The fifth and final lecture in the current series will take place on Monday 23 March at 8 pm in Carton House. It is entitled Fighting the world’s deadly influenza pandemic in 1918-1919: the Kildare story and will be given by Dr Ida Milne.
Light refreshments served from 7.15pm
Admission fee: €10.00
Enquiries to Carton House only, tel: (01) 6517708
Email: sales@cartonhouse.com
Fighting the world’s deadly influenza pandemic in 1918-1919: the Kildare story
In 1918-19, an estimated 50 million people were killed by the worst influenza pandemic the world has ever known, and upwards of one fifth of the global population suffered from the disease.
Dr Ida Milne is a social historian who has spent a decade researching the flu in Ireland, from Maynooth University and Trinity College Dublin. In this talk she will tell of the peculiar local reasons that gave Co Kildare the dubious honour of having the highest death rate per head of population from the disease on this island. Low water supplies and coal shortages made Naas a particular black spot, as sufferers needed hot nursing food and an adequate supply of water for washing and keeping well hydrated.
She has also interviewed people from all over north Kildare about their experience of the disease. Tommy Christian, from Boston in Ardclough, was five when he came down with the flu, and said that the pain in his throat was so severe it was an experience he would never forget. He told of neighbouring families coming to feed his family when they could not look after themselves, of the doctor being so busy he would only visit in the middle of the night.
Towns were silenced as the flu passed through, businesses and schools closed, matches and court sittings cancelled. Here in Maynooth the college had to get in extra nurses to look after the ill, and closed for some time. In Clongowes Wood College, most of the school went down with the flu; the school practised the most advanced medical thinking about the disease, separated the ill from the well at meal times, with the ill eating half an hour after the others. Staff were discouraged from attending the funerals of flu victims in case they brought more disease into the school.
All over Kildare, graveyards still bear witness to the numbers of Kildare dead from this awesome disease. In Donaghcumper and in St Corban’s in Naas, gravestones show that 5 members of the Gogarty family died from the disease within a matter of weeks, in Naas, Celbridge, Montreal and Belgium.