This accompanies David Kilgannon’s Irish Historical Studies article The death of Veronica L.: intellectual disability and statutory welfare in mid twentieth-century Ireland

In June 1961, Veronica L. arrived at Jervis Street Hospital in inner city Dublin. Dr Cyril Comer recalled how the thirty-two-year-old was visibly weak, wore ‘rag-like’ garments, and had a ‘barely discernible’ pulse. He then detailed the unsuccessful efforts of medical staff, before explaining how she passed away within hours of her admission. Veronica’s death would be lost to us but for her coroner’s court inquest that July, for which a range of depositions were collected from family members, neighbours, and those involved in her care. My article in Irish Historical Studies examines Veronica L.’s life through her coroner’s court inquest, using the proceedings as a window into understanding the world in which she lived. Coverage of the court proceedings emphasised her unusual form of death. The state pathologist argued that Veronica had experienced a ‘prolonged slow starvation’, which must have been particularly evident on her 4 foot 10½-inch frame (147 cm) that weighed approximately 4 stone at the time of her death. The press also discussed Veronica’s status as a ‘mentally handicapped’ woman, who had received the Disabled Persons’ Maintenance Allowance from Dublin Health Authority for more than six years.

By their nature, coronial records have a proclivity towards the ‘spectacular and unhappy ending’ [1]. Yet, this does not negate the rich body of insights that are available in the testimonies collected for the court. Specifically, Veronica’s inquest prompted a range of accounts, from her mother, sister, aunts, and neighbours, which offer a rare insight into how intellectual disability was understood, and the disabled cared for, in the mid-twentieth century. These are particularly valuable given the neglect of intellectually disabled adults within both statutory policy and contemporary media coverage. From these testimonies we can gain an understanding of the particularities of Veronica’s case, including how her aging mother increasingly struggled to address her care in the home without other forms of support. We learn how ‘Vera’ (Veronica) was first involved in a car accident as a young child, an incident that her mother identified as the cause of her unusual behavioural tics and habits. Supplementary accounts from relatives and neighbours helped to contextualise the care available to Veronica in an apartment in the inner city, as her mother tried to address her daughter’s needs without resorting to institutional care.

The specifics of this case also throw light onto the operation of Irish disability services in this period, while the reaction to the inquest allows a greater understanding of the perceived role of the state in the lives of the disabled. The inquest reveals how Veronica’s mother and sister had to actively seek an institutional place for her, with limited statutory support and considerable waiting lists for admission to a privately operated (but state funded) institution. In the Dáil, Seán MacEntee, the minister for health, defended existing services and refused to consider reforms in light of this case, arguing that the family remained the primary means of support for those with a disability. This meant that Veronica L.’s death from starvation represented a failure by relatives to seek additional support for an adult with disabilities, rather than an obvious failing by the state to protect a vulnerable citizen. Veronica L.’s death was a tragic case, in which an intellectually disabled person was allowed to die a slow death. Notwithstanding the horrific nature of this death, the case of Veronica L. offers the historian a rare window into the lives of the intellectually disabled, and the operation of ‘handicap’ services, in the mid twentieth century.

Read the full article

[1] Elizabeth Hurren and Steve King, ‘Courtship at the coroner’s court’ in Social History, xl, no. 2 (Apr. 2015), p. 206.

Main image credit: Jervis Street Hospital, Dublin – now a shopping centre