Many thanks for the helpful information about inebriate institutions. This was an excellent thread (as Internet folk call a discussion theme). I can provide one reference that might be unfamiliar. A former doctoral student of mine Bev Smith now teaches Criminal Justice Studies at Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-5250. Here is the citation. Beverly A. Smith, "Ireland's Ennis Inebriates' Reformatory: a Nineteenth-Centujry Example of Failed Institutional Reform," FEDERAL PROBATION 53:1 (March 1989): 53-64. George Bretherton (Montclair State, NJ) also published an article on Ennis about the same time. David Fahey (Miami Univ., Oxford, OH 45056-1619, USA) [log in to unmask]