| Description | A collection of instruments from the Hadden family medical practice in Portadown, established by William E. Hadden (1858–1949). The Hadden family is a well-known Irish medical family: William Hadden’s father, David Hadden, was a doctor in Skibbereen, County Cork, where he treated victims of the Irish Potato Famine. The instruments in this collection reflect the family's long-standing relationship with medicine, spanning multiple specialties and years—from the late 19th century to 2021.
William E. Hadden ran the practice in Portadown together with his son, Robert Evans Hadden, and daughter, Winifred Hadden. Items in the collection include tools for general practice—such as dressings, dressing bowls, syringes, trusses, splints, and pessaries—obstetrics and gynaecology (specula, sounds), infant care (breast pumps, feeders), general surgery and laboratory work (test tubes, needles, pipettes), and materia medica.
Most of the instruments datable to the late 19th century belonged to Daniel Donovan (1808–1877) of Skibbereen, a dispensary doctor who wrote detailed reports in The Southern Reporter between 1846 and 1847, documenting his daily task of helping those suffering and dying from starvation and disease.
Donated by Rachel Hadden, the history of the medical family is explored in her uncle David Hadden’s book, A Tale of Two Shipwrecks. |