The death has occurred of Dr Dermot Walsh, the long-time inspector of mental hospitals and a fierce critic of accommodation standards for long-stay psychiatric patients. This article explores expert and official interpretations of alcoholism and the drunken Irish stereotype from 1945 to 1975. Started as an ASM at Dublin's Gate Theatre. In 1919, drink was a factor in the admission of 495 (24.0%) men and 92 (6.1%) women to public asylums and 27 (16.7%) men and 11 (4.8%) women admitted to voluntary and private asylums.Footnote 107 David Nowlan, Hidden Disease Dangers: Doctors Discuss Alcohol, Irish Times, 17 May 1969, 4. Butler, Shane, Benign Anarchy: Alcoholics Anonymous in Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010), 248.Google Scholar. : The Psychiatric Panic over Alcoholism in Communist Yugoslavia, Social History of Medicine, 25, 2 (2011), 46280; Mark Lawrence Schrad, Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); James Nicholls, The Politics of Alcohol: A History of the Drink Question in England (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2009); Virginia Berridge, Demons: Our Changing Attitudes to Alcohol, Tobacco & Drugs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Although a very great deal remains to be done, I think there can be justifiable pride in what has been achieved so far.Footnote Feature Flags: { While anxieties about the apparently rising incidence of alcoholism and alcohol-related harm were not unique to Ireland,Footnote 88 The psychiatrist also drew attention to a separate analysis he had recently conducted, confirming his main findings for Dublin at a national level. By the mid-1950s, Irish commentators had begun responding to these American and English studies, both in the national press and in Irish medical journals. Updated: October 5, 2011 . Prior to independence, alcohol had ranked high among causes assigned to asylum admissions. WebDermot Walsh, who has died aged 77, starred in more than 20 such movies, and could have laid claim to be king of the quota quickies. cit. 23 Ten years later, a professor of social psychiatry, Bertham H. Roberts and professor of sociology, Jerome K. Myers at Yale University completed a prevalence study in New Haven. Published online by Cambridge University Press: McEntee premised that alcoholism was not such a grave problem in Ireland, that it was already being dealt with in mental hospitals with fairly satisfactory results and insisted he would have to wait for the Commissioners report before taking any action.Footnote Walsh calculated that Dublins male first admission rate was twice as great as the Scots and twelve times that of England and Wales, while the female rate was eight times that in England and Wales.Footnote When viewed alongside Daniel OConnells appeals to the Catholic masses in support of Emancipation, the spectre of the 1798 rebellion and the drunken violence perpetrated by both sides of the conflict loomed large.Footnote cit. 80 Butler, op. Like mania itself, it was characterised by excited or violent symptoms, and sometimes identified with delirium tremens. Mindful of potential divergences among the Irish in Ireland, he conceded that high rates of alcohol-related admissions among emigrants might be explained by the fact that those on a short drinking bout were more conspicuous in a culture with less tolerance for drunkenness. As Walsh observed in 1962, cultural associations between excessive drinking and the Irish date from over two millennia, when Plato noted the Celts as being drunken and combative.Footnote Guy hires a new engineer but Margret complains that he smokes cigars in their quarters as she can smell the smoke. But that was ruined when she came two weeks early. This research activity was initially led by Dermot Walsh. 131 While her work confirmed the image of the Irishman in England as a heavy-type drinker, she demonstrated that fewer Irish people drank than either the Irish in England or the English, giving rise to many a triumphant headline in the Irish national press. In it, he asked whether the Irish possessed a specific genetic or cultural predisposition for alcohol and described investigations on-going at Trinity to determine whether a taste for drink could be defined objectively or altered pharmacologically. It was my Princess Diana moment., Father Dougal (Ardal O'Hanlon), Father Ted (Dermot Morgan), Mrs Doyle (Pauline McLynn) and Father Jack (Frank Kelly). He went on to issue a call to arms: It seems that the time has come to combine the scientific, clinical and sociological expertise in the country to find out if it is the Irish culture which causes the Irishman to drink, of if it is the Irishmans genes which causes the American to get drunk.Footnote In only his second feature he showcased well as the philandering "Wild Johnnie" in Hungry Hill (1947). 76 They also laid waste to suggestions that high incidence of alcoholism among Irish immigrants in the United States signified high prevalence in Ireland itself.Footnote 12 Yet, in spite of the steady influx of alcohol-related cases, Irish asylum doctors were hesitant to claim expertise in the relatively newly defined and apparently incurable disease of inebriety.Footnote 8 Finnane, Mark, Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland (London: Croom Helm, 1981), 146.Google Scholar, 15 In a special documentary Dermot Morgan Fearless Funnyman, to be aired on RTE tonight, his former colleagues, pals and sons depict a frustrated, talented and loving comedy genius. (note 2), 2034; Berridge, op. The next thing was going to be infinitely better. The result is that there are many doctors who, for the sake of the patient or the patient's family, certify people as suffering from bronchitis and all sorts of diseases but never mention alcoholism, which they know is the real trouble.Footnote - IMDb Mini Biography By: Browse and contribute to New Zealand's Online Cenotaph . Rules to prevent condensation on windows - even with double glazing. As will be argued, in Ireland, these frameworks were coloured by concerns that social and cultural factors were contributing to rising levels of alcohol consumption and psychiatric admissions for alcoholism. As Butler has established, by this point internal tensions had developed within the Council between its broad membership of public and private sector psychiatrists, who were more aligned to the disease view, and other researchers and epidemiologists, who might be expected to promote the public health perspective. In his 1962 article, Walsh had proclaimed all authorities unanimous that Irish rates of alcoholism were among the 32 As will be discussed, Bales, too, remained highly influential. In January 1968, Cedric William Malcolm Wilson, a Edinburgh-born and educated Professor of Pharmacology at Trinity College Dublin delivered a paper to the Royal College of General Practitioners on the social implications of drug use. By the 1960s, the alleged Irish susceptibility to alcoholism gained increasing attention from researchers and eventually officials in Ireland itself and continued to preoccupy commentators in the decades that followed. 62 The Department of Healths figure was proven incorrect the following year when its own inspector of mental hospitals reported that 561 patients (5.0%) admitted to Irish mental hospitals in 1958 had been diagnosed with alcoholism and a further 92 (0.7%) with alcoholic psychosis.Footnote Has data issue: true 56 Shane Butler, Alcohol, Drugs and Health Promotion in Modern Ireland (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2002), 234; Butler, op. Coming under increasing pressure to tackle the licensed vintners, restrict pub opening hours and decrease the number of pub licences, the Cumann na nGaedheal party, who governed the Free State until 1932, responded through an intoxicating liquor commission and licensing acts between 1924 and 1927.Footnote Andrew Tate's ex sets record straight on controversial bondage video that cost him Big Brother, Some feared the former housemate had hurt the woman in the footage after hitting her with a belt, 'Serious warning' issued about Baileys extended after Christmas period, With thousands of people opting to take part in Dry January this month, you might be tempted to get rid of any alcohol by pouring it down the sink, Nutritionist warns against latest TikTok trend known as the Lion diet due to 'dangerous side effects', "In the long run, you could develop a significant nutrient deficiency", RTE bosses left red-faced after IFTAs branded a 'complete disaster', Saturday nights two-hour show on RTE1 was blighted with technical glitches and a toe-curling script that had viewers turning off in their droves, Mum had perfect baby name picked - but daughter ruins it by coming early. In her critique of Bales research, she argued that some of his basic assumptions were faulty and his sources incomplete.Footnote 84 Opening of Centre for Drug Addicts: Childers warns on abuse, Irish Times, 23 December 1969, 12. Credit for this development was given to alcoholism experts at the two Dublin psychiatric institutions, St John of God Hospital and St Patricks Hospital, who had been advocating the establishment of such a body for several years.Footnote I would like to thank Associate Professor Lindsey Earner-Byrne and the peer reviewers for their valuable feedback on drafts of this article. Wilson, C.W.M., The Social Implications of Drug Use, Journal of the Irish Medical Association, 62, 379 (1969), 47.Google ScholarPubMed, 100 He was the only fully formed character, the rest of us were caricatures, one note. Father Ted star Frank Kelly has revealed how Dermot Morgan was on blood pressure tablets that would knock out a horse before he died. Thieves rammed a car into the front of a Hugo Boss store around 4.30am causing extensive damage. 81 127 Whether you have single, double, or triple-glazed windows, there's a number of rules every Irish household should follow to help prevent condensation and mould, according to an expert. The immediate impetus for establishing INCA had arisen from a three-day International Symposium on Alcohol and Alcoholism held earlier that week at St John of God Hospital.Footnote While Walsh acknowledged that most of the evidence to date was impressionistic, he suggested his Dublin study, which found a first admission rate of 34.4 per 100000 population aged 10 and over, confirmed the American findings so often cited in the past. 91 Designated the public health perspective, this approach gradually supplanted the disease concept in the ensuing decades.Footnote He was always fun and things would happen when Dermot was around., Close pal Fiona Looney, said: He really believed in the show and he really loved working with that team. 135 In the same year, and just a decade after his Cultural Influences article had been published, Walsh had also altered his tone. 138 The following year, the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Brendan Corish, sanctioned a grant of 150000 towards the construction of a new research and admissions unit at St. Patricks. Fitzpatrick, Joyce, Drinking and Young People, Alcohol and Alcoholism, 6, 3 (1971), 904, on 90Google Scholar; Joyce OConnor, Cultural Influences and Drinking Behaviour: Drinking in Ireland and England: A Tri-Ethnic Study of Drinking Among Young People and their Parents, Alcohol and Alcoholism, 10, 3 (1975), 94121. Whether owing to concealment, denial or even apathy, the fact remained that no attempt had been made to record alcoholism incidence levels since the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Cassidy, Tanya M., Irish Drinking Worlds: A Socio-Cultural Reinterpretation of Ambivalence, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 16, 5 (1996), 525, on 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 28 99 Possibly its most avid individual proponent was John G. Cooney, a consultant psychiatrist at St Patricks who became one of Irelands leading authorities on the psychiatric treatment of alcoholism. The results of this research indicated a far higher proportion of the Irish under treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction than other national groups.Footnote 83 True Nature of Alcoholism Emerging, Irish Examiner, 25 November 1968, 21. 29 Moreover, drinking, Bales asserted, was inextricably tied up with the expression of aggression in the Irish culture most importantly, overt and active and persistent aggression against the English. 70 Government sensitivity towards the drunken Irish stereotype was again alleged in the editorial, Thirst for Truth, in May 1965: One suspects that the Government has been slow to give a lead in this matter through fear of appearing to confirm the drunken Paddy image. He reminded them that he 'd said at the outset that he would only be available for 2 weeks so they had to get someone else as the chauffeur for the other scene. A: J.T. The practice of treating or buying rounds for ones companions or business associates only served to exacerbate the heavy drinking culture, and alcoholic beverages were omnipresent at christenings, funerals and wakes.Footnote 20, The lull in alcoholism research endured in Ireland until the 1960s when, as will be discussed, experts from various disciplines began publishing vigorously on the topic. 2 the specific cultural meanings attached to excessive drinking in a nation internationally renowned for this problem mapped onto shifting international frameworks, informing medical perceptions and shaping policy. Moody), Father Mathew and the Irish Temperance Movement 18381949, A Nation of Extremes: The Pioneers in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Drink and Society in Twentieth-Century Ireland, The Holy War Against Alcohol: Alcoholism, Medicine and Psychiatry in Ireland, c. 18901921, Healthy Minds in the Twentieth Century: In and Beyond the Asylum, Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland, Negotiating Insanity in the Southeast of Ireland, 18201900, The Origins and Early Years of the Society 18841899, Benign Anarchy: Alcoholics Anonymous in Ireland, Studies in Medical Sociology: The Relation of Mental Disorders to Race and Nationality, Religion, National Origin, Immigration and Mental Illness, The Fixation Factor in Alcohol Addiction: An Hypothesis Derived from a Comparative Study of Irish and Jewish Social Norms, Irish Drinking Worlds: A Socio-Cultural Reinterpretation of Ambivalence, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Attitudes towards Drinking in Irish Culture, The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America, Dealing with Drink: Alcohol and Social Policy from Treatment to Management, Irish Alcoholics in an English Mental Hospital, The Mental Treatment Act 1945 in Ireland: An Historical Enquiry, Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland, Alcoholism and Alcohol Consumption in Ireland, Letters to the Editor Alcohol Consumption in Ireland, Alcoholism and Addiction in General Practice, Swifts Hospital: A History of St Patricks Hospital, Dublin, 17461989, Sixties Ireland: Reshaping the Economy, State and Society, 19571973, The Young Drinkers: A Cross National Study of Social Cultural Influence, From the Alcoholic to the Sensible Drinker: Alcohol Health Education Campaigns in England, Balancing the Self: Medicine, Politics and the Regulation of Health in the Twentieth Century, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 42 This time, the leading investigator was a University College Dublin social scientist, Joyce Fitzpatrick (later OConnor). For Cooney, recent shifts in relation to religious devotion were especially pertinent: The rapid advances in science, the challenge to authority, the reappraisal and questioning of traditional values and religious beliefs have all affected life here in Ireland. 93 The popularity of temperance in Ireland had reached something of a climax in the years leading up to Walshs nationwide study, which had been conducted in 1964. Specialists from France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland addressed this symposium, which was designed mainly for doctors but is also being attended by social workers, clergy and other interested persons. This period witnessed a number of important developments in the field including the introduction of the Irish Mental Treatment Act of 1945, the establishment of the Irish National Council on Alcoholism in 1966 and the creation of specialist alcohol treatment facilities in several psychiatric hospitals, many of which still operate today. If one is to treat alcoholism successfully whether in hospital of in general practice one must feel as well as believe that the alcoholic is ill and suffering from a disease just as surely as a diabetic is suffering from his excess blood sugar.Footnote These events coincided with an upsurge in Irish-based research on alcoholism. A number of these concerns were outlined by the journalist, Mary McCutchan, in her series of Irish Examiner articles on Alcoholism in Ireland in 1968. He later focused on TV work, including the adventure series Richard the Lionheart (1962), and the theatre. He had four children from his three marriages: Sally, Michael, Ward instead urged the creation of separate specialist institutions.Footnote Much prominence has been given, in histories of problem drinking and alcoholism, to the adoption of the disease model and its subsequent displacement by the public health approach. 85 This request was satisfied in 1973, when INCA presented its first major report. The resultant book, first published in 1940, presented some remarkably durable depictions and a second edition was published in 1968.Footnote But Dermot died. The researchers responsible were not only influenced by the disease view and later public health frameworks, but also appeared to be deeply self-conscious about external commentary on Irish drinking behaviour. This argument was summed up neatly by contemporary journalists. Its nice to know that we find just being Irish is the cause of our alcoholism It would be verbal arrogance on my part to question Dr Walshs diagnosis or prognosis. He did a conversation scene with Donald Houston and Natasha Parry grouped together. In a statement that would prove highly provocative, this article concluded that alcoholism was a major public health problem in Dublin, accounting for at least one-quarter of all first admissions to psychiatric hospitals. The 1970s marked a turning point in attitudes towards drinking and alcoholism across many countries. Combining this figure with observations about the institutionalised Irish abroad, the two psychiatrists arrived at the rather dubious-sounding estimate of between 23000 and 75000 alcoholics in Ireland. 101 This is unsurprising, given the psychiatrists position in a semi-private psychiatric hospital with such facilities.Footnote (note 2), 177. This practice, according to some researchers, could result in a false and unnatural attitude towards alcohol.Footnote Unsurprisingly, given mounting public demands for such evidence, this Irish-based research reached a wide audience. He was doing something brilliant and spontaneous.. cit. In the 1950s, external expert commentary on Irish drinking behaviour began to gain publicity in Ireland, as evidenced in the national newspapers. 86 Like Sullivan and Glatts Warlingham Park study, however, Walsh based his findings on psychiatric admissions outside of Ireland. cit. Certainly, the implication that alcoholics were somehow genetically or psychologically defective at a time when the Irish were believed to be disproportionately prone to this defect, did little for the national identity of a country whose international profile was becoming more important for its leaders. Footnote Inevitably this has led to a sense of perplexity and confusion in peoples minds as to what direction they are taking in their role in the changing world of today.Footnote 83. cit. (eds), Ireland under the Union: Varieties of Tension (Essays in Honour of T.W. This was partly because, due to Irelands neutrality, the state had not introduced wartime measures to curb beer production and promote dry clubs as had been done by governments elsewhere.Footnote Ferriter, Diarmaid, Drink and Society in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 115C (2015), 121, on 4.Google Scholar, 11 108 S. J. Hanly, Letter to the Editor: Stereotypes, Irish Times, 1 September 1972, 16. Dermot Walsh, late of Malahide, Co. Dublin and formerly of Aer Lingus, passed away peacefully on 31st May, 2021, after a long illness, in the wonderful care of 113 Butler, op. } (2 children). I wouldnt dare to do so. 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