The ‘Irish Angels’ who swapped Ireland for the UK

By the 1970s, Irish women made up 12% of Britain’s nurses. One of them was Mary Hazard, and her autobiography recounts her 60 happy years with the NHS, says Sharon Ni Chonchúir.

HAVE you ever heard of the ‘Irish Angels’? They were the thousands of women who left Ireland in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to train as nurses and work in hospitals in the UK. One was Mary Hazard, now 80. Her book, Sixty Years A Nurse, describes life as one of the NHS’s longest-serving nurses. She devoted 62 years to the health service, only retiring last year at the age of 79.

Her book starts in September, 1952. Mary was a week away from turning 18 and on her way to Putney to begin nursing training.