THE CORRAN HERALD • 2020/2021
Linda Kearns:
The Nurse who Escaped from Mountjoy Prison By Kathleen Flynn
Linda Kearns was born in the townland of Cloonagh, Parish of Dromard, Co. Sligo on 25th July 1886 to Thomas Kearns and Catherine Clarke.1
Linda Kearns as a young woman She was one of 9 children born to Thomas and Catherine, one of whom, a son Thomas, died in infancy.2 She grew up on a small farm close to the Atlantic Ocean in rural west Co. Sligo. Linda attended Ballacutranta national school where she was taught by her aunt, her mother’s sister, Honora Kelly (nee Clarke). 3 The name she was registered with at birth and at baptism was Brigid Kearns but she was known as Belinda. She is recorded as Belinda in the 1901 Census of Ireland.4 When she went to school her aunt, her teacher, did not like the nickname she was known by at the time, which was ‘Beezie’ (a variation of Brigid) so she entered the name Belinda in the Roll Book. 5 This was later shortened to Linda and this was the name she was known by for the rest of her life. At the time of the 1901 Census of Ireland, Linda (recorded then as Belinda), aged 15, was living on the farm at Cloonagh, Dromard, Co. Sligo with her parents
Thomas and Catherine, her sister Mary (age 26), brother Michael (age 18) and sister Norah (age 13).6 Linda’s brother Michael later died in 1917 from epilepsy.7 Linda had a maternal uncle, Thomas Clarke, who moved to Dublin from Sligo in 1868. He became involved with the Home Rule Movement. It is perhaps from this uncle that Linda received her political leanings. He was elected to the Rathdown Board of Guardians and became Chairman in 1903. He became Chairman of four public Boards: Rathdown Board of Guardians, Blackrock Urban Council, Deans Grange Burial Board and the Port Sanitary Board. He was the owner of substantial property in Ballsbridge, Dublin. 8 Between 1902 and 1904, Linda and her sister Nora attended the Convent of the Blessed Virgin, Beirglegem near Brussels in Belgium, which was a type of finishing school and there she became fluent in French. It is likely that their uncle, Thomas Clarke, paid the fees for the girls as their father, a small farmer, was unlikely to have been able to afford the fees.9 In 1907, Linda entered the Royal City of Dublin Hospital on Baggot Street to train as a nurse. After her three-year training period at Baggot Street, Linda stayed on working at the hospital for a further two years. Linda left Baggot Street in 1911 and was then employed as a nurse attendant by a substantial landowner in Tullamore, Co. Offaly named Maurice Lindsey O’Connor O’Connor Morris.10 Morris was unmarried and without children when he died in 1916 and he left the sum of £2,500 to Linda in his will.11 Shortly after his death Linda was back in Dublin taking part in the 1916 Rising. 85
Nursing the wounded of 1916 A number of factors are believed to have influenced Linda to become involved in the fight for Irish Freedom. One was a chance meeting with Thomas McDonagh in 1915, one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, while Linda lived in Dublin.12 She got to know him and met him a number of times before the Rising and was influenced by his thinking. A second influential event was a visit she paid as a trained nurse to a typhus hospital in Co. Mayo around 1911-1912, where her sister was a nurse.13 Linda was horrified at the conditions in the hospital and said afterwards that ‘it had occurred to me that it was time that the government responsible for such a state of affairs should be expelled from the country’.14 The third influencing factor was Linda’s involvement in the Gaelic League and her keenness to learn the Irish language.15 Before the Easter Rebellion of 1916 Linda was issued with a pass on which was written ‘Please admit Nurse Kearns’.16 This was signed by Eamon De Valera and enabled her to enter the GPO. Linda did not have much involvement at the GPO but in April 1916, two days after the insurgents seized the GPO in Dublin, Linda Kearns took over an empty house on North Great Georges Street and set up a temporary hospital. She put a Red Cross in the window. This hospital was designed to provide medical aid to both British and Irish wounded. This temporary hospital was closed by military orders. Linda was to take a more active part in the republican movement after the Rising. Although Linda was never a member of Cumann na mBan, she did provide lectures to the women of the movement.17 She stated in her Witness Statement, Bureau of
