The Sisters of Mercy, who had arrived in Cork in 1838, were asked by the Guardians to visit the Cork Workhouse in 1837 as a result of some trouble in the Workhouse. Mother M. de Pazzi Barry was one of the first to do so and she continued to go there until the sisters went to live there in 1871. In 1870 the Guardians invited the Sisters of Mercy to take charge of the Union Hospital, with the sanction of his Lordship Right Reverend Dr. Delaney. They were assigned to the part of the Work House building which had been occupied by the Master and the Matron. On the 3rd of November 1871 eight sisters from Saint Mary’s of the Isle, under Sister M Ignatius Crowley as Superintendent, took up residence as nurses. Within six months of arrival sister M Ignatius died in the smallpox epidemic which swept the city. She was succeeded as Superintendent by Sister M Camillus Burke.
From 1871 the Sisters worked in conjunction with successive masters of the workhouse until 1921 when the Office of Master was discontinued and that of Matron was vested in sister Mary of Mercy O’Keeffe.
On their appointment in 1871 the Sisters organized a program of hospital classification, they undertook the education of foundling children and of the children born within the Workhouse. Protestant Nursing Sisters joined the workhouse in 1872. They worked with the Sisters of Mercy.
In 1919 the Irish Nursing Union had become the State Registration Board or an Bórd Altranais, and the first School of Nursing in Munster was founded at the District Hospital, Cork in 1925. Sister M Cecilia Leahy who had specialized in fever nursing in English hospitals, was the first Tutor..
In 1927 the Sisters at the District Hospital piloted a scheme of general training for nurses for which no entrance fee was required.
In 1978 the School of Nursing with most of the rest of Sr Finbarr’s Hospital was transferred to its new home in the Regional Hospital.
Southern Province 