Ordinary Lives, Death, and Social Class

Abstract

Abstract This book focuses on the evolution of the Dublin City coroner’s court and on Dr Louis A. Bryne’s first two years in office. Wrapping itself around the 1901 census, it uses gender, power, and blame as analytical frameworks to examine what inquests can tell us about the impact of urban living from lifecycle and class perspectives. Coroners’ inquests are a combination of eyewitness testimony, expert medico-legal language, detailed minutiae of people, places, and occupational identities pinned to a moment in time. Thus they have a simultaneous capacity to reveal histories from both above and below. Rich in geographical, socio-economic, cultural, class, and medical detail these records collated in a liminal setting about the hour of death bear incredible witness to what has often been termed ‘ordinary lives’. The subjects of Dr Byrne’s court were among the poorest in Ireland and, apart from common medical cause problems linked to lower socio-economic groups, this book covers preventable cases of workplace accidents, neglect, domestic abuse, and homicide.