Adapting: The life, times and globetrotting adventures of an Irish nurse

Book cover of Adapting by Mary Holliday

Adapting: The life, times and globetrotting adventures of an Irish nurse

Author: Mary Holliday

Publisher: Leschenault Press

Adapting is the story of Mary Holliday, an Irish nurse whose desire to do more than get married, have children, and remain in “priest-ridden Ireland” sees her travel the world. Her descriptions of her early training and work as a nurse in the UK, her experiences in Zambia, Kenya and South Africa, and the culture shock of arriving in Australia, where nurses were far more restricted in their practice than they were in Africa, are eye-opening, shocking and entertaining by turns. The book has a very Irish yarning tone, however the frequent and unexplained change of points of view is disconcerting in places. This memoir is an interesting eye-witness account of changing expectations of women in particular, as well as the experiences of the Irish diaspora in the 70s and 80s.