Drinking Cultures
The Cultural Reception of Medical Developments Related to Alcohol in Ireland, 1700-1900
About this project
The period 1700-1900 saw the development of many new constructions of ‘problem’ drinking signified by terms such as ‘intemperance,’ ‘inebriety,’ ‘dipsomania’ and ‘alcoholism.’ During this period Ireland was under British rule and the perception that Irish people were excessively fond of alcohol raised questions about their capacity for self-governance and rationality.
This cultural context meant that new alcohol-related medical frameworks became implicated in an existing socially biased and politically-charged discourse. The health impacts of this medico-cultural interaction have been observed in Ireland into the twentieth century (Mauger; Cox). However, the mutually constructive nature of this relationship demands scrutiny of the understudied cultural dimension.
As the first in-depth, long view study of the subject, this project will transform understanding of the cultural construction of a behaviour that functioned for centuries as a multivalent metaphor for the Irish national character.
Research Aims and Timeline
This five-year project is the first large-scale examination of the cultural side of this medico-cultural interrelation and will proceed in three phases:
- Assembling a corpus of alcohol-related medico-scientific texts.
- Tracking their circulation in Irish culture through contemporary library catalogues and records to gauge their cultural penetration.
- Synthesising this circulation information with an analysis of representations of disordered drinking in a wide range of literary sources (fiction, non-fiction, periodicals, private letters, and life-writing) to reveal the changing nature of this interchange at a formative time in Ireland’s history.
Supported by
Lucy Cogan
Lucy Cogan is Assistant Professor in Literature and Medical Humanities at University College Dublin and Principal Investigator of the Wellcome Trust funded project, “Drinking Cultures: The Cultural Reception of Medical Developments Related to Alcohol in Ireland, 1700-1900” (2023-28).
Her publications, including a monograph, an edited collection, and a range of articles and essays, cover topics such as prophetic vision in the works of William Blake, drunkenness and addiction in Irish literature, and women’s writing in the long-eighteenth century.