Aspects of suicide in rural Ireland 1978-1994

In this paper the authors establish the rates of suicide for the County of Mayo, Ireland, through an examination of the coroners files. The rate of suicide, thus established, was found to be higher than that obtained from official suicide mortality data. In addition, the average suicide rate for the county was found to be higher than the national average for the period of the study. No significant increase in suicide was found for Mayo, although, in the period studied the national rate increased steadily In the authors opinion 32.6% of the Mayo deaths were miscoded. The greatest miscoding was of death by drowning. In addition, it was found that 7.3% of the deaths classified as suicide by the authors had never been officially registered. The data were analysed on a number of demographic factors. In Mayo the most common method of suicide for both sexes was by drowning. For the country as a whole, the most common method for men was hanging and for women drowning.