Sociability, radium and the maintenance of scientific culture and authority in twentieth-century Ireland
A case study of the Royal Dublin Society
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8395128 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adrian Kirwan (0000-0002-0771-3092, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 47-66 |
| Publication date | 2020-03-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal for the History of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-0874 • E-ISSN: 1474-001X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0007087419000864 |
| PMID | 31831097 |
| OpenAlex | W2996281565 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 28 |
This article, through a case study of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), traces the reception, experimentation with, and uses of radium in early twentieth-century Ireland. Throughout the nineteenth century there was increasing state intervention in the provision of scientific and technical education in Ireland. This culminated in the loss of the RDS's traditional role in this area. The article demonstrates that the RDS was forced to re-envisage its role as a scientific institution by actively seeking to support experimental research. Using radium as a case study, the article argues for the success of this tactic. It demonstrates that radium played a central role within the RDS as a nexus for the maintenance of an experimental and philanthropic culture that permeated much of the society's scientific output in this period. In doing this it highlights the importance of sociability in the promotion of science in Ireland in the early twentieth century. In addition, it explores the role of the RDS as an arbiter of scientific authority
Media studies · Political science · Radium · Sociology · Chemistry · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History of Science and Natural History
The Radium Committee of the Royal Society and the fate of the substances purchased by it
The French connection
Ivory towers? The commercial activity of British professors of engineering and physics, 1880–1914
Marie curie and the radium industry
Clubs and societies in eighteenth-century Ireland
The U.S. Radium Industry
The Department of Science and Art and control of Irish science, 1853–1905
Missionaries of science
VI. The Royal Society and the Government Grant
Deconstructing the bomb
Science, sociability and the improvement of Ireland
Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
Colonial Science and Dependent Development
The Birth of Living Radium
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |