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Story Notes
Sunday 15th February 2009
As a little girl Rosemary Conry spent 3 years lying bound and strapped to a bed, a victim of the TB epidemic that was then rife in Ireland. Her only cure for the TB that attacked her limbs was to constantly lie still in her frame out in the open air, winter and summer. And so, in the early 1940's, Rosemary, along with many other little children spent years lying in a line on a veranda in Ireland's biggest sanatorium. Seventy years later, the Documentary on One travels back to that hospital with Rosemary as she remembers a forgotten part of our social history.
Rosemary Conry passed away in December 2009.
A NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER, ANN MARIE POWER
When I was in Cappagh Hospital, Dublin recording with Rosemary Conry I took some pictures. Rosemary was in that hospital as a little girl from the age of seven until she was ten years old. She's now almost 77 years old but took to recording no problem as you can see from the photo! It's a fascinating story about a part of our social/medical history that is more or less forgotten.
All the little children lay in lines out in the open air in all weathers.every morning when they woke up they looked out onto a field with a statue of the sacred heart and another of the Virgin Mary and the huge outdoor altar. Featured in these photos.
Note from the producer: January 2010. I was very sad to hear that Rosemary Conroy passed away over Christmas. However it was a pleasure to get to know her over the last year and I'm so glad she apprached the doc on one team with her story, otherwise this wonderful testimony to a forgotton time would have been lost forever.
Producer: Ann Marie Power
An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries
Story Credits