Mary Baird (nurse)

Mary Baird (1907 to 2009) was a Northern Irish nurse and health service administrator who worked as Northern Ireland's first health visitor. Born in Belfast, she trained as a nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital from 1927, trained as a midwife at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, and in 1931 joined Belfast's public health department as one of the first health visitors appointed after the Local Government Act 1929, running child and maternity care and clubs for mothers. She joined the Territorial Army Nursing Service, was called up to Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service in 1941, and was among the first nurses to land in France at the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches in 1944, nursing casualties in field hospitals as the army advanced. Returning to Belfast in 1946, she headed community nursing services and became Superintendent Nursing Officer in 1948, helped steer the city through the creation of the National Health Service, chaired the Northern Ireland branch of the Royal College of Nursing, and received an MBE in 1964. She died aged 102.