History
This chapter demonstrates Irishmen fighting in the same uniform as their British comrades also experienced similar psychoneurotic afflictions. However, it was how such instances amongst Irish troops were perceived which was unique. This chapter establishes that the British military establishment believed the Irish Tommy was especially susceptible to war neuroses. This discernment was a continuation of long-held anti-Irish perceptions amongst Britons that the Irish were immature, emotionally volatile and susceptible to mental illness. This assessment had helped to legitimise British imperialism in Ireland. Simultaneous to the continuation of such anti-Irish prejudices, however, this chapter also offers a considerate analysis of the Ministry of Pensions’ early rehabilitative attempts in Britain and Ireland between 1914 and 1921. Exclusive in-patient and out-patient treatment was provided in Ministry hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. This infrastructure was far more progressive and innovative than has been previously assumed. Infrastructure in ‘South Ireland’, however, was fatally compromised. The region experienced far higher waiting lists for neurasthenic pensioners awaiting in-patient and out-patient treatment in the United Kingdom. Ministry of Pensions officials in London attributed these inflated figures to the supposition that the Irish were predisposed to mental illness.
This introduction outlines the development of shell-shock as a diagnosis and establishes its position in the historiography of the First World War. It demonstrates that no study has addressed the experience of Irish men who suffered from psychoneurotic ailments as a result of war service. The introduction explains the reluctance of previous works to engage with Ireland by highlighting a perceived dearth in archival materials and the distinguishing features of the political and socio-economic circumstances in Ireland. It delineates the reasons for the methodological choices made in writing the book and explains its chapter structure. The book aims to widen the traditional interpretation of shell-shock by challenging the assumption that the experiences of mentally ill veterans in Ireland are unquantifiable and untraceable. The unique socio-political and economic circumstances in Ireland ensures the Irish experience of post-war mental illness and disability does not reflect previous British-centric works. The post-war care and rehabilitation of mentally disabled British Army veterans in inter-war Ireland were heavily influenced by bio-psycho, socio-economic, cultural and political concerns. This thesis will become evident in the book’s five ensuing chapters.
This chapter demonstrates that qualitative and quantitative evidence differentiating Ireland from UK must be contextualised within larger societal, economic and administrative frameworks. Rather than an Irish biological disposition to mental illness, it was the ongoing Anglo-Irish War, 1919–1921, which explains the high waiting list figures amongst neurasthenic pensioners in ‘South Ireland’. The guerrilla conflict caused much disruption in the rehabilitation of disabled Great War veterans. This chapter also comprehends the psychological impact this traumatising homecoming would have had on returning Great War veterans. The opportunity to work and provide for oneself was a fundamental component in the Ministry’s rehabilitation of disabled pensioners. Further discrimination attached itself to Irish men who had served in a British Army uniform, now viewed by many in increasingly nationalist areas of Ireland as an oppressive and occupying force. The lack of societal appreciation, training and treatment facilities increased the likelihood of unemployment amongst Irish Great War veterans which, in turn, intensified psychoneurotic symptoms and increased the likelihood of veterans turning to the Ministry for relief or applying to the department for medical treatment. The revolutionary period ensured that Ireland was the least suitable area in the United Kingdom for a mentally ill veteran to return to.
Chapter 3 examines the subsequent experience of the mentally ill Great War veteran in the newly established Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Regardless of the diplomatic change in Anglo-Irish relations, this chapter demonstrates that 1922 should be seen as a crucial fracture in any analysis of shell-shock. The year witnessed the publication of the War Office Report into Shell-Shock. Emphasising longstanding theories of predisposition and hereditary degeneration in the causation of shell-shock, the report helped to shut down the shell-shock debate. In the aftermath of this account, little research and few publications were directed to war-induced neuroses or the plight of the mentally ill veteran in the UK. This pessimism coincided with the infamous ‘Geddes Axe’ enforcing a host of tax increases and economic cutbacks in the UK public sector. This austere management of public economies included Ministry of Pensions’ domestic policy; from 1922 onwards, there was a dramatic reduction in exclusive Ministry-run medical facilities, including facilities providing progressive and innovative psychotherapeutic treatment. There was a resulting assumption amongst medical and pensions officials that the neurasthenic pensioner could not be cured. Instead, mentally ill veterans were largely ‘pensioned off’ with little state intervention to aid their recovery.
Insane ex-servicemen admitted into a district asylum were officially designated as ‘Service Patients’. They were treated akin to private patients with the Ministry of Pensions providing the necessary finance. This chapter examines the experiences of insane Great War veterans under treatment in the post-war Irish district lunatic asylum. Legislation and public perception of the mentally ill remaining relatively conservative throughout the inter-war period. Like the vast majority of civilian patients, many Service Patients remained in the asylum long term where containment, rather than cure, remained the primary concern of the care provided. Modifications to the Service Patient scheme occurred in Britain in the mid-1920s. Due to public and political pressure, all insane Great War veterans were incorporated into the system regardless of whether their insanity had been judged attributable to their former war service. Crucially, however, this policy was not extended to Ireland due to the comparative lack of societal concern and political lobbying. Ireland’s experience does not reflect the British experience of neuroses. This chapter magnifies how lobbying, public relations and financial interests shaped Ministry policy and its rehabilitation of disabled Great War veterans.
Shell-shocked British Army veterans in Ireland, 1918–39: A difficult homecoming tells the story of Irish veterans of the First World War who suffered from psychoneurotic ailments as a result of war service. Relying on previously untouched and newly released archival material, this monograph is a thematic analysis dedicated to the rehabilitation of mentally ill pensioners who returned to civil society and those who received institutional treatment. The unique socio-political and economic circumstances in Ireland ensures the Irish experience of post-war mental illness and disability does not reflect previous British-centric works. This case study argues that the post-war care and rehabilitation of mentally ill veterans of the Great War was dictated by unique bio-psycho, socio-economic, cultural and political concerns.
Chapter 4 analyses soldier-patients who were treated in the Richmond War Hospital in Dublin. The thirty-two-bed hospital, set up in an adjunct building of the Richmond District Asylum, was reserved for the exclusive treatment of psychoneurotic casualties of the First World War. It was innovative in the context of Irish mental health care with patients remaining under ‘observation’ in an exclusive military facility without being diagnosed as insane. War hospitals were established to cater for physical injuries, and all soldier-patients wore ‘Hospital Blues’ regardless of their ailment. For the first time, mental illness was deemed treatable in its early stages and was placed on an equal footing to physical wounds. This elevation of status would prove crucial. The war years were witness to a reduction in staff, financial investment and provisions and overcrowding in the public asylums across Ireland. This resulted in a reduced standard of care and a subsequent increase in patient mortalities. Crucially, soldier-patients at the superior RWH were spared this fate due to their segregation from pauper lunatics.
Very few parish registers survive from Early Modern Ireland, and those that do have rarely been systematically exploited by scholars. This chapter addresses this lacuna in the historiography of Early Modern Ireland by paying close attention to the Church of Ireland registers from Youghal, Co. Cork in the period 1660–1720. It sets out what the registers can tell us about births and deaths in the town, as well as the apparent impact of disease and epidemics in an urban setting. The chapter explores causes of death and also offers a case study of birth patterns in one family.
The Edward Worth Library is the single most important medical collection surviving from early modern Ireland. This chapter provides an analysis of the make-up of Worth’s library and exploits surviving sales catalogues to reconstruct the networks whereby Worth pursued rare books from his base in Dublin. The particular strengths evident in the library, for example in relation to the works of Isaac Newton and his followers, are carefully considered. The significance of Leiden as a centre of learning and of Dutch publishing as a source for Worth’s books are also explored.
This collection offers important new insights across a broad range of topics relating to medicine in Early Modern Ireland. Of particular note is the substantial attention devoted to the years before 1750, a period that has been relatively neglected in studies of Irish medicine. The book brings together an exciting selection of established scholars, such as Peter Elmer and Clodagh Tait, as well as a number of early career historians. Their work effectively situates Irish medicine in relation to long-term social and cultural change on the island, as well as to appropriate international contexts, encompassing Britain, Europe and the Atlantic World. The chapters also engage in various ways with important aspects of the historiography of medicine in the twenty-first century. Among the key subjects addressed by the contributors are Gaelic medicine, warfare, the impact of new medical ideas, migration, patterns of disease, midwifery and childbirth, book collecting, natural history, and urban medicine. A common thread running through the chapters is the focus on medical practitioners. The book accordingly enables significant new understanding of the character of medical practise in Early Modern Ireland. This collection will be of interest to academics and students of the history of Early Modern medicine. It also contains much that will be essential reading for historians of Ireland.