For bygone generations of Irish people the face of the health service was the Jubilee Nurse who visited households in rural and urban areas bringing her skills, care and compassion to families where illness, poverty, age or infancy were crippling burdens. Long before there was an organised public health service — and certainly long before the era of corporate glass-and-steel health centres — the Jubilee Nurse was a reassuring sight as she pedalled her bicycle, her blue uniform cape flapping in the wind, on her itinerary of house calls. She and her colleagues are the forgotten heroines of Ireland’s public health history Their story has now been given richly deserved recognition in this book. In a master-class of social history writing the authors weave recollections from interviews carried out with retired Jubilee Nurses together with solid historical research in archives and files meticulously cited and referenced throughout the publication. (from J Durney on Kildare.ie)