Every year, on the eve of 12 July, volcano-like pyres of car, truck and tractor tyres, wooden palettes and other combustible materials are ignited in neighbourhoods across Northern Ireland. For those who gather beside these infernos the symbolism of burning tyres is obscure. As the thick acrid smoke swirls into the summer night, stories are … Read more
British identity and citizenship were of great importance to the nucleus of British and Irish residents in the city of Buenos Aires during the nineteenth century. This variety of British subjectship was an identity that many in Ireland were domestically uncomfortable with yet appropriated for economic and social advantage in Argentina. Part of the informal … Read more
In 1944 the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in Dublin pioneered the use of the symphysiotomy operation (see sidebar) as the procedure of choice in certain cases where the woman’s pelvis was deemed too small to permit a normal birth (termed ‘disproportion’). The NMH was Ireland’s leading Catholic-identified maternity hospital. NMH doctors were motivated by the perceived need … Read more
By 1949 Dr Alex Spain, master of the National Maternity Hospital, had performed 43 symphysiotomies. Dr Arthur Barry, his successor, was a fervent advocate of Catholic teachings on human sexuality. He promoted symphysiotomy enthusiastically, extending its use beyond the cautious parameters set by Spain, sometimes with tragic results. Escalating use of the operation brought with … Read more
Symphysiotomy involved cutting the cartilege joining the two parts of the pelvis. It had largely been abandoned in the twentieth century owing to its perceived dangers; Caesarean section (CS) was preferred. The after-effects of symphysiotomy included bladder injuries and impaired locomotion. By the 1940s, surgical advances and the advent of antibiotics had made lower-section CS … Read more