Dorothy Price

Who was Dorothy Price?

Dorothy Stopford Price was an Irish physician who contributed to the elimination of childhood tuberculosis in Ireland by introducing the BCG vaccine. Her father was Jemmett Stopford, who was descended from a long line of Church of Ireland clerics. Her mother was Constance Kennedy, a Protestant, whose father was Dr Evory Kennedy, a master of the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, from 1833-1840. Her aunt was historian Alice Stopford Green. Dorothy lived through two World Wars, the Spanish Influenza pandemic, the 1916 Rising in Ireland, and the foundation of a new Irish state. She was brought up as a child of the British Empire, living in Dublin and, later, moving to London. Dorothy spent Easter 1916 as a guest of Sir Matthew Nathan, the British Under-Secretary. While residing there, she had a unique view of the Easter Rising as seen by the British administration in Ireland. Her Easter 1916 diary is in the Irish National Library, Dublin. After the Rising, Dorothy began to question her political allegiances and converted to Irish nationalism.

She was a medical student in Trinity College Dublin from 1916 to 1921.