‘Gradual spiritual formation' - postcolonial mental handicap nursing in Ireland 1919-70
In this study a postcolonial and social historical framework was utilised to examine thedevelopment of mental handicap nursing in Ireland. The research derives from a historiographicalstudy of documentary records for the period 1919-70 in Britain and Ireland to investigate the roleplayed by key stakeholders in the development of what at the time of writing is known asintellectual disability nursing. Primary sources were examined to construct a narrative chronologyof the role of specific Catholic religious orders, the Irish Division psychiatrists of the RovalMedico-Psychological Association (RMPA), the State and nursing regulatory bodies. The mainargument of the thesis is that a confluence of medical, social, religious and nursing ideas aboutspecialist care for people with intellectual disabilities in the nineteen-fifties led to the developmentof a new workforce i.e. mental handicap nurses.Mental handicap nursing emerged in the aftermath of Ireland's struggle for self-determination frompostcolonial oppression. The Department of Local Government and General Nursing Council forIreland (GNCI) opposed a mental deficiency colony solution to a legacy of workhouses andasylums. Training by a weak psychiatric establishment was distrusted because of the profession'slinks to Britain. The Irish Government as part of a policy to move growing numbers from CountsHomes, funded specialist residential schools developed by Catholic religious orders. Staffing needsduring the nineteen-forties led one order to request the RMPA to train its psychiatric nurses for themental deficiency register. Since the GNCI had closed its mental deficiency register in 1923 andopposed medical involvement in nursing education, nurses were trained under the RMPA schemewith approval of the General Nursing Council (GNC) for England and Wales. Encouraged by theDepartment of Health, a new nursing regulatory body introduced mental handicap nurse training in1959. Though a Commission of Inquiry in 1965 endorsed the new workforce, divergent psychiatricand religious discourses on the nature of mental handicap led to enduring tensions as to the role ofthis practitioner thus underpinning a tenuous position within nursing.
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