In this book Katherine Fennelly provides one of the first glimpses into the world of early lunatic asylums in Ireland and England. Archaeologists have only in recent decades turned their attention to the lunatic asylum and what archaeology can reveal about life within an institution that is so deeply entrenched in the public mind as a place of chains and brutality. Books and films portraying the worst aspects of eighteenth-century lunatic asylums and madhouses generated a stereotype that has been applied to the nineteenth-, and sometimes the twentieth-century, asylums. For many, this view of the asylum has become the only picture that they know.

The world of the insane was undergoing dramatic changes at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, however, with the rise of the lunatic asylum as a curative place which would restore the insane to sanity. Asylums were rapidly changing their role both in the eyes of the public, and under the English and Northern Irish governments. Fundamental to this change was a rise in the belief that the insane were not animals unable to reason, but human beings who, under the proper care of the asylum doctor, could be reasoned with and returned to sanity and their families. A suitable environment away from the stresses of family, and the world in general, was required for this to happen. In this early period (1800–1830s), which Fennelly discusses in her book, the construction and design of lunatic asylums was primarily in the hands of architects, but a growing body of texts were to appear written by asylum reformers, who were involved more directly in the care of the insane. These works described the ideal asylum in all aspects as a curative environment supporting the work of the doctor. This environment would suit the new regime of care called moral management, and its accompanying movement to non-restraint, which saw the insane person being released from physical restraints and treated with kindness. Fennelly's book explores the topic in such a way that someone unfamiliar with the history of lunacy and lunatic asylums can understand what was occurring in society and changing in the design of asylums.

In the first chapter, Fennelly looks at the history of lunacy and the rise of the lunatic asylums in England and Ireland, situating her study in its historic context. In particular, she looks at moral management and asylum design, which were to have a significant impact on the care of the insane. She also outlines the previous studies that she has drawn on to develop the methodology used to explore ideas in the book. The book is divided into three thematic sections: asylum management, asylum administration and movement through the asylum. Chapter 2 is dedicated to the management of the asylum, including the role of the manager and asylum doctor in the early nineteenth century, the implementation of moral management, staff duties and the role of keepers, who would enforce the instructions of the asylum superintendent and care for the patients on the wards. Fennelly then goes on to discuss the arrangement of space in asylums, which is more recognisable as archaeological in its nature, and the effects of overcrowding on asylum operation. Reflecting the nature of subsequent chapters, the range of topics and time periods covered here is quite large. The third chapter tackles administration, and the fourth looks at movement through the asylum, including the use of panopticon observation (whereby patients can be watched without awareness of being observed), locks and keys, and the gate house. Unfortunately, the book does not include a clear research outline or a list of questions being asked of the study material in the introductory chapter, and this makes it harder to control the distractions of a wealth of information that can be found in the chapters of this book. As the book is based on Fennelly's PhD dissertation, this is an odd omission. A reader looking for a detailed account of an excavation or a study of archaeological techniques in the understanding of lunatic asylums will not find them here. While the book is called An archaeology of lunacy, few archaeological aspects of the asylum are discussed and those that are lack rigour. There is a brevity to the arguments for their inclusion as archaeological features. The archaeology that the book draws on includes: institutional acoustics within the building (the sounds of keys opening latches and hanging from keepers’ belts, of hinges moving and the footsteps of keepers on the ward, and the noise of other inmates); patient ledgers maintained by staff, which are seen as material culture; the gate house as a liminal space; the panopticon design for the asylum drawn from workhouse plans, as advocated by a number of Poor Law reformers; and the movement of staff through the building. The author employs some archaeological studies, some historical geographical methodologies and studies taken from the work of historians—as in the case of the acoustics—to provide the theoretical background of the book. There is no consideration given to the nature of the inmates or the effects of mental illness on their perceptions and experiences of the lodge and administration block, which forms the basis of the archaeology of the book.

Fennelly takes her definition of the archaeology of lunacy from Sarah Tarlow: “it is a material and physical exploration of the lives of the builders, theorisers, and historic asylum” (p. 3). The archaeology in the book is, then, multidisciplinary because asylums themselves are difficult to study if we look only at the physical remains on the landscape. With seminal works by Lu Ann De Cunzo (Reference De Cunzo1995) and Eleanor Casella (Reference Casella2001), the archaeology of institutions is a relatively new area of research. Since then the field has expanded with archaeologists looking at lunatic asylums, workhouses, schools and a variety of other asylums, considering how it is possible to understand structures that are not amenable to archaeological excavation. Lunatic asylums in particular have been subject to significant change and reuse, whether as housing estates or university campuses, or have been repurposed as modern psychiatric hospitals (some of which closed after the deinstitutionalisation of mental health patients). Thus, while not explicitly archaeological in the traditional sense, this book is an interesting, scholarly study of a field of growing interest among academics and the general public. It is well worth reading.