Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T15:59:11.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Learning disability and forensic mental healthcare in 19th century Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2014

Brendan D Kelly
Brendan D Kelly*
Affiliation:
Department of Adult Psychiatry, University College Dublin, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, 62/63 Eccles Street, Dublin 7, Ireland
*
Correspondence E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Irish College of Psychiatrists recently reported that “the needs of people with learning disability and offending behaviour pose a huge challenge to service providers. The vulnerability of people with a learning disability who come into contact with the criminal justice system is well described and noted.” The College noted that “the population with learning disability who offend does not easily fit into existing services” and reported that “the majority of service providers strongly supported the urgent development of a forensic learning disability service.”

The challenges presented by individuals with learning disability and offending behaviour are not specific to Ireland or to this period in history. The purpose of the present paper is to explore issues related to learning disability and offending behaviour in 19th- and early 20th-century Ireland.

More specifically, this paper presents original, previously unpublished case material from the archival medical records of the Central Mental Hospital, Dublin in order to illustrate specific aspects of the institutional experience of individuals with learning disability who were charged with offending behaviour in nineteenth-century Ireland.

The Central Mental Hospital, Dublin was established as the Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum in 1845 under the provisions of the Lunatics Asylums (Ireland) Act (1845). Individuals were to be committed to the Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum if they were declared ‘guilty but insane’ at time of trial or offence, or if they developed mental illness and became difficult to manage while in detention elsewhere. The Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum opened its doors to admissions in 1850 and by 1853 there were 69 male and 40 female inpatients.

Type
Historical
Information
Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 2008 , pp. 116 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Irish College of Psychiatrists. People with a learning disability who offend: forgiven but forgotten? (Occasional Paper OP63). Dublin: Irish College of Psychiatrists, 2008.Google Scholar
2.Myers, F. On the Borderline?People with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders in Secure Forensic and Other Specialist Settings. Edinburgh: The Stationery Office/Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health, 2004.Google Scholar
3.Digby, A. Contexts and perspectives. In: Wright, D, Digby, A (eds). From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities (Studies in the Social History of Medicine). London & New York: Routledge, 1996: 1–21Google Scholar
4.Smith, C. The Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin. In: Bluglass, R, Bowden, P (eds). Principles and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1990:1351–1353Google Scholar
5.Williamson, A. Psychiatry, moral management and the origins of social policy for mentally ill people in Ireland. Ir J Med Sci 1992; 161: 556–558.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
6.Reuber, M. The architecture of psychological management: The Irish asylums. Psychol Med 1996; 26: 1179–1189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7.Cherry, S, Munting, R. ‘Exercise is the thing’? Sport and the Asylum c 1850-1950. Int J Hist Sport 2005; 22: 42–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.Kelly, BD. One hundred years ago: The Richmond Asylum, Dublin in 1907. Ir J Psychol Med 2007; 24: 108–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9.Inspector of Lunatics (Ireland). The Forty-Second Report (With Appendices) of the Inspector of Lunatics (Ireland). Dublin: Thorn 4 Co./Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1893.Google Scholar
10.Walsh, D. The ups and downs of schizophrenia in Ireland. Ir J Psychiatry 1992; 13: 12–16.Google Scholar
11.Torrey, EF, Miller, J. The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
12.Finnane, P. Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland London: Croon Helm, 1981.Google Scholar
13.McGarry, RC, McGarry, P. Please pass the strychnine: the art of Victorian Pharmacy. Can Med Assoc J 1999; 161: 1556–1558.Google ScholarPubMed
14.Buckingham, J. Bitter Nemesis: The Intimate History of Strychnine. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (Taylor and Francis Group), 2008.Google Scholar
15.Aronson, JK. An Account of the Foxglove and Its Medical Uses, 1785-1985: Incorporating a Facsimile of William Withering's “An Account of the Foxglove and Some of Its Uses” (1785). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
16.Hodgson, B. In the Arms of Morpheus: The Tragic History of Morphine, Laudanum and Patent Medicines. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books (US) Inc, 2001.Google Scholar
17. Richmond Asylum Joint Committee. Richmond Asylum Joint Committee Minutes. Dublin: Richmond Asylum, 1907.Google Scholar
18.Walsh, O. Gender and insanity in nineteenth-century Ireland. Clio Medica 2004; 73: 69–93.Google ScholarPubMed
19.Atkinson, D, Jackson M, Walmsley, J. Introduction: Methods and Themes. In: Atkinson, D, Jackson, M, Walmsley, J (eds). Forgotten Lives: Exploring the History of Learning Disability. Worcestershire, UK: British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD), 1997: 1–20Google Scholar
20.Dale, P, Melling, J. The politics of mental welfare: Fresh perspectives on the history of institutional care for the mentally ill and disabled. In: Dale, P, Melling, J (eds). Mental Illness and Learning Disability: Finding a Place for Mental Disorder in the United Kingdom (Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine). London & New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2006:1–23Google Scholar
21.Simmons, HG. Explaining social policy: the English Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. J Soc Hist 1978; 11:387–403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
22.Gladstone, D. The changing dynamic of institutional care: the Western Counties Idiot Asylum, 1864-1914. In: Wright, D, Digby, A (eds). From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities (Studies in the Social History of Medicine). London & New York: Routledge, 1996: 134–160Google Scholar
23.Jackson, M. Institutional provision for the feeble-minded in Edwardian England: Sandlebridge and the scientific morality of permanent care. In: Wright, D, Digby, A (eds). From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities (Studies in the Social History of Medicine). London & New York: Routledge, 1996:161–183Google Scholar
24.Expert Group on Mental Health Policy. A Vision for Change. Dublin: The Stationery Office, 2006.Google Scholar