This book explores local medical, lay and legal negotiations with the asylum system in nineteenth-century Ireland. It deepens our understanding of protagonists’ attitudes towards the mentally ill and institutional provision for the care and containment of people diagnosed as insane. Uniquely, it expands the analytical focus beyond asylums incorporating the impact the Irish poor law, petty session courts and medical dispensaries had on the provision of services. It provides insights into life in asylums for patients and staff. Unlike previous work, this study uses Carlow asylum district – comprised of counties Wexford, Kildare, Kilkenny and Carlow in the southeast of Ireland – to explore the ‘place of the asylum’ in nineteenth century Ireland. It will therefore make an important addition to undergraduate and postgraduate reading listings.

The study draws on a range of source material including the records of two nineteenth-century asylums – Carlow and Enniscorthy – poor law and workhouse records, and legal records. It also makes extensive use of official and medical publications in addition to newspapers coverage of court hearings. Finally, surviving correspondence from asylum patients and their relatives are assessed. This range of material is drawn upon to produce a sophisticated qualitative and quantitative study.

This book will be useful for scholars of nineteenth-century Ireland, the history of psychiatry and medicine in Britain and Ireland, Irish studies and gender studies.