“Maria Blackmore (left) and my aunt Ivy Finlay, who at that time was living just off Sandymount Green with her aunt. Ivy’s mother had died in 1937 and her father and brother both emigrated to England to do war work. While she was living with her aunt, she developed TB and spent time in Newcastle Sanitorium, where she met Harry Bryan, whom she married in 1953. They were unable to have children because of their TB treatments and were barred from adopting because they had had TB. In Ireland at the time, there was a stigma attached to TB, and people were frightened of it. I remember my mum had a special tea cup for Ivy that we weren’t allowed to use. My aunt attributed her survival to Noel Browne’s introduction of streptomycin.”
(1940)
Submitted by Deirdre Ennis