The book with 9,000 lives

Where do saints rub shoulders with sinners, and eccentrics brush up against pillars of the community? In the monumental ' Dictionary of Irish Biography', just published by the Royal Irish Academy, writes JAMES QUINN

THE ROYAL IRISH Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biographyis the first multi-volume general biographical dictionary to be published for Ireland. It contains nine volumes, 10,072 pages and 8,361,484 words, written by almost 700 contributors over 11 years. Its 9,014 biographical articles describe and assess the careers of subjects in all fields of endeavour, including politics, literature, journalism, architecture, painting, music, the stage, science, medicine, engineering, entertainment, sport, business and crime. It has been an enormous co-operative undertaking by the entire Irish scholarly community (and many scholars overseas).

The Dictionaryspans the full range of Irish history from St Patrick to the beginning of the 21st century. In an era of ephemeral celebrity, the Dictionarytakes a longer view, filtering fame through the lens of time, and giving most of its attention to figures whose accomplishments are lasting and significant. Besides being a comprehensive reference work, it also represents the cumulative record of a nation's achievement, and will be of interest to anyone with a curiosity about the men and women who have shaped the Ireland of today.

Articles range in length from about 300 to 15,000 words. Although the primary purpose is to put together concise and factually accurate accounts of people's lives, the Dictionaryis much more than a dry collection of facts.

Most of the longer articles are written by specialists and assess the careers of their subjects which represent important new contributions to scholarship. Many of the smaller articles do likewise. In fact, it is often remarkable how much contributors have managed to squeeze into the shorter articles, and sometimes incidental asides reveal unexpected details: that, for example, Jackie Carey, captain of Manchester United (1945-53) had a great love of the Irish language and liked to begin his speeches in Ireland with a couple of sentences in Irish; or that Gerald Boland, De Valera’s hard-line justice minister during the 1940s, practised yoga while on hunger-strike in Kilmainham jail in 1923; or that Luke Kelly of The Dubliners was a keen golfer.

The writing of historical biographies is a thriving field and the Dictionarydistils much of the best biographical writing of recent years. It provides comprehensive articles on major figures and also substantial treatment of important figures who have yet to receive full-scale biographies of their own. The Dictionary's usefulness is greatly enhanced by an online version with a range of useful find facilities. Users can, for example, search according to gender, dates of birth and death, county of origin, religion, occupation, or any combination of these.

The Dictionarycontains a highly eclectic range of careers (not all of them edifying). In its pages, the saint rubs shoulders with the sinner, the eccentric with the pillar of the establishment; the confidence trickster with the philanthropist. Alongside articles on the great and the good, there are numerous quirkily interesting characters, such as the 1920s anti-jazz campaigner, Fr Peter Conefrey, who excoriated a cabinet minister for attending a Clongowes union dance at which waltzes and foxtrots were played and ladies "exposed their backbones"; or the ingenious pioneer aviatrix, Lilian Bland, who devised a temporary fuel system for her aircraft consisting of a whiskey bottle and her aunt's ear trumpet; or early 19th century quack physician John Brenan, who participated enthusiastically in all-in wrestling matches on Dublin's North Strand and specialised in breaking his opponents' shins and then offering to set them in splints at reasonable rates.

In some cases, career descriptions contain intriguing combinations of activities: Ussher Gahagan (d. 1749) is listed as a “classical scholar and criminal”, John Morrissey (1831-78) as a “boxer, gang-leader, and US congressman”, and Rosy Gibb (1942-97) as a “social worker, clown and magician”.

Biographical dictionaries are sometimes criticised as being elitist, full of long-dead statesmen and generals. While some level of elitism is inevitable in such a publication (it makes sense to include those who excelled rather than those who made up the numbers), we have tried to be as open and imaginative in including careers that have often been ignored in the past. This applies especially to the careers of women and we have tried to cast the net as wide as possible to include women who excelled in many different areas.

In this and in many other ways, we have aimed to produce the most comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary yet published for this island, and whether it is for historical or genealogical research, or just the joy of reading about interesting people, we hope it will be widely used.

James Quinn is joint editor of the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biography(nine volumes and online, Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Cadden, Mary Anne, ‘Mamie’, ‘Nurse Cadden’

Cadden, Mary Anne (1891-1959), midwife and abortionist, was born October 27th, 1891 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA, eldest of seven children of Patrick Caden, of a small-farming background from Doonbredia, Lahardane, Co Mayo, and Mary Caden (née McLoughlin), a native of Teirnard, Co Mayo.

Her parents met and married in America, where her father worked as a miner. On the death of her paternal grandfather (1895), she was brought by her parents to Mayo, where they settled on the family farm and opened a grocery. Educated at Lahardane national school until age 15, she lived with her family until age 33. When, in 1911, the family bought the farm through the land commission, one-and-a-half acres were purchased in Mamie’s name. In 1925, she sold this portion to her father to finance a midwifery course at the national maternity hospital, Holles St, Dublin; on qualification, she was placed on the register of the central midwifery board (December 1926). On moving to Dublin, she altered the spelling of her surname to ‘Cadden’, a form used by her parents in America. After working in the Alverno nursing home, Portland Row (1927-9), she opened her own maternity nursing home at 61 Lower Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh (1929-31), and in July 1931, moved to larger premises at St Maelruin’s, 183 Lower Rathmines Rd. Concentrating on conventional lying-in care, she also operated a legal service of fostering out unwanted infants born in the home, and performed illegal abortions. Enjoying a thriving business, she enjoyed a flashy social life, frequenting dances, dining and drinking in Dublin’s top hotels, and driving a highly conspicuous imported red open-top 1932 MG sports car.

In May 1939, Cadden was convicted, on circumstantial evidence, of child abandonment, relating to an incident when a 10-week-old infant girl was found on the road near Dunshaughlin, Co Meath. Her sports car had been seen in the area, and gardaí ascertained that the St Maelruin’s register recorded a recent birth of a baby girl that was not registered with the chief medical officer. Cadden served one year’s imprisonment at hard labour in Mountjoy women’s prison (1939-40). In searching the St Maelruin’s premises, gardaí discovered the remains of a premature infant buried in the garden, and traced the mother, who admitted to having consulted Cadden when an unsuccessful attempt to abort herself resulted in the child being stillborn. Though charges were not pressed, this gave rise to an enduring Dublin myth that the remains of numerous infants were found buried in the garden.

Forced to sell St Maelruin’s to meet legal costs, Cadden was removed from the rolls of registered midwives, and barred from attending women in childbirth. On release from prison, she re-established practice in a basement suite at 21 Upper Pembroke St.

Advertising in newspapers as Nurse Cadden, she offered treatments for conditions ranging from dandruff and constipation, to sexually transmitted diseases (coded as "male, female cases treated"); it is believed her primary service was abortion. In November 1944, she was charged with attempting to procure a miscarriage, being identified by a 20-year-old servant who was hospitalised with acute peritonitis caused by a "sea-tangle tent", a device designed to expand the cervix to induce abortion. Convicted after a jury trial in camera, Cadden was sentenced to five-years' penal servitude in Mountjoy (1945-50).

Aged 59 on release, she took a one-room flat at 17 Hume St, off St Stephen’s Green, and resumed offering medical services, enjoying a virtual monopoly on abortion services in Dublin. On two occasions, the bodies of women were found on the pavement in Hume St, the autopsies determining death from cardiac arrest caused by an air embolism in the circulatory system, consequent upon an unsuccessful abortion attempt by a method in which a solution of water and disinfectant was pumped from a syringe into the womb, resulting in separation of the amniotic sac from the uterine wall. On the first occasion (June 1951), though Cadden was prime suspect, charges were not pressed. On April 18th, 1956, a second woman, Helen O’Reilly, aged 33, was found dead by a passing milk delivery man on the Hume St footpath. Notwithstanding the accidental circumstances of the death, occurring during performance of an act to which the deceased had invited, Cadden was tried (October-November 1956) and convicted of O’Reilly’s murder, under provisions of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which implied malice when death occurred by an act of violence performed in pursuit of a felony. Sentenced to death by hanging, she was reprieved by the coalition government of John A Costello (qv), and her sentence commuted to penal servitude for life (January 4th, 1957). After serving one year in Mountjoy prison (1957-8) she was declared insane and transferred to the central criminal lunatic asylum, Dundrum, where she died on April 20th, 1959 of a heart attack, and was buried in a mass grave in Deansgrange cemetery, Co Dublin, leaving an estate and assets valued at some £250.

The notoriety of Nurse Cadden endured in Dublin folklore, giving rise to the myth of women, bleeding profusely after botched abortion attempts, returning to Cadden for assistance, only to bleed to death in the street. Despite flaws in technical and witness evidence at her last trial, and the improbability of an elderly woman carrying a body unassisted from the flat to the street, retrospective commentary has tended to accept her involvement in the deaths of both women. LAWRENCE WILLIAM WHITE

• This is an edited version of the entry that appears in the Dictionary of Irish Biography
• Over coming Saturdays, Weekend Review will publish "Irish Lives", a series of selected contributions from the Dictionary of Irish Biography