Established under an act of the Westminster parliament, the General Nursing Council for Ireland
was the first state body to regulate nursing in Ireland. Its establishment coincided with the period
leading up to the creation of the Irish Free State and was a significant office of public
administration in the newly-independent Ireland.

The Council developed the necessary architecture to bring nursing under one controlling authority and it played an important role in the fledgling state’s plans to develop a modern health service for its people. Set against the post-colonial background of the dismantling of the British administration in Ireland and the restructuring and expansion of the health services in the decades after 1920, this book examines
the work of the Council, its deliberations and decisions and the challenges that it encountered in
exercising its regulatory function.

Based on new archival research, this is the first book to examine the history of the Council, which regulated nursing in Ireland for thirty years.

Further information on the book is available at the link below: