28/07/2025
The Jackie Clarke Collection presents its fourth article celebrating the lives and achievements of the lesser known women in our great nation’s history. Today we are looking at the life of Brigid Lyons (Thornton), Republican Soldier, Pioneering Doctor and the first woman to be commissioned into the Irish Army.
Brigid Lyons was born in 1896 into a poor farming family in County Roscommon. Her family were devoted Republicans and her father Patrick had been active during the land wars and was jailed in Sligo in the 1880’s. Brigid was very academically gifted and excelled in her formative years at school. However, her family were financially unable to provide her with a secondary education, so she was sent to live with her Uncle and Aunt, Frank and Kate McGuinness, who were able to pay for her continued education.
Young Brigid had set her heart on becoming a doctor and despite opposition from her family, both due to financial considerations and because she was a woman, Brigid won a scholarship to attend University College Galway to study medicine. Whilst still in her teens, Brigid joined Cumman na mBan and despite still being in the midst of her medical training, became an active operative of the organisation. In 1916, upon hearing the news of the uprising, Brigid, her uncle and others travelled to Dublin to join the rebellion.
When they arrived Brigid was dispatched to the Four Courts, where she used some of her rudimentary medical training to tend to the wounded and provide much needed sustenance to the exhausted soldiers. Following the surrender by Padraig Pearse, Brigid and her Cumman na mBan comrades were arrested and detained, first at Richmond Barracks and later at Kilmainham Gaol. It was said that from their cells, the women could hear the shots ring out as the leaders of the rebellion were all executed.
Following her release, Brigid returned to her medical studies, all the while continuing with her anti British activities. She qualified as a Doctor and graduated in 1922. Michael Collins offered Brigid a commission in the new Irish Free State Army, which she accepted and became the first female army officer ever to be commissioned.
Brigid met and married Captain Edward Thornton in 1925. Due to both her own and her husband’s frequent bouts of Tuberculosis, Brigid became a leading light in the fight to cure the disease. She pioneered the now famous BCG vaccination, which helped to almost completely rid Ireland of the often fatal infection. Sadly Edward Thornton died in 1946, leaving Brigid a widow. They had no children.
Brigid spent the rest of her life fighting against disease, poverty and injustice, becoming a volunteer, lecturer and advocate for women’s rights. In later life she became involved in the Medical Benevolent Fund and after she retired, took up research at Trinity College Dublin. Brigid died in 1987 and was buried with a guard of honour salute next to her beloved husband in Toomore Cemetery, Foxford.
Once again in Dr. Brigid Lyons-Thornton, we see a woman of immense courage and determination, undeterred by her impoverished beginnings. She worked tirelessly to achieve her goals. Brigid sought not only to improve her own life, but the lives of those around her, all the while fighting alongside her fellow country men and women for a free and fair Ireland. I think you will agree, another brave and incredible lady whose story deserves to be remembered in our great Nation’s history!
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