The history of medicine in early modern Ireland

The early modern volume of the nine-part New History of Ireland, published in 1976, stands as an important historiographical landmark. Yet its 633 pages contained just four paragraphs relating to the history of medicine: two each in its chapters on the Irish language and Irish literature in Latin, respectively. ¹ The comparable volume of the four-part Cambridge History of Ireland, published in 2018, provides a welcome up-to-date synopsis of the period 1550–1730, one that in many ways reflects the fruits of scholarly endeavor since the 1970s. In the latter publication, new areas of focus include environmental history, material culture, and art history. But there is still no chapter on the history of medicine. In fact, the subject receives even less attention than it did in 1976. ² In what follows, I will first try to account for this situation by sketching an outline of the relevant historiographical context. I will then signpost some of the ‘new directions’ that might be pursued as part of a worthwhile effort to promote research into the history of medicine in early modern Ireland. The chapter is largely informed by my own work on, and interest in, medical practitioners. ³ Yet because of the breadth and complexity of the history of medicine, there is little sense in proposing anything like a prescriptive agenda for future activity. The more sensible approach is to encourage continued collective effort by a range of scholars. Ideally, this will entail research across a wide variety of relevant topics, in a manner that pays due cognizance to historiographical developments in the history of medicine more generally.