Principal Researcher Prof Mary E. Daly

This project explores issues surrounding maternal health in Ireland from 1870 to 1970, with particular focus on female advantage, which was the lowest in Europe. It examines the role of the Irish medical profession north and south of the border, in the dissemination of contraceptive advice and explores the impact different legislative and religious frameworks had upon the practices and policies pursued by medical professionals, individuals and families. Did medical provisions and interventions bring about an improvement in this female advantage or were non-medical actors of greater significance? What cultural contexts facilitated the acceptance and rejection of particular medical and non-medical interventions? A key aspect of this project is the collection of oral history testimony, north and south.

Related to the research on maternal health is a project on ‘Child Health and Disease’ that will explore attitudes and experiences of childhood diseases, north and south. Participants in this project include Susan Kelly at UU completed her PhD thesis on childhood TB in Northern Ireland. The Centre is developing a project on ‘Childhood Polio’, which incorporates contemporary reportage on polio, oral history of polio and the rich memoirs of survivors which will provide an insight into the meaning and incidence of polio in Ireland

Related Events

Workshop - Adolescence in Modern Irish History 
January 2010. Deadline for Abstracts is October 15, 2009 More info here.

Related Publications

Lindsay Earner-Byrne. (2007) Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Ireland, 1920s-1960s. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Lindsey Earner-Byrne, ‘Moral Prescription: The Irish Medical Profession, the Roman Catholic Church and the Prohibition of Birth Control in Twentieth-Century Ireland’ in Catherine Cox and Maria Luddy (eds) Cultures of Care in Irish Medical History, 1750-1950 (Palgrave, forthcoming, 2009).

Past Events

Symposium on Child Health in its Historical Context 
University of Ulster (Belfast Campus), May 2008

'A Medical Glamour Puss? Epidural Analgesia 
and the Contesting of British Childbirth' 
Richard Barnett, University College London 
University of Ulster (Belfast Campus), October 2007