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The politics of prostitution and the politics of public health in the Irish Free State: a response to Susannah Riordan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Philip Howell
Philip Howell*
Affiliation:
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
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Extract

In an earlier article in Irish Historical Studies the present author argued that the beginnings of the Irish Free State’s campaign against venereal disease were caught up in a politics of prostitution that mobilised nationalist, republican and post-colonial sentiments, revolving around the struggle between military and civilian authority, and invoking the moral arbitration of the Catholic church. Susannah Riordan’s recent response has clarified the administrative history of interdepartmental inquiries into the threat posed by venereal diseases, setting concerns over the role of prostitution in propagating disease within the context of the wider public health programme. She properly identifies inquiry references to ‘prophylaxis’ with chemical disinfection following exposure to infection, and rightly separates the report filed by Major Donal Carroll, the army’s chief sanitary officer, from that of Dr Robert Percy McDonnell, Medical Inspector of the Department of Local Government and Public Health.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 140 , November 2007 , pp. 541 - 552
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2007

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References

1 Howell, Philip, ‘Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State’ in I.H.S., xxxiii, no. 131 (May 2003), pp 320-41Google Scholar.

2 Susannah Riordan, ‘Venereal disease in the Irish Free State: the politics of public health’, ibid., xxxv, no. 139 (May 2007), pp 345–64.

3 Ibid., p. 346.

4 On regulationism and its context, still probably the best general discussion is found in Bullough, Vern and Bullough, Bonnie, Women and prostitution: a social history (Buffalo, N.Y., 1987)Google Scholar.

5 Report of the interdepartmental committee of inquiry regarding venereal disease (also referred to as Report of venereal disease in the Irish Free State) (Dublin, 1926)Google Scholar (N.A.I., S 4183).

6 Howell, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 327.

7 Ibid., p. 327 n. 24.

8 Riordan, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 348.

9 Corbin, Alain, Women for hire: prostitution and sexuality in France after 1850 (London, 1990)Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., p. 246.

11 Timothy Gilfoyle, J., ‘Prostitutes in history: from parables of pornography to metaphors of modernity’ in Amer. Hist. Rev., civ (1999), p. 122Google Scholar.

12 Most famously, Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian society: women, class, and the state (Cambridge, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Laurie Bernstein, Sonia’s daughters: prostitutes and their regulation in imperial Russia (Berkeley, Calif., 1995).

14 Riordan, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 358.

15 Ibid., p. 349.

16 Ibid., pp 354, 357.

17 Ibid., p. 348.

18 Ibid., p. 346.

19 Ibid.

20 Davidson, Roger, Dangerous liaisons: a social history of venereal disease in twentieth-century Scotland (Amsterdam, 2000), pp 23, 324Google ScholarPubMed.

21 Brandt, Allan M., No magic bullet: a social history of venereal disease in the United States since 1880 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

22 Cox, Pamela, ‘Compulsion, voluntarism, and venereal disease: governing sexual health in England after the Contagious Diseases Acts’ in Jn. Brit. Studies, xlvi (2007), pp 91–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For example, Baldwin, Peter, Contagion and the state in Europe, 1830–1930 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 483CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues for the ‘strictly voluntary’ approach to be found in Britain.

24 For wartime regulation in Britain see, for example, Bland, Lucy, ‘In the name of protection: the policing of women in the First World War’ in Brophy, Julia and Smart, Carol (eds), Women-in-law: explorations in law, family and sexuality (London, 1985)Google Scholar; for British colonial regulation see, for example, Levine, Philippa, Prostitution, race and politics: policing venereal disease in the British Empire (New York, 2003)Google Scholar.

25 Cox, ‘Compulsion voluntarism & venereal disease’, p. 99, in answer to Baldwin, Contagion & the state.

26 Cox, ‘Compulsion voluntarism & venereal disease’, p. 98.

27 Riordan, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 360.

28 Ibid.

29 Howell, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 328.

30 Guy, Donna J., Sex and danger in Buenos Aires: prostitution, family, and nation in Argentina (Lincoln, Nebr., 1991), p. 209Google Scholar.

31 Henriot, Christian, Prostitution and sexuality in Shanghai: a social history, 1849–1949 (Cambridge, 2001Google Scholar); Hershatter, Gail, Dangerous pleasures: prostitution and modernity in twentieth-century Shanghai (Berkeley, Calif., 1997)Google Scholar.

32 Henriot, Prostitution, p. 332.

33 For fascist regulationism, though, see Roos, Julia, ‘Backlash against prostitutes’ rights: origins and dynamics of Nazi prostitution policies’ in Journal of the History of Sexuality, xi (2002), pp 67–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Timm, Annette F., ‘Sex with a purpose: prostitution, venereal disease, and militarized masculinity’ in Herzog, Dagmar (ed.), Sexuality and German fascism (New York, 2005), pp 223-55Google Scholar.

34 Gilfoyle, ‘Prostitutes in history’, p. 123.

35 Guy, Sex & danger, p. 209.

36 Riordan, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 364.

37 Ibid.

38 Howell, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 337.

39 Regan, John M., The Irish counter-revolution, 1921–1936 (Dublin, 1999), p. 196Google Scholar.

40 Valiulis, Maryann Gialanella, Portrait of a revolutionary: General Richard Mulcahy and the founding of the Irish Free State (Dublin, 1992)Google Scholar; U.C.D.A., Mulcahy papers, P7/D/3, 59.

41 Riordan, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 353.

42 ‘Side glance note’, 19 Aug. 1963 (U.C.D.A., Mulcahy papers, P7/D/3).

43 Riordan, ‘Venereal disease’, p. 364.