During my Studio+ Year, I had a studio based in Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA) located in St. James’ Hospital, Dublin. After a particularly fascinating lecture about the history of the hospital and it’s location, I started to work on a project involving women from the hospital’s past - starting with Nurse Margaret Kehoe. While researching for the project, I discovered that 2020 was the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, to celebrate Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday - my project was then directed toward telling the stories of nurses.

Using some nurse’s uniforms that I found in a local charity shop, I made a “wearable story” to commemorate Nurse Kehoe. She is considered to be the first civilian casualty during the 1916 Easter Rising, and was killed while checking on some of her patients in the hospital. I felt that she was an incredibly important person and wanted to tell her story. I embroidered the tale of her last day as Gaeilge alongside a painted portrait of her on a green nurse’s uniform to share her story.

 The second piece I created was in memory of Lady Arabella Denny, who helped save the lives of hundreds of orphaned children. She frequently visited the Foundling Hospital which used to stand on the ground of what is now St. James’ Hospital. Lady Arabella taught the children crafts and gave them a religious education. She also helped prositutes and fallen women. The words embroidered onto her nurse’s uniform are from a letter received with a child left at the Foundling Hospital. Although she was not a nurse, I felt that the story of her kindness and philanthropy needed to be shared.