Picturing War
This exhibition was a visual narrative of the experience of an Irish nurse in WW1.
Agnes Maguire (1891—1977) was a trained nurse who joined the Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve in 1916. Her photograph albums and archival materials - including QAIMNS nursing cape, medals, souvenirs, hospital-ship menus - offer a unique insight into the social, cultural and medical dimension a nurse’s wartime experience in Egypt and Salonika.
This interdisciplinary exhibition includes a series of panels contextualising the war in Salonika, the medical conditions, and the response to the war from a local Cork and UCC perspective.
Dr Laura McKenna, granddaughter of Agnes Maguire, works in Medical Humanities in the School of Medicine in UCC. A child psychiatrist for many years, she has a PhD in creative writing from UCC. Her debut novel, Words to Shape My Name, (New Island 2021), was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award. Laura is the recipient of Tyrone Guthrie, Cork County Council, and three Arts Council bursaries. In 2022, she was commissioned to write a poem for the renaming of the Environmental Research Institute Building, UCC, in honour of the 19th century Cork botanist, Ellen Hutchins.
Dr McKenna opened this exhibition on 12th October and the exhibition ran until 25th January 2024.