2022 Dr Kathleen Lynn €15 silver coin from Ireland

She was born in County Mayo in 1874. Although this was almost thirty years after the great famine, poverty, disease and hunger were still widespread throughout Ireland. Witnessing such misery affected Kathleen so much that at the age of sixteen she decided to become a doctor.

Her work with Dublin’s inner-city poor convinced her of the need for a hospital to provide medical care and educational facilities for deprived mothers and children. This led to her, along with Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, setting upSt Ultan’s Hospital in 1919. The initial focus of the hospital was on treating sick infants and by 1937 it had become the specialist centre for the BCG vaccination in Ireland.

Dr Lynn was politically active during the 1913 Dublin Lock-Out, the 1916Rising and the War of Independence. She was chief medical officer of the Irish Citizen Army and a member of the executive committee of the Irish Women’s Suffragette and Local Government Association.

Kathleen died in 1955 and was buried in Deansgrange Cemetery, Dublin with full military honours.