Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to all of my oral history respondents with enormous gratitude and respect. This project would not have been possible without their generosity in sharing their memories with me. I am very grateful to them all for speaking to me so openly about their lives and experiences – thank you.

I am also indebted to the Wellcome Trust for their support through a Research Fellowship (Grant Ref: 106593/Z/14/Z) from 20216 to 2021 and for open access funding which has made this book freely available online. I will always be grateful to the Wellcome Trust for their support of my work. In particular, I would like to thank Dan O’Connor, Jack Harrington, Tom Bray, Lauren Couch and Sophie Hutchison at the Wellcome Trust. My editor at Cambridge University Press, Lucy Rhymer, has been hugely supportive of the book from the beginning, and I am really grateful for her guidance and encouragement throughout. Sincere thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers for their useful feedback. I would also like to thank Conor Reidy for preparing the index and for his encouragement. Some sections of Chapter 4 and Chapter 7 have been published in the journals Medical History and Irish Historical Studies, respectively, and are reprinted with permission.Footnote ¹

A number of individuals have provided mentorship and excellent advice over the last few years. I would particularly like to thank Catherine Cox at UCD, who provided invaluable support to me during my time as a postdoctoral fellow there, and who was integral in helping me develop this project from its inception. I would also like to thank former colleagues from my time at the School of History at UCD, and Máire Coyle of the UCD Research Office for all of her help with grant applications for this project. In 2016–17, I was lucky enough to spend an academic year at the Section for the History of Medicine at Yale University, and I am grateful to Naomi Rogers for her input and inspiration. I would also like to thank Matt Smith and Jim Mills at the University of Strathclyde, who have both been wonderful mentors and always generous with their time and support. I am also thankful to Greta Jones for her support and interest over the years. Thanks also to former mentors and lecturers from my time as a student at NUI Galway, including Catriona Clear, Barry Crosbie, Steven Ellis, Aileen Fyfe and Enda Leaney.

The archival research for this project was conducted at a number of libraries and archives. I am grateful to the staff at the National Archives of Ireland, National Library of Ireland, New York Academy of Medicine, UL Special Collections, UCC Special Collections and Wellcome Collection. I would especially like to thank Noelle Dowling at the Dublin Diocesan Archives for all of her help and support.

A number of individuals provided extra support during the research process. I am very grateful to all of the actively retired individuals and to the community groups I visited for allowing me to speak about my research. I would also like to give special thanks to Liam Bluett for his assistance with recruiting interviewees. Thanks also to Jon O’Brien for connecting me with the members of the IFPA youth group, for patiently answering my many questions and for sending me archival documents. I would also like to thank John O’Reilly for his kind assistance with my project and for his generosity in providing me with archival sources I would not have been able to access otherwise. Thanks also to Niall Meehan, Emer Nowlan, Susan Solomons and Evelyn Stevens for providing me with additional archival sources, and to Niall Behan for providing me with access to the IFPA archives.

I would also like to thank photographers Clodagh Boyd, Beth Lazroe, Joanne O’Brien and Derek Speirs for permission to use their wonderful photographs that enrich the book. Thanks also to Berni Metcalfe at the NLI for scans of images from the NLI collection.

I am grateful to a number of colleagues and friends who provided invaluable feedback and support at different stages of the writing process. Thank you to Jennifer Crane, Cara Delay, Catriona Ellis, Olivia Dee, Susan Grant, Jenna Healey, Agata Ignaciuk, Lauren MacIvor Thompson, Emma Newlands, Maeve O’Brien, Kelly O’Donnell, Jennifer Redmond, Naomi Rogers, Caroline Rusterholz, Maya Sandler, Niall Whelehan and David Wilson for helpful feedback on chapter drafts. Thanks also to the ‘Catholicizing Reproduction, Reproducing Catholicism’ research team and to fellow members of the ‘KU Leuven Medicine and Catholicism since the Late 19th Century’ network. I would also like to thank Donna Drucker, Máiréad Enright, Lindsey Earner-Byrne, Phoebe Harkins and Ross MacFarlane for their support and encouragement throughout the project.

Thank you to my colleagues at the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) and the School of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde for their support. In particular, I would like to thank Patricia Barton, Tanja Bueltmann, Catriona Ellis, Mark Ellis, Janet Greenlees, Churnjeet Mahn, Yvonne McFadden, Arthur McIvor, Jim Mills, Kate Mitchell, David Murphy, Emma Newlands, Matt Smith, Angela Turner, Niall Whelehan, Manuela Williams and David Wilson. I am also thankful to the Central Support Team in the School for their administrative support. I would also like to thank my PhD students, Mara Dougall, Georgia Grainger, Kristin Hay, Jois Stansfield, Rory Stride and Jasmine Wood, who have each inspired me through our conversations over the last few years.

I am also so lucky to have had the friendship and support of many friends, both inside and outside academia. Thanks in particular to Rebecca Barr, Sarah-Anne Buckley, Elaine Farrell, Susan Grant, Yuliya Hilevych, Carole Holohan, Agata Ignaciuk, Rob Kirk, Wendy Kline, Sylwia Kuźma, Leanne McCormick, Emma Newlands, Neil Pemberton, Linsey Robb, Caroline Rusterholz, Christabelle Sethna and Niamh Wycherley for their kindness and encouragement and for inspiring me with their own work. I would also like to thank Kate Bluett, Nicola Carty, Gaelen Britton, Sarah Corbett, Breda Doherty, Lucy Fleming, Jennifer Goff, Maria Ní Fhlatharta, Emma O’Callaghan and Maeve O’Brien for their friendship and inspiring conversations, which often centred around some of the themes in this book. I would also like to especially thank MaryJo Kelly Novak and Richard and Gracia Elkin for always showing great interest in my work. Huge thanks also to Maeve O’Brien for encouraging me at every stage of this project.

Thanks, as always, to my family, in particular, my parents, John and Angela, and my brothers Seán and Ciaran, for supporting me throughout this project in immeasurable ways. Finally, a huge thank you, with all my love, to Chris Elkin for giving me endless encouragement and support throughout the research and writing process, as well as lots of joyful and happy times away from it.