1 Baur, Erwin, Fischer, Eugen and Lenz, Fritz, Human heredity (3rd ed., trans. Eden and Cedar Paul, London, 1927), p. 183 Google Scholar.

2 For Britain there are the following histories of eugenics: Searle, G.R., Eugenics and politics in Britain, 1900–14 (Leyden, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farrell, L.A.; ‘The origins and growth of the English eugenics movement’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Indiana University, 1970)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The history of eugenics: a bibliographical review’ in Annals of Science, xxxvi (1979), pp 111–23; Kevies, Daniel J., In the name of eugenics (New York, 1985)Google Scholar (for Britain and the U.S.A.); Jones, Greta, Social hygiene in twentieth-century Britain, Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

3 See Adams, Mark B. (ed.), The wellborn science: eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil and Russia (New York & Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar. For Germany see Muller-Hill, Benno, Murderous science (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar; Proctor, Robert N., Racial hygiene: medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, Mass., 1988)Google Scholar. For France see Clark, Linda, Social Darwinism in France (Alabama, 1984)Google Scholar; Schneider, William, ‘Towards the improvement of the human race: the history of eugenics in France’ in Journal of Modern History, liv (1982), pp 268–91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the United States see Haller, Mark, Eugenics (New Brunswick, N.J., 1963)Google Scholar; Kevies, In the name of eugenics.

4 It was necessary in many cases of legislation to draft a separate bill for Ireland.

5 Ireland’s demographic history is the subject of an important debate among social historians. The history of hospitals, including district lunatic asylums, is also well established. But the wider questions, such as those posed by Dorinda Outram on the relationship of Irish culture to the natural world (’Negating the natural’ in Irish Review, no. 1 (1986)) and the extent to which Ireland shared in the general European preoccupation with biological theories of society, have been largely untouched.

6 See Freeman’s Journal, 18, 19 Aug. 1911, for reports on the congress.

7 See Eugenics Review, iii (Jan. 1912), p. 280. Information on those named here from Thom’s, Irish Who’s Who (Dublin, 1923)Google Scholar. Dr Cassidy and Dr Séamus O’Kelly, who are mentioned in this paper, were M.D.s in Dublin, but otherwise do not appear in directories of prominent Irish people of this period.

8 Lady Abderdeen was president of the Women’s National Health Association of Ireland (see Eugenics Society membership list, 1937). For a brief discussion of Lady Aberdeen’s and the Guinness family’s involvement in eugenics see Jones, Social hygiene, pp 44–5.

9 A.F. Tredgold, a member of the Eugenics Society, was a specialist on mental deficiency. His textbook, Mental deficiency, went into eight editions between 1908 and 1952. He acted as expert witness in several interdepartmental committees between 1908 and 1934. For a fuller account of his views and influence see Jones, Social hygiene.

10 Darwin, Leonard, ‘The new science, eugenics or race hygiene’ in Reports and proceedings of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society for the session 1911–12 (Belfast, 1912), pp 7–8 Google Scholar (paper delivered on 14 Nov. 1911).

11 Charles Frederick D’Arcy (1859-1938) was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College. He served as vicar of Belfast, 1900–03; bishop of Down and Connor, 1903–19; archbishop of Dublin, 1919–20; and archbishop of Armagh, 1920–38. Closely involved in politics, he was a signatory to the Ulster Covenant in 1912. His interest in Darwinism and theology is the subject of a longer piece by this author.

12 The Belfast Eugenics Society lodged its minute books with Queen’s University Library (reference number PN 624511). These minutes are, however, very brief The information on the composition of the society is taken from its annual reports.

The Belfast society compares favourably with other provincial societies which were founded at this time. It had, in 1912–13, 42 members, compared with 26 in Manchester, 60 in Liverpool, and 234 in the Birmingham Heredity Society, the largest. These societies also tended to fade out in the First World War, the more committed members joining the parent body.

13 The Charity Organisation Society and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children also sponsored the bill.

14 Professor Meredith was a former Cambridge Apostle and a friend of John Maynard Keynes and G.E. Moore (see Skidelsky, Robert, John Maynard Keynes, vol. i: Hopes Betrayed, 1883–1920 (London, 1983), pp 209, 264)Google Scholar.

15 Northern Whig, 12 Feb. 1914. In talking of the ‘great vigour’ with which America was dealing with the problem, the bishop was referring to the sterilisation laws being passed in some states at that time. Between 1911 and 1936 twenty-four states passed such laws.

16 Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feebleminded, vi: Report of the medical investigators, p. 416 [Cd 4220], H.C. 1908, xxxviii, 768. The results are given below.

17 See Jones, Social hygiene, pp 84–5.

18 Nixon, Christopher, ‘Statement of evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Feebleminded’, republished in Dublin Journal of Medical Science, cxxiv (1912), pp 192–215 Google Scholar.

19 See Finnane, Mark, Insanity and the insane in post-Famine Ireland (London, 1981)Google Scholar. The numbers confined in asylums increased in all parts of the British Isles throughout the nineteenth century, but it was higher in Ireland than elsewhere. This gave rise to a debate on the causes of ‘madness’, i.e. whether it was caused by such factors as urban living, diet, etc. In the case of Ireland, the reasons for the higher proportion are discussed by Finnane, but probably affecting the figures were the higher proportions of the elderly in Irish society which gave rise to greater incidence of senile dementia. In addition, the problem of Irish rural poverty aggravated by old age may have increased the numbers confined in these institutions.

20 See Trombley, Stephen, The right to reproduce: a history of coercive sterilisation (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Macnicol, John, ‘In pursuit of the underclass, 1918–39’ in Journal of Social Policy, xvi, 3 (July 1983), pp 293–318 Google Scholar; Jones, Social hygiene, pp 88–112.

21 Christopher John Nixon (1848-1914) was born in Dublin and, although a Catholic, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was senior physician at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Dublin; professor of medicine at the Catholic University of Ireland; and president of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland. He was knighted in 1906.

22 Nixon, ‘Statement of evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Feebleminded’, p. 200.

23 Nolan, M.J., ‘The possibility of limitation of lunacy legislation’ in Journal of Mental Science, lii (Oct. 1906), pp 756-65Google Scholar.

24 Sir Alex Dempsey, M.D., consultant physician, Mater Infirmorum Hospital, Belfast; lecturer in gynaecology, Queen’s University, Belfast; governor of University College, Dublin. He was educated at St Malachy’s College, Belfast; Catholic University Medical School, Dublin; and Queen’s College, Gal way. He was knighted in 1911 and died in 1920.

25 Irish M.P.s voted for the bill, which had cross-party support. In many cases this would have been in support of the Liberal government rather than through any strong conviction about the bill itself. Those who asked questions about the extension of the bill to Ireland included:

26 The radical budget was unpopular with the majority of the Irish Party in the Commons. Redmond described the provision for old-age pensions ‘as an extravagance that would not have been indulged by an Irish parliament’ (Irish Independent, 10 June 1909, quoted in Bew, Paul, Conflict and conciliation in Ireland, 1890–1910 (Oxford, 1987), p. 192 Google Scholar). The cost of institutionalising mental deficients proved a major practical obstacle to the implementation of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act in England and Wales.

27 There were sixteen women among the forty-two members. Six women served on the committee of twelve.

28 For Richard Leeper’s career at St Patrick’s Hospital see Malcolm, Elizabeth, Swift’s hospital: a history of St Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, 1746–1989 (Dublin, 1989)Google Scholar. St Patrick’s was Dublin’s chief mental asylum.

29 Leeper, Richard, ‘A note on the causation of insanity in Ireland’ in Dublin Journal of Medical Science, cxxiii (1912), p. 184 Google Scholar; discussion of 19 Jan. 1912, ibid., p. 294.

30 D’Arcy, Charles F., Christian ethics and modern thought (London, 1912), p. 66 Google Scholar.

31 Lindsay, J.A., ‘The philosophy of Henri Bergson’ in Reports and proceedings of the Belfast Philosophical and Natural History Society for the session 1911–12, p. 6 Google Scholar (paper delivered on 5 Dec. 1911).

32 See D’Arcy, Christian ethics & modern thought; idem, Science and creation (London, 1925); idem, God in science (London, 1931).

33 He wrote in the 1920s for the Empire Citizen, an anti-socialist newspaper aimed at the patriotic working man. See D’Arcy, Charles F., ‘Red Sunday schools: Christianity or Marxism?’ in Empire Citizen, Sept. 1922, p. 160 Google Scholar.

34 D’Arcy, Christian ethics & modern thought, p. 261.

35 See Rossington, H.J., The Atonement and modern thought (General Synod of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast, 1914), p. 7 Google Scholar.

36 J.A. Lindsay was professor of medicine at the Queen’s University of Belfast, 1899–1923, and from 1918 to 1925 was on the board of management of the Royal Victoria Hospital.

37 Lindsay, ‘The philosophy of Henri Bergson’, pp 10–14.

38 Lindsay, J.A., ‘Eugenics and the doctrine of the superman’ in Eugenics Review, v (1915), p. 261 Google Scholar.

39 Ibid.

40 Lindsay, J.A., ‘Immunity from disease’ in Eugenics Review, iv (1912-13), pp 133-4Google Scholar.

41 Barry, David, ‘Our national degeneracy and a forgotten matrimonial impediment’ in Ir. Theol. Quart., i (1906)Google Scholar; ibid., ii (1907), p. 459.

42 Slater, J., ‘Eugenics and moral theology’ in Ir. Theol. Quart., vi (1911), p. 406 Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., p. 411.

44 Barry, ‘Our national degeneracy’, pp 458–9. The use of Ecclesiae vetitum was also discussed by O’Donnell, Michael J., ‘Sociology, the health bill and eugenics’ in lr. Theol. Quart., xv (1920), pp 139–52 Google Scholar.

45 Barry, ‘Our national degeneracy’, p. 458.

46 Slater, ‘Eugenics & moral theology’, pp 412–13.

47 Gerrard, J., ‘The Catholic church and race culture’ in Dublin Review, cxlix (July 1911), p. 149 Google Scholar.

48 O’Donnell, ‘Sociology, the health bill & eugenics’, p. 149.

49 This was especially true of the unamended bill introduced in 1912. This gave sweeping powers to the secretary of state to institutionalise individuals on the grounds of some unspecified notions of the good of the community. Later this provision was amended.

50 Gerrard, T.J., ‘The Mental Deficiency Bill’ in Dublin Review, clii (Jan. 1913), pp 300-10Google Scholar. The manual prepared for Catholics was Gerrard, T.J., The church and eugenics (Catholic Social Guild, London, 1911)Google Scholar. For more on Gerrard see Kevies, In the name of eugenics.

51 O’Neill, Patrick, ’Casti connubii in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th ser., xxxvii (1931), pp 234-5Google Scholar.

52 See Paul, H.W., The edge of contingency: Catholic reactions to scientific change from Duhem to Darwin (Gainesville, 1979)Google Scholar for a discussion of this.

53 See Weindling, Paul, Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism (Cambridge, 1989)Google Scholar. Some of the doctors involved in eugenics experimentation in Germany during the Second World War described themselves as Catholics, for example Mengele (see Lifton, Robert J., The Nazi doctors (London, 1986), p. 339 Google Scholar).

54 See Mackenzie, Donald, Statistics in Britain (Edinburgh, 1981)Google Scholar for the most thorough exposition of this argument.

55 See O’Kelly, Séamus, ‘Eugenics in Ireland’ in Freeman’s Journal, 18 Aug. 1911 Google Scholar.

56 I would like to thank Dr Sheridan Gilley of the University of Durham for helping me to track down the biographies of some of the Catholic priests involved in the debate on eugenics.