In August 1949 an advertisement appeared in the Connaught Telegraph informing readers of job vacancies in Britain’s newly established National Health Service. A recruitment officer, Miss Lavelle, would be touring the region in the coming weeks including Ballina, Westport, Castlebar and Claremorris. Any interested ‘young lady’ of ‘good education’ aged over 17½ years, should contact Miss Lavelle to arrange an interview for nurse training. Ads like this appeared in all Irish papers from the 1940s to the 1980s and resulted in tens of thousands of young people heading to hospitals throughout the length and breadth of Britain to pursue nursing careers. As a new oral history highlights, Irish nurses played a crucial, if unrecognised and under-the-radar, role in building the NHS. https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0206/1494900-irish-nurses-nhs-britain-oral-history/