Negotiating insanity in the southeast of Ireland, 1820-1900 / Catherine Cox.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cox, Catherine, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mentally ill--Care--Ireland--History--19th century.

Mentally ill.

Psychiatric hospitals--Ireland--History--19th century.

Psychiatric hospitals.

Workhouses--History.

Workhouses.

Hospitals, Psychiatric--history.

Mentally Ill Persons--history.

Commitment of Mentally Ill--history.

Mental Health Services--history.

History.

Mentally ill--Care.

Ireland.

Medical Subjects:

Hospitals, Psychiatric--history.

Mentally Ill Persons--history.

Commitment of Mentally Ill--history.

Mental Health Services--history.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 276 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Summary:

This study uses Carlow asylum district in the southeast of Ireland - comprised of counties Wexford, Kildare, Kilkenny and Carlow - to explore the 'place of the asylum' in the nineteenth century. It assesses medical, lay and legal negotiations with the asylum system, deepening our understanding of protagonists' attitudes towards the mentally ill and of institutional provision for the care and containment of people diagnosed as 'insane'. The book also provides insights into life in asylums for patients and staff, while, uniquely, it expands the analytical focus beyond the asylum to interrogate the impact that the Irish poor law, petty sessions courts and medical dispensaries had upon the provision of services. Drawing on a diverse and under-utilised range of source material, this book is an important addition to the historiography of mental health in Ireland. This fascinating volume will be of particular interest to scholars of nineteenth-century Ireland, the history of psychiatry and medicine in Britain and Ireland, Irish studies and gender studies. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Shaping the Irish asylum system 1

2 Expansion and demand 34

3 Routes into the asylums 73

4 Insanity on display: Magistrates, doctors and families, 1840-70 97

5 Households and institutionalisation 133

6 Workhouses and the mentally ill 169

7 Inside the asylums 195

8 Conclusion 240.

Notes:

Includes bibliographic references and index.

ISBN:

9780719075032

0719075033

OCLC:

793688763