Iris Cummins

Iris Ashley Cummins (6 June 1894 – 30 April 1968) was the first female engineer to graduate University College Cork (UCC) and was also an international hockey player.

Two of her brothers also became doctors; one, N. Marshall Cummins, was involved in setting up the first blood transfusion service in Cork.

In 1924 she founded a private practice in the city and worked there until 1927 at which time she was appointed to the Irish Land Commission in Dublin.

Based on her own Irish university experience, it laid out the practicalities of studies as well as social interactions likely to be encountered by a woman thinking of training as a civil engineer.

In this article, she recounted a tale of encountering the "oldest Inhabitant" of a very rural area, a proud owner of two fine horses, who on discovering "you must be an engineer, so would ye mind mending the electric light in the mare's stable?