In the early decades of independent Irish Government, venereal diseases moved from being portrayed as consequences of British military occupation and associated prostitution to being understood as a public health issue. 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.

Susannah Riordan lectures in modern Irish history in University College Dublin, and has published widely on the politics of sexuality in twentieth-century Ireland. She is the editor (with Catherine Cox) of Adolescence in Modern Irish History and (with Diarmaid Ferriter) of Years of Turbulence: The Irish Revolution and its Aftermath.