Death and Disease in Dublin: Soldiers and Sex-Workers

Soldiers and Sex-Workers: Venereal Disease in Early 20th Century Ireland by Dr Susannah Riordan. 

Recorded on Tuesday 20 April as part of Dublin City Archives City Hall Lunchtime Lecture Series. 

In this talk, Dr Riordan assesses the efforts of the first independent Irish governments to detect, prevent, and treat these diseases in the national army and, subsequently, in the civilian population, in the contexts of military exigency, medical politics, and moral judgement.

The title refers to the fact that initially, the blame for this problem was placed on relationship between prostitutes and the British military, but investigation suggested that it was in fact rampant in the civilian population throughout the country.

Register for the remaining lecture in the series.