The Kathleen Lynn Diaries
Harriet Wheelock

The Kathleen Lynn Diaries


Kathleen Lynn (1874-1955) was a doctor and political activist. The daughter of a Church of Ireland vicar she qualified as a doctor in 1899, was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and served as chief medical officer during the 1916 rising, for which she was imprisoned. After her release she was the driving force behind the establishment of Saint Ultan's hospital in 1919, and remained active in its management until her death. She was elected Sinn Féin TD for County Dublin in 1923, although she did not take her seat. Lynn was friends with many of the leading Irish political and medical figures of the day, including James Connolly, Constance Marckivicz, Éamon de Valera and Dr Dorothy Stopford-Price.

From 1916 until her death in 1955 she kept a diary recording the events of her extraordinary medical and political career. In the 1990s Lynn's relatives donated the diaries to the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland as they felt they should be with the Saint Ultan's Hospital Papers. They are now one of the archive's most consulted collections.

Lynn kept her diaries in an unusually format. Each folio of the diary was used for one date in the year; each line on that page was then used to record the events of that day for a different year, with up to three lines of text squashed in. The combination of the way the diary was written and Lynn's handwriting make the originals very difficult to read, as this picture shows. However, the College employed an archivist to make a complete transcript of the diaries and this is available for readers to consult.

This photograph show the folio for 3 May, with entries for the years 1916 to 1937. The first entry for 3 May 1916 reads;
'Heard afterwards that Halpin did not die, but was recovering slowly in hospital. Miss Peroly here, arrested in her house on suspicion. On Tues. Wed & Thurs. about 3 a.m. we heard volleys fired under cell windows. Tues 3, Wed. 3, Thurs 1. We hear they have shot members of Provisional Govt.'
The entry was written following the surrender of the leaders of the 1916 rising, when Lynn had been imprisoned in Kilmainham jail with her friends Helena Molony and Madeleine ffrench-Mullen. As this entry makes clear from their cell they could hear the execution of their friends and companions. Halpin was another revolutionary, who had been found by British soldiers after several days spend hiding in a chimney.

With the diaries Lynn also preserved a number of letters, newspaper cuttings and memorabilia, including this election poster. Lynn stood as a Sinn Féin candidate for Dáil Éireann in the 1923 general election in the County Dublin seat, although elected she did not take her seat as Sinn Féin were following an abstentionist policy. In the 1927 election Lynn stood again but lost her seat. This poster from the 1927 election outlines Lynn's republican and socialist political ideology.