Human/Nonhuman Urban Ecology in Modernizing Ireland

Juliana Adelman’s Civilised by Beasts presents a case study on urbanization in the modernizing West with an examination of human/nonhuman relations in the Irish city of Dublin. As Dublin contended with changing economies, a rising population, and numerous public health concerns in the 19th century, city planners and officials responded by increasing the control and compartmentalization of nonhuman animals. Dogs, pigs, horses, and cows or bulls are spotlighted as workers, commodities, and contagions who are gradually removed from urban spaces. Adelman initiates her investigation with an overview of early humane advocacy in Dublin, a history that is generally erased in more prominent narratives of the United States and United Kingdom. The lack of attention to Irish anti-speciesism is a curious one given that the first animal rights laws in the West can be credited to Irish politicians and activists (Wrenn, 2021). Adelman’s scrupulous attention to Irish policies, Dublin City records, and other historical documents is extremely useful in this regard.