Nurses headed towards danger to help in World War I, as some brave people always do in difficult situations

They were among scores of nurses who helped at battlefields in that appalling conflict.

It is a timely commemoration.

First, because as the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us there are always admirable people who head towards difficult and perilous situations to help, thus spurning the understandable instinct to stay well away from danger.

Some nurses from Ulster paid the ultimate sacrifice in World War I, such as Rachel Ferguson from Moneymore, who died in Italy in 1918.

In the 2020 pandemic, legions of health and care staff put themselves in harm’s way to tend to the virus. Both in NI and around the world, such people earned our deep admiration.

The plaque also helps to put our current challenges in perspective. Our present woes are considerable — high levels of Covid infections, crammed hospitals, economic pain, post Brexit uncertainty — but they are minor compared to the 1914 to 1919 period of the war and, towards its end and in the following year, the Spanish Flu pandemic.

Both had calamitous death tolls, numbered in the tens of millions — many times higher than the current global number of coronavirus deaths of approaching two million.

To observe this difference in scale of suffering is not in any way to play down the tragedy of Covid, but just to be mindful of how much worse things could be.

In fact, a particularly unlucky generation was hit by both World War I and then, 21 years after its end, World War Two.

We report today on Margaret Anderson from Kilkeel, who after heroic service in the earlier war rejoined the nursing war at the age of 58 in the later one.

People born in the 1880s and 1890s were prime age for service in the Great War, but still young enough to play a role in the Second World War — and old enough to have children who served and sometimes died in the 1939-1945 conflict.

——— ———

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers — and consequently the revenue we receive — we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Alistair Bushe

Editor