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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2019
This article, through a case study of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), traces the reception, experimentation with, and uses of radium in early twentieth-century Ireland. Throughout the nineteenth century there was increasing state intervention in the provision of scientific and technical education in Ireland. This culminated in the loss of the RDS's traditional role in this area. The article demonstrates that the RDS was forced to re-envisage its role as a scientific institution by actively seeking to support experimental research. Using radium as a case study, the article argues for the success of this tactic. It demonstrates that radium played a central role within the RDS as a nexus for the maintenance of an experimental and philanthropic culture that permeated much of the society's scientific output in this period. In doing this it highlights the importance of sociability in the promotion of science in Ireland in the early twentieth century. In addition, it explores the role of the RDS as an arbiter of scientific authority.
I am grateful to Charlotte Sleigh, Amanda Rees, the two anonymous reviewers and Trish Hatton for all their assistance in improving this article. The author would like to thank the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) for the receipt of an RDS Library & Archives Research Bursary which made the research for this article possible. The staff of the RDS were of great assistance, in particular Senan Healy, Natasha Serne and Gerard Whelan. I would also like to thank Dr Conleth Loonan and Dr Fergal Donoghue (Maynooth University) for reading drafts of this paper.
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