Living on their nerves: Nervous debility in Northern Ireland

Divis Flats was a high‐rise public housing project on the Falls Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was frequently described as the worst ghetto in Western Europe, and was widely reputed to be a political hotbed, an Irish Republican Army stronghold, and one of the most violent housing estates in the United Kingdom. The complex exhibited some of the worst manifestations of Northern Ireland's considerable political, economic, social, health, and housing problems, and had been the scene of some of the worst violence that had occurred since the outbreak of the political “troubles”; (as the war in Northern Ireland is euphemistically called) in 1969. Generalized ghetto conditions in combination with political violence created a powerful environment for the development of nervous complaints, and many people in Divis Flats, but particularly women, suffered from “nervous debility”; or “bad nerves.”; Although this problem derived from multiple causes—political, economic, and social— terror stands out as the single most important causal factor. This article describes and analyzes the causes and experience of “nerves”; and explores the relationship between gender and nerves in a Northern Irish ghetto.