Joseph Lalor (1811 – 18 August 1886) was a pioneering Irish mental health administrator and a reforming superintendent of the Richmond District Asylum for 29 years (1857–1886). Early life Joseph was born at Cascade House, Freshford, Co Kilkenny in 1811, the fourth and youngest son of Richard Lalor (c. 1760 – 1823), a prominent local landholder, and Mary Carroll. Joseph's older brother Richard Lalor (c. 1790 – 1846) of Cascade, a local magistrate and landholder, was involved in the meetings associated with the Tithe War of the 1830s alongside his first cousin Patrick "Patt" Lalor (1781–1856) of Tenakill later a nationalist MP for Queen's County. Joseph Lalor was reported as attending a meeting in favour of the Repeal Movement in 1830 at Freshford with his brothers William and Florence in 1830 and as contributing to 'Repeal Rent' to support the campaign in the 1840s. Other cousins were Alice Lalor (1768–1846) of Ballyragget, founder of the Order of Visitation Sisters in the United States. and Peter Lalor, the revolutionary Australian political leader. Joseph's brother, Richard J Lalor, served a term in the New York State Assembly (1860–62) and was editor of the Irish American newspaper. Medical career Joseph Lalor graduated from Trinity College in 1830 and with a MD from the University of Glasgow in 1839. He practised as a physician in Kilkenny, and held appointments in the City of Kilkenny Dispensary and Cholera Hospital and Workhouse, before he was appointed as the first resident physician of the Kilkenny District Asylum (1852–57). As McKeogh (p. 11) reports: “By any standards, he was a remarkably humane and enlightened man who can be justly hailed as one of the great pioneers of Irish psychiatry.” A strong supporter of ‘active employment or energetic muscular motion ... combined with amusements which have a soothing or cheering influence over the mind, with very good effect.’ Lalor also avoided mechanical restraints or seclusion as ‘treatments’ arguing: “Mild, moral treatment and not coercion has been found most conducive to the easy and successful management of the insane; and it is at the same time that which is dictated by those feelings of humanity which should direct our conduct towards our fellow beings, being so afflicted as the insane”. In 1857, Lalor was appointed the Resident Medical Superintendent of the Richmond District Lunatic Asylum in Dublin, Ireland's largest with over 600 inmates (rising to over 1100 by 1885). He