Unstoppable Brilliance: Irish Geniuses and Asperger's Syndrome

by Michael Fitzgerald, Antoinette Walker

How much of what exceptional people achieve can be put down to their own efforts and inner drive, and how much to fate? In this groundbreaking study, the authors argue that the extraordinary achievements of key figures in Irish history were indeed unstoppable--a product of their character and unique way of interacting with the world.

In a series of fascinating character studies, the authors argue that many of those who were crucial to the development of Ireland's political, scientific and artistic traditions would, if they were alive today, be diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.

Profiles
Robert Emmet
Padraig Pearse
Éamon de Valera
Robert Boyle
William Rowan Hamilton
Daisy Bates
W. B. Yeats
James Joyce
Samuel Beckett

Genres: Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Psychology

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael Fitzgerald is an Irish professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, specialising in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Wikipedia

Reviews

[Fionnbharr Rodgers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, my reading of this may be somewhat constrained by the fact I’ve no grounding in psychology and only a tangential understanding of autism and Asperger’s; however, I am aware of the ‘Goldwater Rule’ so-called for when a group of psychiatrists ‘diagnosed’ 1964 US presidential candidate Barry Goldwater as paranoid schizophrenic and thus unfit to be president, without examining him in an official medical capacity, after which psychological professionals have adhered to the principle of not commenting on those they have not personally seen to. I am, as a result, somewhat uncomfortable with the objective of this book which, to whatever degree formally or informally, creates a kind of diagnosis for people who died up to two hundred years ago.

That being said, I think this is quite a fascinating piece of historiography, and would be most useful to history students who were looking to profile the case studies examined therein.