Typhoid, Cockles, & Terrorism

1863

Vartry Lake photographed circa 1865 to 1914.

Vartry (lower) reservoir completed: 4km tunnel and 40 km of trunk mains supply safe drinking water to city.

1880

Portrait of Sir Charles Cameron of Dublin circa 1892.

Dublin Corporation Medical Superintendent Officer of Health Charles Cameron links typhoid outbreaks to consumption of sewage contaminated shellfish from Dublin Bay.

1890

Seapoint Memorial at Glasnevin Cemetery.

Seapoint Tragedy: wife and four daughters of nationalist politician James O’Connor die after eating contaminated mussels. O’Connor’s fifth daughter, Moya Llewelyn Davies, later ally of Michael Collins, survives.

1891

Portrait of Prince George of Wales taken in 1893.

Prince George of Wales (later King George V) contracts typhoid after visiting Dublin: local shellfish and water supply are blamed.

1896

Group photo taken at the commencement of outfall works for the he Dublin Main Drainage Scheme

Dublin main drainage scheme begun.

1900

Trial of Almroth Wright’s heat-killed typhoid vaccine on patients at Richmond Asylum.

1906

Pigeon House Power Station photographed from above.

Dublin main drainage scheme completed with sewage outfall at Pigeon House Fort.

1916

Easter Rising

1919-21

British soldiers and relatives of the victims outside Jervis Street Hospital during the military enquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings at Croke Park.

Irish War of Independence

1920

Publication of Sinn Féin ‘typhoid plot’: captured document discusses ways of infecting British troops in Dublin Castle via milk and water.

The Typhoidland team is embarking on an exciting new three-year project on typhoid in revolutionary Ireland. ‘Typhoid, Cockles, and Terrorism’ explores the turbulent history of typhoid in Dublin and is funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Digital Humanities initiative.

We aim to explore the intimate connection between imperial and revolutionary public health politics in 20th century Dublin. We will conduct innovative research on the (post)colonial politics of Anglo-Irish public health and typhoid control in Dublin. They will design a major blended physical/digital exhibition (hosted at Dublin City Library and Archive and the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland), educational resources and create an open access database of spatially coded historical disease, environmental, and infrastructural data.

We will use a mix of historical and digital humanities methods to analyse and digitise historical disease data, medical correspondence, cultural ephemera, infrastructural records, and meteorological data to understand why British bacteriological and sanitary interventions proved impractical in Dublin and how they were perceived by local populations. We aim to make significant contributions to research and engage audiences from all age groups on the importance of equitable access to effective sanitary infrastructure and vaccines.

See the award announcement here: Irish Research Council

Contact

For information about this research, please contact: Typhoidland

For enquiries regarding research software engineering, please contact: Digital Scholarship @Oxford

Data

The dataset for this project is made available via the University of Oxford's Sustainable Digital Scholarship service:

https://portal.sds.ox.ac.uk/typhoid-in-dublin/category

Acknowledgements

This project is funded by the Irish Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and the University of Oxford Strategic Research Fund.

Visualisation design and development are provided in collaboration with: Digtial Scholarship @Oxford

Sources

Statistical information on occupation, neighborhood mortality rates, and population

Reports of the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the City of Dublin, 1880-1940. Dublin Corporation Reports &c. Dublin City Library and Archive. Dublin, Ireland. AND Dublin County Council, Annual report of the county medical officer of health, County Dublin, on the health and sanitary conditions of the county. (Dublin : Cahill & Co., 1934-1937). BB7499. National Library of Ireland.

Shellfish Outfalls and Sewer Lines data

Browne, TJ. Report on the Shell-Fish Layings on the Irish Coast, As Respects their Liability to Sewage Contamination. Dublin: Alexander Thom & Co., 1904.

Registrar's Districts 1885-1888

Dublin Historic Maps

Dublin 1906-1908 Map

Original: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Tile Server: Map Warper

River Networks

Environmental Protection Agency (IE)

Images

Three female cockle-pickers with baskets, at the coast. Photographed by J.J. Clarke. 1890-1910. © National Library of Ireland.

'The Irish Tragedy: Wholesale Murder in Dublin: Sinn Fein Plans to Spread Typhoid and Glanders', The Illustrated London News, Nov. 27 1920, pp 874-5 © Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Please click the image links for additional citations and usage information.

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