to the general mass of the community are least in Connaught, being but 1 in 1,022, and greatest in Leinster, where they amount to as many as 1 in 484. The returns of the province of Connaught exhibits a remarkable immunity from both Lunacy and Idiocy. In Ulster we find a proportion of 1 in 679, and in Munster 1 in 729. It would appear that Lunatics prevail most in the cities, but this arises in part from Asylums being located therein, many of the inmates belonging to which could not, from want of proper information on the subject, be distributed according to their native places. Among the counties, the greatest number of Lunatics, in proportion to their populations, were to be found in Dublin, Wexford, Carlow, Westmeath, and Kildare. Idiocy was found to prevail most in Louth, Kildare, Wexford, Monaghan, and Cavan. Both classes taken together prevailed most in the counties of Wexford, Dublin, Kildare, Westmeath, Louth, Queen’s [Laois] and Longford. With respect to the sexes, we find among the Lunatics 100 males to 102.72 females, and of the Idiotic class 100 males to 84.02 females.205
The report went on to analyse ‘2,164 cases in which the cause of disease has been investigated, and an opinion offered thereon’.206 Proposed causes were grouped into three categories: ‘physical causes’ (44 per cent, with males outnumbering females), ‘moral causes’ (39 per cent, with females outnumbering males) and ‘hereditary taint or family predisposition’ (17 per cent, with females again outnumbering males). ‘Physical causes’ included ‘congenital disease’ (‘specified as malformation of head, and composed chiefly of Idiots’), ‘intemperance’, ‘epilepsy’, ‘disease of the brain’, ‘paralysis’, ‘fever’, ‘injuries of head’, ‘puerperal mania’, ‘the effects of climate, including sunstrokes’, ‘disease of the brain’ (owing to ‘cerebral affection’), ‘mercury’, ‘uterine derangement’, ‘venereal excess’, ‘dyspepsia’, ‘rape and seduction’, and ‘violent hysteria’. ‘Moral causes’ included ‘grief’, ‘reverse of fortune’, ‘love and jealousy’, ‘terror’, ‘religious excitement’, ‘study’, ‘anger or excessive passion’, ‘ill-treatment’, ‘anxiety’, ‘pride and ambition’, ‘political excitement’, ‘music’, and ‘remorse’.
In some cases, information was provided on specific diagnoses:
Among the insane, Mania was the form of disease manifested in about four-fifths of the whole: of these 669 instances were induced by moral, and 400 by physical causes, while 222 were attributed to hereditary taint. In 44 cases the Mania was of a suicidal character, grief and reverse of fortune being the chief causes which conduced to this phase of disease. Out of 417 persons affected with Dementia, in 73 cases the disease was attributed to moral, and in 69 to physical causes; while in 32 it was traced to hereditary disposition.207
This diversity of cause and diagnosis was reflected in asylum case books for many decades to follow.208 The 1854 report also provided a brief, fascinating account of the ‘origin and history of public Asylums for Lunatics and Idiots in Ireland’209 and a valuable summary of ‘popular and Gaelic terms for Insanity and Idiocy’:
Insanity is known under the synonymes and popular terms of mania, monomania, dementia, puerperal mania, madness, lunacy, melancholy, dejection, derangement, out of the mind; and among the Irish-speaking population, as Gealtaigheacht, when the madness is believed to result from lunar influence; when the insanity is of a violent and furious character, Dasaht; but Buile or Baile are the terms applied to madness generally.
The number of wandering Idiots in Ireland have frequently been remarked upon; and the fact of this class being regarded by the lower orders with somewhat of a superstitious veneration, has rather encouraged their exposure than the contrary. The analogous terms for Idiocy are fatuous, foolish, simple, silly, an innocent, an idiot, &c. In Irish, the term Baosradh, or silliness, is frequently employed, but the terms in more general use are Amadanacht and Oinsigheacht, the former expressive of Idiocy in the male, and the latter in the female sex.210
Commission of Inquiry on the State of Lunatic Asylums in Ireland (1858): ‘Places Merely for the Secure Detention of Lunatics’
Against the background of the consolidating asylum system, and the alarming information provided by Wilde and colleagues in their vivid 1854 report, there were, throughout the 1850s, continual complaints about asylum conditions in Ireland, so in 1856 a fresh commission of inquiry was established by the government to look into the matter yet again, for the umpteenth time.211 The commission assembled in Dublin on 16 October 1856 and comprised five persons: Sir Thomas Nicholas Reddington, who had been Irish Under-Secretary from 1846 to 1852; Robert Andrews (counsel), Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge (barrister), Dr James Wilkes (medical officer to Stafford County Lunatic Asylum) and Dr Dominic John Corrigan (physician to the Dublin House of Industry Hospitals).
Following an extensive process of investigation and inquiry, two years of work and three extensions of its deadline,212 the commission finally presented its conclusions in 1858 in the Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Lunatic Asylums and Other Institutions for the Custody and Treatment of the Insane in Ireland: with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices.213 The commission commenced by sketching out the magnitude of the problem, concluding that ‘the insane poor of Ireland, maintained at public cost, or at large’ numbered 9,286 on 1 January 1857, distributed as follows:
| In district asylums | 3,824 |
| In workhouses | 1,707 |
| In House of Industry (Hardwicke Cells),214 and at Lifford | 108 |
| In the Central Criminal Asylum | 127 |
| In gaols and government prisons | 168 |
| ‘At large and unprovided for’ | 3,352215 |
The commission went on to discuss ‘public institutions for the insane’ in some detail, examining the position of the mentally ill in district asylums, workhouses, gaols and the Central Criminal Asylum in turn. The commission devoted particular attention to the establishment of the district asylums and was sharply critical of the process:
It thus resulted that, without any communication with the Grand Juries of the several counties, or any other parties representing the ratepayers, and without any specific statement of the probable cost, to the Privy Council, who directed the establishment of these institutions in the several districts, large and expensive asylums have been erected, and the first public intimation of the charge, thereby imposed upon the district, was the warrant for the repayment of the outlay forwarded to the Grand Juries, on whom such repayment was imperative. This has naturally led to very general discontent, more especially as just cause for complaint also existed of the imperfect manner in which the works had been executed, in the asylums recently erected […].
[…] We cannot think it right that the ratepayers, or those who represent them, should be excluded from all voice in the determination of questions in which they are so deeply concerned; and although stringent enactments may be required to secure proper provision being made for the lunatic poor, yet it seems to us that it is only when the local authorities obstinately refuse to discharge their duty, in this respect, that power should be given to the Executive to supersede their action, in order that the benevolent object of the legislature may not remain unfulfilled. We shall be prepared therefore to recommend an alteration of the law in this particular, as well as in the constitution of the Central Authority, which is to superintend and direct the erection, establishment and regulation of lunatic asylums.216
The commission also recommended changes with regard to inspections. Despite the ‘zealous anxiety of the Inspectors’, the commission recommended that inspections should be annual rather than biennial, and should ‘report specifically on each institution’, rather than reporting generally.217 In addition:
The
