Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland

Ireland was the location of the earliest comprehensive public provision for the care and control of the mentally ill. Between 1817 and 1870 the British government in Ireland directed the establishment of 22 district lunatic asylums throughout the country. Initially welcomed, discontent with the institutions grew with the growth of asylum admissions after the Famine and the failure of the asylum to restore more than a small proportion of inmates to society. Political battles between central and local government developed on the question of financial and administrative responsibility for the mentally ill. Originally published in 1981, this book examines the crisis through an analysis of the social function and context of the asylum. Institutionalisation of a growing proportion of the Irish population proceeded particularly through judicial committal. A law which had been intended only for the detention of the ‘dangerous lunatic’ became the routine mode of dealing with a variety of ills from alcoholism to domestic violence.

About the Author

Mark Finnane is Professor of History at Griffith University, Australia. His doctoral research on mental illness, published in Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland (1981), is the foundation for his later work on the history of policing, punishment and criminal justice in Australia and Ireland. His books include Police and government (1994), Punishment in Australian Society (1997) and (co-authored with Heather Douglas) Indigenous Crime and Settler Law: White Sovereignty after Empire (2012). Most recently he edited A Global History of Crime and Punishment: in the Age of Empire (2023). With the support of an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (2013-18) he established and directs the Prosecution Project (https://prosecutionproject.griffith.edu.au/