Template Cover Sheet Which Must Be Included at the Front of All Projects
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Template cover sheet which must be included at the front of all projects Title of project: Dr. Ada English: Innovator and Revolutionary Category for which you wish to be entered (i.e. Revolution in Ireland, Ireland and World War 1, Women’s history or a Local/Regional category Women’s history in Ireland during the Revolutionary Period Name(s) of class / group of students / individual student submitting the project Maitiú Breathnach School roll number (this should be provided if possible) 60540V School type (primary or post-primary) Post-primary School name and address (this must be provided even for projects submitted by a group of pupils or an individual pupil): Catholic University School, 89 Leeson Street Lower, Dublin 2. Class teacher’s name (this must be provided both for projects submitted by a group of pupils or an individual pupil): Stephen Tonge Teacher’s contact phone number: 087-268 5576 Teacher’s contact email address [email protected] Page|1 Photo of Staff 1917(Dr Ada English in centre of first row) 1 It’s always a pleasure to encounter an individual who for the most part has been ignored or forgotten about on a wider, national scale. I discovered such a reality within the exemplary Dr Ada English of Cahersiveen in County Kerry who conscientiously and rather selflessly dedicated nearly four decades of her life to the paramount care of Ireland’s mentally afflicted. Dr Ada English is unique in many regards, being involved in the cohort of the earliest female doctors in Ireland as well as becoming one of the original female psychiatrists in Ireland. What is particularly remarkable about Ada English was her tenacity to overcome the abundant challenges presented to her and her inherent integrity in all matters. This was particularly apparent from her stances in the Second Dáil (16 August 1921 until 8 June 1922) to the wide scale development of recreational activities including gardening and sports under her direction for 1 Image courtesy of Helen Butler Page|2 patients receiving psychiatric care at Ballinasloe District Asylum during the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s. Her steadfast advocacy for the reform of mental health legislation further consolidates this. Ada’s revolutionary footprint is also significant in terms of the multiple roles she played in this defining period of Irish history. This was demonstrated within her position as medical officer to Liam Mellows throughout the insurgency in Galway during the Easter Rising, her reported presidency of the Cumann na mBan branch in Ballinasloe (Béal Átha na Sluaighe) on the 3rd of March 1918 , the assistance she provided to the IRA during the War of Independence, her subsequent arrest in 1921, her election to the second Dáil as one of the first female TDs, her staunch opposition to the Treaty and Anti-Treaty orientation during the civil war. She also cultivated a profound interest and fluency in the Irish language and cultural nationalism having been a student of Pádraig Pearse. In all it is exasperating to think of how until quite recently she was a quite distant, neglected and nearly forgotten figure. Early Life Ada was exposed to adverse scenes of mental anguish and despair at quite a young age as her grandfather was the master of the Oldcastle Workhouse in County Meath. Seeing what the impoverished people had to endure in terms of living in the circumstances of overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and their respective mental turmoil was likely an underlying factor in her future choice of career. Ada was a studious youth who was quite fortunate to go to secondary school at the Loreto Convent in Mullingar in 1881 considering very few individuals at this stage went to secondary school at all. Girls themselves were only granted access to second level education following the 1878 Intermediate Education Act. She had moved to the town when she was just Page|3 over a year old on account of her father’s job as a pharmacist. Thankfully she performed quite well in her exams and was able to study medicine, graduating from the Royal University in Dublin in 1903. What was notable in particular about Ada was her strength in navigating her way around the paternalistic and chauvinistic attitudes present around her. Admission to medical school for women had only been the case since the Medical Qualifications act of 1876, which removed legal restrictions for women wishing to study medicine. In 1885 The R.C.S.I became the first medical establishment to permit women to attend lectures in both Great Britain and Ireland The mentalities of those opposed to such moves were contained within Dr Rivington’s pamphlet of 1879, “The Medical Profession” in which he referred to the “profane attempt”2 of women to enter what he considered to be “the sacred precincts of the medical profession”3. It appeared to be “sacred” in his mind given the noticeable absence of women in medicine until this point, a status quo which he believed should be maintained. He also went on to claim that “the professional mind appears to be unable to contemplate with calmness the near prospect of actually existing female doctors”.4 As if such outbursts themselves aren’t demeaning and virulent enough he also includes the inherently misogynistic statement as to how “women’s disabilities are too many to allow more than a few to adopt the medical profession as a livelihood”.5 Thankfully Dr English was an individual who had the capacity to withstand such prevailing attitudes which existed around her during the time of her training and proceeding medical career. 2 B.D. Kelly, Ada English: Patriot and Psychiatrist (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2014), 8. 3 ibid 4 ibid 5 ibid Page|4 6 Consolidating females’ position in Medicine and Ada’s arrival at Ballinasloe Having already trained briefly in Richmond Asylum, The Mater Misericodiae and Temple Street Hospital, Dr English arrived as the second assistant medical officer in Ballinasloe District Asylum in 1904. Chronic overcrowding of the 1,293 patients (519 female, 774 male) greeted her there. As a result of this situation the spread of diseases such as TB in particular and typhoid often reached endemic levels, a reality once characteristic of asylums such as Grangegorman and Richmond. The conditions at the time nationwide in asylums were so abysmal that it was the case that tuberculosis(TB) alone accounted for 25% of deaths in Irish asylums in 1901.7 6 http://www.geograph.ie/photo/4620810 7 See B.D. Kelly, Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2016), 77. Page|5 Ada was significantly aware of the effect of adverse unsanitary conditions on her new patients and recognised the underlying need to address these issues to improve both the therapeutic environment of the asylum and the general physical health of her patients. Such desires alongside her determination to expand the role in which women played in medicine can be viewed within her membership of the Medico- Psychological Association (later the Royal College of Psychiatrists) from 1911- 1921. As part of the M.P.A she helped to both encourage and pursue communication between doctors working in the asylum environment with the ambition of improving the quality of care for patients. Dr English was particularly progressive in this sense, considering the first female member of the association, Dr Eleonora Fleury had only been admitted in 1894. This aspect of her advancement of women in academic eyes in medicine was also apparent within her position as statutory lecturer in “Mental Diseases”8 in University College Galway from 1914 until 1943. In doing so not only did she further alter perceptions towards women and their suitability for professional roles but also increased her knowledge of psychiatric illnesses, an element she would be able to utilise in the future. She also further displayed her resolve for the empowerment of women within medicine when she participated as the honorary secretary of the Women’s National Health Association in 1908 in Ballinasloe town, “the first branch to be established in Galway”.9 As noted before Dr English understood the negative effects resulting from overcrowding in terms of the spread of diseases. To combat this, she applied for the post of “Tuberculosis Officer of Roscommon”10 in 1913 which would 8 Ibid, 149. 9 B.D. Kelly, Ada English: Patriot and Psychiatrist, 63. 10Ibid, 61 Page|6 enable her to observe multiple cases of the disease and therefore come to a hypothesis of how to best prevent its spread. Unluckily she failed to obtain it and due to scarcity of funds and space a separate TB designated ward within the hospital was not established until February 1940 with Dr English as acting Resident Medical Superintendent. Consistent overcrowding plagued Ada throughout her time in Ballinasloe for example in 1922 1,482 patients were present within the asylum.11 Societal attitudes towards the “Asylum” system in the 1910s and 1920s The esteem in which Ada held her patients was remarkably different from society at the time. Such a sombre and bleak reality can be viewed within the Dangerous Lunatics Act, which was passed in 1838. This law which initially applied to Ireland alone and allowed individuals to be involuntarily detained in Asylums an account of testimonies of relatives or other familiar people relating to alleged present mental disorders. Inciting evidence often could be as basic as a “mere peculiarity of behaviour or expression”.12 This system itself was often exploited and asylums essentially became proverbial dumping grounds for those who were ostracised or dismissed by society. Due to the overcrowded nature of the local gaols and work houses at the time many were transferred to asylums such as Ballinasloe.