UCC SONM 25 Year Book

UCC / School of Nursing and Midwifery

Midwifery education and practice - origins to 2019

The early years The traditions and practices of midwives in Ireland are largely undocumented. Throughout the early modern period, midwives were often illiterate and uneducated. There are reports of women giving birth without the assistance of a midwife if none was available. James Wolverigde, a Cork physician reputed to have written one of the first books on midwifery in the English language, considered that women were most fit to help women in their deliveries Physicians were concerned with neither the theory nor practice of midwifery until the 17 th and 18th centuries. In Dublin, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland commenced issuing licences in midwifery to physicians in 1692. While few licences were issued, two were issued to women, Mrs. McCormack in 1697 and Mrs. Banford in 1731 (Gorey 2012). At this time, male practitioners used midwifery as an entry to medicine, but men’s involvement in childbirth was not fully accepted. By the 18th century, lying in hospitals were established to provide care for poor childbearing women. Training of physicians in midwifery commenced in the early hospitals in Dublin, Belfast and Cork. Over time, female midwives could apply for training and though funds for midwifery education were rarely provided, the provision of midwives became the responsibility of local government authorities (Grand Juries). Women sent for training were to be married, with children and be between 30 and 40 years of age. In the Rotunda Hospital, these were employed as nurse-tenderers and receive instruction in midwifery by the Master and his assistants ‘till they shall be thought sufficiently qualified’ to become county midwives. Only a few midwives were trained under this scheme (Kirkpatrick and Jellet 1913).

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