On 10 March 2023, Archiving Reproductive Health held a Public Collection Day. At this event, members of the public were invited to digitise a cross-section of personal memorabilia relating to the history of the Eighth Amendment, and of the history of reproductive health in Ireland more generally. The digitisation was carried out by the digitisation company Informa.
This collection contains professional and personal effects of a midwife active in Fingal, County Dublin, in the early years of the 20th century. Nurse Mary Ann Fanning (1880 - 1964) worked in the Garristown area and beyond between the 1890s and the 1940s. The collection includes her midwife's bag and its contents, including catheters, pumps, medication and medical records books. Also included are qualification certificates in midwifery, photographs of Nurse Fanning, and other personal effects. The ARH project thanks the family of Mary Ann Fanning for donating this material for digitisation and long-term preservation.
