Criminal Irish Drunkards

Download or read book Criminal Irish Drunkards written by Conor Reidy and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a unique insight into the habitual inebriate offender class in Ireland, this book examines the inebriate reformatory system in Ireland from its foundation in 1900 until its closure in 1920 and the three institutions charged with punishing or rehabilitating habitual drunkards: The State Inebriate Reformatory, The Certified Inebriate Reformatory and The Voluntary Inebriate Retreat.Using registers of inmates, annual reports, court cases and institutional records, Conor Reidy presents a stark account of the ways in which alcohol addiction and lack of opportunity condemned countless Irish victims to lives of poverty, misery and crime in the early twentieth century. The author also looks at the ways in which institutional staff sought to exact reform over the inmates through education, training, religion and discipline.This book profiles a hitherto little-known system, giving it a place within the historiography of Ireland’s complex web of so-called reformative institutions.