# An Irish Radium Institute: the Royal Dublin Society and the promotion of radioactive therapy in twentieth-century Ireland

## TL;DR

This paper explores how the Royal Dublin Society promoted radium therapy in early 20th-century Ireland, linking scientific discovery with medical practice.

## Contribution

It highlights Ireland's active engagement with radioactive therapy science and its adaptation to a local medical context.

## Key findings

- The RDS established a Radium Institute in 1914 to promote radium therapy.
- Irish scientists and doctors adapted and contested new medical knowledge locally.

## Abstract

Soon after its discovery in 1898, the potential physiological effects of radium, including its possible role in combating cancer, were recognised. Its therapeutic uses led to the founding of the Royal Dublin Society’s (RDS) Radium Institute in 1914, just 2 years after the establishment of the Institut du Radium in Paris. In tracing the history of the Institute and the use of radium therapy, this paper explores the role played by the RDS in the relationship between the emerging science surrounding radioactivity, the scientists that were promoting and developing this, and the pioneering medical professionals that sought to use this new science for the benefit of their patients in early twentieth-century Ireland. In doing so, it demonstrates that the Irish scientists and medical practitioners actively engaged with this new medical science, assimilating, contesting and reconstructing medical knowledge in a local context.