdote too. If It's a Long Way to Tipperary was planned as a tribute, it works admirably. We will remember them. Neil Griffiths --Scottish Legion News

Yvonne's book is a triumph of research and most certainly neeeded to be written. Alan Domville --The Guardian (Warrington)

About the Author
Yvonne McEwen is an Honorary Fellow at The University of Edinburgh Centre for the Study of Two World Wars where she is currently researching endurance and survival in combatants. She was previously an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at The University of Liverpool working on Ireland's involvement in Two World Wars. She is a graduate of The University of Edinburgh with degrees in nursing and history.

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
There is a real need for work in this area and there are sections of really interesting primary material in this book but this has ended up being a scattergun general history of the war which does not develop the stated subject nearly enough for the size of book or the material to which the author evidently had access. There is also no engagement with any real theoretical approach and the grasp of the existing historiography is invisible. The lack of any real referencing and the absence of an index made this work fiddly and unfulfilling. I was rather disappointed on the whole. I'd direct anyone interested in this field to the memoirs of individual nurses, VADs, etc. readily available as reprints on amazon and to the histories of individual nursing organisations which will cover all the bases I'd hoped this book would deal with but didn't.

A Labour of Love
While the fate of a generation of 'men who marched away' has been widely recorded, the lot of First World War nurses has not received similar attention. Yvonne McEwen's labour of love helps right this imbalance. Through personal stories the whole sorry but eventually uplifting tale comes to life, and the book itself becomes a tribute to those who served as nurses amid the blood and gore of the Western Front. The background is well described and the narrative takes the War year by year, encompassing politics and the military, chronicling the hope and despair through to the end. McEwen looks deep. Despite the women's sense of duty and round-the-clock work rate, much of it went unacknowledged. There were petty rules about fraternising with men and officers, sisters were not allowed 'out' singly, and there was a long-running dispute as to whether volunteers were proper nurses. The British Journal of Nursing appears to have been a constant enemy of VAD nurses, in a spiteful war-long campaign. There was no attempt to record their endeavour. Many were psychologically traumatised for life and no-one saw fit to record a Roll of Honour for the 378 nurses who lost their lives. By acting as emotional supports for long periods, the nurses themselves absorbed their patients' mental strain to their own detriment; now a known hazard of the medical profession. For most, their time on the Front was a harrowing, unthanked experience. Little is known of their contribution to medical innovations and all too often they were treated as mere orderlies. But their contribution was out of all proportion to their numbers. McEwen writes movingly, with keen intelligence and spot-on use of sources to remind us of the forgotten debt. There is particularly masterful use of anecdote too. If It's a Long Way to Tipperary was planned as a tribute, it works admirably. We will remember them.

Neil Griffiths --Scottish Legion News

A Triumph
Yvonne's book is a triumph of research and most certainly neeeded to be written.

Alan Domville --The Guardian (Warrington)