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Full Title
In times of peril : leaves from the diary of Nurse Linda Kearns from Easter week, 1916, to Mountjoy, 1921 / edited by Annie M.P. Smithson.
Author
Kearns, Linda.
Contributor
Smithson, Annie M.P. De Valera, Eamon, 1882-1975.
Date Added
4 February 2016
Format
Book
Language
English
Publish Date
1922
Publisher
Dublin : Talbot Press ; London : T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.,
Source
Joseph McGarrity Books.
Topic
Kearns, Linda. Prisoners > Ireland > Diaries. Nurses > Biography. Ireland > History > Easter Rising, 1916.
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OCR
48 IN TIMES OF PERIL.
appeared very like intimidation. The Committee
always visit the jail when all is at its best, and when
no food is being given out. I used to sometimes
wonder what they would think if they visited us
about 2 p.m., when the cell doors were being opened
and the food utensils removed. It would certainly
have surprised them to see, not how much food was
eaten but how much of it was returned as uneatable.
I would also suggest that they pay a visit at dinner
hour on Friday just to smell the kind of fish we got,
and to see how much of it had to be left untouched.
The food in the hospital was fair, and one could exist
on it, but I do not think I could have gone on f0f
much longer in prison. My nerves, too, got in a
very bad state; I was all unstrung-in that horribly
humiliating condition when one cries for very little,
and cannot stop. On one occasion I went to see the
doctor, because he had taken from me the only food
that was keeping me alive-my daily pint of milk.
When he refused to allow it to me I broke down and
cried before him, and I could not stop myself;
although I was bitterly ashamed. I suppose he must
have seen the state I was in, for he put me back on
the milk again.
The wardresses at Walton were of a very Varied
class, and I much preferred the older women to the
younger girls who had lately entered the Prison
Service. The latter were of a flippant type, and
their chief conversation consisted of details relating
to “ me and my young man!” But those womell
who had ten or twelve years’ service seemed to be of
a superior class, besides being much more kind and
considerate to the prisoners. I also thought it