Conclusions

Abstract

This chapter considers the answers to some of the key questions posed throughout the study: in a time of increasing hostility towards Britain among Irish nationalists, why did Ireland’s medical personnel join the British Army medical services? In the face of increasing staff shortages and economic inflation, how did Irish hospital governors ensure that Ireland’s voluntary hospital network survived the war? How did the evacuation of sick and wounded soldiers from the battlefields of the Western Front to Ireland influence the provision of healthcare for civilian patients? In what ways did wartime circumstances encourage change in healthcare provision in Ireland and was this sustained following the Armistice? And finally, following the end of the First World War, how did Ireland’s wartime doctors reintegrate into an Ireland that became embroiled in its own wars and was subsequently partitioned?