Date of Birth: 2nd August 1937

Place of Birth: Monck Street, Wexford

Date Interviewed: 4th August 2011

Summary: Peggy Mernagh shares her many memories of growing up in Wexford town during the 1940s and 1950s. In her early teens she was diagnosed with TB and spent two years in Brownswood Hospital in Enniscorthy. Peggy gives details of the daily routine and treatment the patients had to cope with. One highlight was the stream of letters that passed from the women’s ward to the men’s ward on the floor above. They were never allowed to see the men – the letters passed up and down on pieces of string! She recalls the sad times when an empty bed meant that someone had died during the night. Peggy took up a nursing career in England and raised a family in the UK, but she still regards Wexford as home. The interview concludes with Peggy reading one of her own poems – a nostalgic reminder of happy days spent near Wexford’s Carrig River.