This book explores Ireland's Marriage Bar examining its impact on women's lives and the
predominantly feminised nursing profession. Information on the history of nursing and the
evolution of the nursing profession tends to focus on critical events or key persons who shaped
the profession. What is less known and explored is the women nurses' work experiences or how
the world outside the ward affected the nurse and the nursing profession at moments in time.
This book takes one of these moments in time the period of the Marriage Bar and examines the
women nurses' lives and the nursing profession during this period of Ireland's history. It does
so by adopting a historical perspective and a lived experience perspective of women who had to
negotiate this practice. Fifty years on from the Bar removal as remnants of this time in
Ireland's history remain legislative and constitutional change are required to right the
wrongs of the past.
