Stones & Bones: Containing Typhoid in 'Dear Dirty Dublin' (Part Three)
A Typhoidland exhibition for Dublin City Library and Archive.
Aerial view of Dublin Bay (2018) by Giuseppe MiloOriginal Source: Wikicommons
Chapter 5. Typhoid Retreats
Although the impact of individual interventions is hard to gauge, the overall increase of investment in safe water, housing, and food led to an accelerating reduction of typhoid incidence and deaths in Dublin from around 1900 onwards.
Graph of typhoid deaths and cases in Dublin registration district (2022) by Emily WebsterOriginal Source: Emily Webster (Typhoidland)
Improved public health surveillance and then, from the 1940s, effective antibiotics and new generations of vaccines further decreased typhoid cases and deaths. Yet the improvements came slowly and unequally.
A Dublin street scene (2023) by Clare FoleyOriginal Source: Typhoidland
The Housing Factor in Typhoid
In 1936, Matthew Russell, Dublin's then Medical Officer of Health, highlighted the persistent connection between poor housing, overcrowding, bad sanitation and typhoid:
“[T]housands of people in this City are compelled to live in homes in which there are not adequate sanitary conveniences, and that many of these people have perforce to use lavatories common to several families... which really represent little advance (if any) on the privy closets of earlier times when there were hundreds of case [of typhoid] annually in the City...”
Warnings about typhoid and shellfish (1946-08-10/1980-06-30) by The Irish TimesDublin City Library & Archive
Typhoid's Lingering Shadow
Despite advances in sanitation and healthcare, environmental factors continued to contribute to gastrointestinal infections in Dublin, as shown by these later typhoid outbreaks linked to shellfish consumption.
The River Liffey (2023) by Clare FoleyOriginal Source: Typhoidland
An Overburdened Sewage System
The city has continued to struggle with the legacy of its colonial-era sewage system. Complaints of cracking and leaking, untreated sewage running into Dublin’s rivers and bay, and financial strain appear throughout the 20th century.
New requirements for water quality imposed by the European Economic Community (EEC) led to a €13m drainage improvement scheme in 1979.
The upgrade connected a series of tunnels to the Ringsend treatment plant, which began instituting both primary and secondary treatment of wastewater before discharging it into the bay.
Sir Joseph Bazalgette (after 1963) by Unknown photographerOriginal Source: Old Ship Picture Galleries
A Landmark Moment
Dried sludge from the wastewater treatment plant continued to be dumped at sea until 2000, when the aptly-named Sir Joseph Bazalgette sludge carrier made its last journey out of Dublin Bay.
The SS Shamrock, Corporation Sludge Ship, Howth Head (1958) by Dublin CorporationDublin City Library & Archive
The SS Shamrock, the predecessor to the Joseph Bazalgette which was in service between 1906 and 1958, is pictured here on its final voyage passing the lighthouse at Howth. The two sludge ships played a crucial role in Dublin's waste water management.
The Ark, from S. Typhi: A Journey (2024) by Eliza WolfsonOriginal Source: Typhoidland
Water and Dublin's Public Health Today
While S. Typhi bacteria no longer roam Dublin and its bay, some of the social and ecological drivers that turned typhoid into a major health hazard remain.
Rising inequality, pockets of poverty, and a water infrastructure that struggles to keep up with population growth continue to pose challenges to Dublin’s public health.
Aerial view of Dublin Bay (2018) by Giuseppe MiloOriginal Source: Wikicommons
The climate emergency is worsening problems: rising sea levels, warming ocean temperatures, and periods of excessive rainfall and drought all increase stress on Dublin’s Edwardian sanitation system.
A bird's eye view of turn of the century Dublin (2023) by Clare FoleyOriginal Source: Typhoidland
Fixing a Century-Old Problem
The Ringsend Road Waste Treatment Plant remains the major treatment facility in Dublin in 2024. It is currently undergoing a €500m infrastructural upgrade.
However, with gastrointestinal disease outbreaks continuing to occur and environmental concerns increasing, Dubliners may need to reconsider whether their 19th century sewage solution is appropriate for 21st century challenges. Learn more here.
Want To Find Out More?
Visit Typhoidland's Dublin Portal to find out more about living and dying with typhoid in Dublin, or about typhoid and the history of biowarfare. For more information on the water quality in present-day Dublin, watch our interview with Professor Wim Meijer here.
Research by Dr Emily Webster. Co-curation by Drs Emily Webster and Carly Collier, with contributions from Dr Claas Kirchhelle.
With thanks to Dr Alice Maugher, Dr Diarmuid O’Shea, Jessica McCarry, Lorraine McLoughlin and Mairéad Walsh.
Research based on Webster, 2024. Maps and epidemiological charts available here.
Full references available here.
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