‘Desirous to be delivered’:prophecy, printing and Puritanism beyond the Pale

Following the escape of the young ‘Red’ Hugh O’Donnell from Dublin Castle and his near-doomed flight over the Wicklow Mountains at the height of the bitterly cold winter of 1591, […]

William Daniel

William Daniel was born in Kilkenny around 1570. His mother’s name is unknown but his father was one Nicholas O’Donnell, described in John O’Donovan’s history of east Galway, The tribes […]

‘The murder of infants’? Symphysiotomy in Ireland, 1944–66

In 1944 the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in Dublin pioneered the use of the symphysiotomy operation (see sidebar) as the procedure of choice in certain cases where the woman’s pelvis was deemed […]

Symphysiotomy in the National Maternity Hospital and Coombe

By 1949 Dr Alex Spain, master of the National Maternity Hospital, had performed 43 symphysiotomies. Dr Arthur Barry, his successor, was a fervent advocate of Catholic teachings on human sexuality. […]

Symphysiotomy and why it had declined elsewhere

Symphysiotomy involved cutting the cartilege joining the two parts of the pelvis. It had largely been abandoned in the twentieth century owing to its perceived dangers; Caesarean section (CS) was […]