{"id":42565,"date":"2021-06-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cupblog.bluefusesystems.com\/?p=42565"},"modified":"2021-06-10T11:50:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T10:50:49","slug":"the-death-of-veronica-l-intellectual-disability-and-statutory-welfare-in-mid-20th-century-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2021\/06\/09\/the-death-of-veronica-l-intellectual-disability-and-statutory-welfare-in-mid-20th-century-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"The death of Veronica L: intellectual disability and statutory welfare in mid 20th century Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This accompanies David Kilgannon\u2019s Irish Historical Studies<\/em> article The death of Veronica L.: intellectual disability and statutory welfare in mid twentieth-century Ireland<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2018rag-like\u2019 garments, and had a \u2018barely discernible\u2019 pulse. He then detailed the unsuccessful efforts of medical staff, before explaining how she passed away within hours of her admission. Veronica\u2019s death would be lost to us but for her coroner\u2019s court inquest that July, for which a range of depositions were collected from family members, neighbours, and those involved in her care. My article<\/a> in Irish Historical Studies<\/em> examines Veronica L.\u2019s life through her coroner\u2019s 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 \u2018prolonged slow starvation\u2019, which must have been particularly evident on her 4 foot 10\u00bd-inch frame (147 cm) that weighed approximately 4 stone at the time of her death. The press also discussed Veronica\u2019s status as a \u2018mentally handicapped\u2019 woman, who had received the Disabled Persons\u2019 Maintenance Allowance from Dublin Health Authority for more than six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By their nature, coronial records have a proclivity towards the \u2018spectacular and unhappy ending\u2019 [1]. Yet, this does not negate the rich body of insights that are available in the testimonies collected for the court. Specifically, Veronica\u2019s 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\u2019s case, including how her aging mother increasingly struggled to address her care in the home without other forms of support. We learn how \u2018Vera\u2019 (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\u2019s needs without resorting to institutional care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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 D\u00e1il, Se\u00e1n 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.\u2019s 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.\u2019s 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 \u2018handicap\u2019 services, in the mid twentieth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full article<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1] Elizabeth Hurren and Steve King, \u2018Courtship at the coroner\u2019s court\u2019 in Social History<\/em>, xl, no. 2 (Apr. 2015), p. 206.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main image credit: Jervis Street Hospital<\/a>, Dublin \u2013 now a shopping centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2018handicap\u2019 services, in the mid twentieth century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":826,"featured_media":42568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[6560,3713,169,27,3706,5166,2449],"coauthors":[8981],"class_list":["post-42565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-humanities","tag-20th-century","tag-european-history","tag-history-of-medicine","tag-history-of-science-and-medicine","tag-ihs","tag-irish-historical-studies","tag-irish-history"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/826"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42731,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42565\/revisions\/42731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42565"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=42565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}