Emily Burke’s nursing career afforded her the opportunity to travel. In the late 1890’s she spent some time traveling with her work. She may have got the job through her family connections or with the Florence Nightingale Nurses who had branches in Europe . As Emily was fluent in a few European languages, from her schooldays she was had an added advantage to get jobs on the continent. Where or who she worked for is lost in time but in her biography by Iosold ni Dheirig, Emily M. Weddall :bunaitheoir Scoil Acla mentioned she spent some time as a nursemaid for a family that traveled to France and Germany.
Emily returned to Ireland in the early 1900’s and according to the 1901 census she lived at Waltham Terrace, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. Her occupation was a nurse and it appeared that she may have been either a nurse to the elderly man or nursemaid to his grandchildren. It is impossible to say how long she remained in that particular job, but sometime after that and before 1905 she would get the opportunity to travel again, which was a life altering experience for her.
