Kirkpatrick Award

The Kirkpatrick History of Medicine Award encourages engagement with the history of medicine in Ireland.

Applications Now Open

The Kirkpatrick History of Medicine Award 2026 is open for applications. Applications are encouraged on any topic related to the history of medicine in Ireland, or with a strong Irish connection.

Applicants are invited to submit an 800 word abstract on their research for consideration. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to give a 25-minute presentation on their research at a public event to be held in RCPI on Wednesday 8 April 2026. The judging panel will select the award winner based on the quality of research, and the clarity and effectiveness of your presentation. To encourage a public engagement aspect of the award, this year the audiences’ will also be taken into consideration as part of the final evaluation.

How to apply

Criteria - Research must be original, unpublished and carried out in the last three years. Research which has been submitted for publication will be considered, but details should be given of when and where it has been submitted and if it has been accepted.

Eligibility - Open to all, applications from early career researcher are especially encouraged.

Application Process - Submit an 800-word abstract and CV to heritagecentre@rcpi.ie

Submission Deadline - 5pm, Friday 6 March 2026

Meeting Date - 8 April 2026

Prize - €500

Who was Dr Kirkpatrick?

Physician and historian Thomas Percy Claude Kirkpatrick (1869-1954), was Registrar of this College for over forty years from 1910 to his death in 1954. He devoted his considerable energies to preserving and developing the College’s library and heritage collections, and much of the strength of today's collections are as a result of his dedication. Kirkpatrick published numerous works on the history of medicine in Ireland and bequeathed his library and archives to the College.

Previous Winners

2025 - Kevin Finnan Identifying the doctors who treated volunteers during the War of Independence", and Caitlín Smith "Cut off in the prime of their usefulness and actvity": maternal mortality rates in Belfast during the first half of the twentieth century.

No award beween 2023 and 2024

2022 - Bridget Keown "In the midst of the trouble area during rebellion" Gender and truama on the homefront of the Easter Rising.

No award beween 2019 and 2021

2018 - Triona Waters Remedying the ‘"growing evil": the curable and incurable patients of the Limerick District Lunatic Asylum, 1827-1887.

2017 - David Kilgannon '"Something for the mental defectives of the West": Establishing a centre for the intellectually disabled at Bahola, Co. Mayo.

2016 - Stephen Bance Polio in Ireland. Rehabilitation and re-intergration in the mid-twentieth century.

2015 - Robyn Atcheson The Irish poor law and medical relief for the poor in Belfast in the 1840s.

2014 - Aisling Veale "A class of her own" Negotiating religious and medical identities in Ireland and on the Missions, 1945-1960.

2013 - Dr Clara Cullen War work on the Home Front: The central Sphagnum Moss Depot of Ireland at the Royal College of Science for Ireland 1915-19.

2012 - Dr Anne Mac Lellan Victim or Vector? Tubercular Irish Nurses in England 1930-1960.

2011 - David Durnin War and Medicine: Irish Medical Involvement in the First World War.