Dispensing Vaccination for Smallpox 1871-72

This article was also published in the Leitrim Guardian 2025

Two days after Christmas 1871, John Mulheeran made the 180km journey home from Belfast to Mohill, County Leitrim. He wore a new suit of clothes and bore the suppurative lesions of a very bad case of confluent smallpox. He was promptly isolated in the fever hospital at Mohill workhouse. By 5 January, the nineteen year old was dead.



Mulheeran acquired the infection in Belfast, where smallpox had been prevalent for the previous months, part of a widespread epidemic that hit Ireland in 1871-72. In the same week that John Mulheeran was hospitalised, Mohill Board of Guardians heard about the Heslin brothers of Aughamore townland, who were already dead or seriously ill and unlikely to recover. They were left in isolation, since their farmhouse was ‘not convenient to any other residence’.  John (20), Peter (18) and Patrick (16) Heslin died on 26, 27 and 30 December; their older brother, Connor, had died on 2 December. They all died from smallpox.

The 1871-72 smallpox epidemic killed over 4,000 people across Ireland, but five deaths in Mohill were unusual. While the disease had spread to all provinces, Connaught accounted for only eleven cases (0.3% of the total) that were attended by medical officers of dispensaries in the six months from October 1871 to March 1872. Smallpox had long been a major cause of mortality in Ireland, but a national vaccination programme had been so successful that, at one point in 1870, the Poor Law Commissioners declared the country to be wholly free from the disease. The Commissioners avowed that it would have remained so in 1871 were it not for infected persons arriving from Britain; they also blamed the vague awareness and inconsistent implementation of quarantine rules on both coasts. As the epidemic advanced, the Commissioners urged all boards of guardians to induce or compel the public to get vaccinated.

Smallpox vaccination had been introduced in the early 1800s and after 1840 was overseen by the Poor Law Commissioners and administered through the workhouse dispensaries. Acceptance was slow until the Vaccination (Ireland) Act 1863 made it compulsory and increased uptake by a third. By the time the epidemic hit, this free public health programme had near-universal take-up and over 90% of children were vaccinated within six months of birth. In Mohill, the Board of Guardians contracted with four medical officers to implement the programme at its dispensaries: Dr Robert J Dobson in Mohill, Dr Edward Soden at Rynn, Dr Caleb Soden at Rowan, and Dr Michael Donoghue at Carrigallen.

Through 1871, until the occurrence of the Heslin and Mulheeran cases, meetings of Mohill Board of Guardians hardly referenced the epidemic, apart from reading official circulars and reporting on vaccination progress. As well as reporting successful vaccinations, the Guardians were required to identify and pursue defaulters. In most cases, the threat of prosecution was enough to induce defaulters to present their children for vaccination, but the Board did not shy from issuing summonses if needed. In May 1871, Edward Kirby, the relieving officer, reported that three people were prosecuted for non-compliance at Mohill Petty Sessions, and were fined one shilling plus costs each.

The lack of cases did not prevent fear spreading, and in June, the Board resorted to paying inmates two glasses of whiskey to accompany the ambulance when moving people with contagious disease to the hospital. The Poor Law Commissioners were not impressed, contending that ‘the allowance of whiskey is objectionable and may probably lead to abuse’. When the Board argued that ‘some inducement’ was needed, the Commissioners relented and permitted one glass of whiskey – if Dr Dobson deemed it to fall within Article 22 of the Workhouse Rules. Despite the risks involved in accompanying contagious patients, the allowance was significantly less than that given to the three inmates who cleaned the workhouse privies: they were paid two glasses of whiskey and one pound of bread daily, plus a weekly allowance of two ounces of tea, one pound of sugar, and two ounces of tobacco.



Nearly 800 children were vaccinated in Mohill Union dispensaries in 1871. As well as being paid vaccination fees, totalling over £36 in 1871, the dispensary medical officers earned registration fees, and salaries of £90 or £110 per annum. At the end of 1871, the salaries were under review. Dr Dobson was paid £90 (plus £75 per annum for his role as Workhouse Medical Officer), which he felt was inadequate. The Board of Guardians initially declared it ample, but in February 1872, voted unanimously to pay him an additional £20. Two months later, the Poor Law Commissioners agreed to an increase of £10 per annum for the other three medical officers. The relieving officers, Edward Kirby and Patrick Mulholland, were also successful in winning additional pay for the extra work: in April 1872, each received a gratuity of thirty shillings for vaccination services and for posting dispensary and other notices. The dispensary porters like Sarah McComb in Mohill, and Maria Cahill and James Mulligan at Rynn, received no additional remuneration through the period, retaining the same salary of £4 per annum throughout the epidemic.

There were few smallpox cases in Mohill through 1872. Two children, Mary Anne Rogan and Kate Boddy were admitted to the fever hospital with the disease but recovered. The case of John Mulheeran, however, continued to linger. Between June and September 1872, Michael Mulheeran made numerous appeals for the return of his son’s suit of clothes or its value, which he put at £4 10s. His request was dismissed on each occasion by the Guardians who understood that he had refused to take the disinfected clothes from Mary Killish, the infirmary nurse, a month after his son’s death, and concluded that Mulheeran had only made the application after he knew the clothes had been disposed of. The exchanges continued between Mulheeran and the Guardians until February 1873, when The Leitrim Advertiser reported that the Board had refused a further request for compensation, and effectively invited Mulheeran ‘to sue for the amount if he thought proper to do so’.

By 1873, the epidemic was largely over, and across Ireland, cases reported by the medical officers reduced by over 90%, and deaths reduced from 3,197 in 1872 to 481 in 1873. The vaccination programme continued to be administered through the dispensaries into the twentieth century. The last reported death from smallpox in Ireland was in 1907, and the disease was declared eradicated in 1980. It remains the only infectious human disease to have been eradicated.