After receiving her training to become a nurse at Royal City of Dublin Hospital, Baggot Street, Linda Kearns MacWhinney had planned to travel to Europe to assist with World War I. However, following an encounter with Thomas MacDonagh in 1915 Linda chose to remain in Ireland, and became active in the republican movement thereafter.
Linda was asked to open a hospital on North Great Georges Street for wounded Volunteers on Easter Monday. Linda was requested to go to the GPO by Thomas MacDonagh, and was provided a pass signed by Eamon de Valera allowing her to carry dispatches between MacDonagh and de Valera at their posts. On Easter Week she was attached as a member of the Irish Volunteers, carrying dispatches and administering medical aid. Linda also acted as a stretcher bearer and transported ammunitions and guns from Hardwicke Street and North Great George Street to the GPO under the orders of Thomas MacDonagh.
Linda Kearns MacWhinney was one of six women elected to the executive of Fianna Fáil when it was formed in 1926 and was later elected to Seanad Éireann in 1928. A strong supporter of women’s rights, Linda protested the Conditions of Employment Bill introduced by Fianna Fáil in 1935, which held elements discriminatory towards women in the workplace. She also protested elements of the Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann, introduced in 1937. Linda was appointed to the National Women’s Council and was a founding member of the Women’s Industrial Development Association.
Linda Kearns MacWhinney remained dedicated to nursing throughout her life, and was a member of the General Nursing Council Committee and the Irish Red Cross. In May of 1951, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale medal by the International Red Cross in recognition of her services to nursing.
Linda Kearns MacWhinney died in June 1951 at the Kilrock Nurses’ Convalescent and Holiday Home in Howth, Dublin, which she had assisted in founding in 1946.
[Further Refs: Bureau of Military History (Military Archives), Linda Kearns MacWhinney WS 404, Dictionary of Irish Biography (DIB), Liz Gillis, Women of the Irish Revolution (2014)].
