RCSI Heritage Collections

In March 2024, I joined RCSI Library as project archivist to appraise and catalogue a couple of discreet archive collections within their Heritage collections. The first collection I am tackling is RCSI's Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, as they are celebrating their 50 th anniversary this coming October. My progress and some findings on this particular collection will be the subject of my first RCSI Heritage Collections blog.   The RCSI Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery was founded in 1974 and is one of the longest-serving providers of nurse education in Ireland. It provides registered nurses and midwives with education and training at the highest standard to support the maintenance of their professional development and competence. The Faculty of Nursing consists of a Dean and twelve members who constitute the Board of the Faculty and it is bound by the constitutions of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Council of the College. In addition, there is also full time a...

One of the nicest aspects of working in Heritage Collections is the people that we meet along the way. Be it in person in our reading room in Mercers building, reading about them in an 18th century letter or coming across them in a snapshot of time in a sepia coloured photograph. We are always meeting people!  Last month we were fortunate enough to meet the Moorhead family- Cari, Susan and Peter, who had got in touch with us earlier on this year with the view of donating a very unique and interesting piece of surgical equipment. The piece was a set of surgical tools encased in a solid wooden box with the engraving: Thomas J Crean Surgeon Imperial Light Horse 1899 The name on the engraving is quite a familiar one here in RCSI. Born in Dublin in 1873 Thomas Crean studied in Clongowes College and completed his medical studies in RCSI gaining his Licentiateship in 1896 and his Fellowship in 1902. He then went on to have a successful and active career in the British Army as a soldier an...

There has always been a need in healthcare for blood replacements. According to medical folklore it is thought that the Incas were the first civilization to use blood transfusions as a healing procedure. The methods used are unclear but they were somewhat successful (official numbers unknown) due to the fact that a large part of the indigenous people in the Andean region would have the same type blood making the risk of fatality far less.

On the 15th of April, 1912, the RMS Titanic sank after striking an iceberg and over 1,500 lives were lost. The ship slipped from view under the Atlantic Ocean with only 705 having escaped. Of the victims, some felt their duty was to remain and go down with the vessel. One such man on duty was Dr William Francis Norman O'Loughlin, Senior Surgeon White Star Line and RCSI graduate. Dr. W.F.N. O'Loughlin. Senior Surgeon White Star Line, Died April 15, 1912, On Duty. William Francis Norman O’Loughlin was born on 22 October 1849 in Tralee, Co. Kerry. He embarked on his education journey in the 1860s, reportedly to Trinity College and the Catholic University of Ireland, the precursor of UCD on St. Stephen’s Green. He took medical training in Cecelia St. and went on to take his exams with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, signing the Roll of Licentiates in August, 1870. Signature in the RCSI Roll of Licentiates, 1870 A year later, in 1871, he became a Licentiate of the Royal Co...