Treatment in Irelands lunatic asylums

jonniebgood1

In 1817, a Committee of the House of Commons painted a disturbing picture of the mentally ill in Ireland: “When a strong man or woman gets the complaint, the only way they have to manage is by making a hole in the floor of the cabin, not high enough for the person to stand up in, with a crib over it to prevent his getting up. This hole is about five feet deep, and they give this wretched being his food there, and there he generally dies.”

from http://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/2010/10/walking-through-the-past-in-todays-sligo.html

The history of pschiatric treatment in Ireland is quite interesting in how it has developed. I wonder how people in 100 years time will view current more tolerent treatments. The numbers as per this doctors article reflect the change in acceptablity in modern society which was not previously accepted.

In 1945, there were 17,708 patients in Irish asylums. By 1960, this exceeded 20,000. In many towns, the asylum single-handedly dominated the local economy: in 1951, Ballinasloe had a population of 5,596, of whom 2,078 were patients in the asylum. By 1961, one in every 70 Irish people above the age of 24 was in a psychiatric hospital.

In October 1968, The Irish Times published an influential series of articles by Michael Viney highlighting a range of problems related to mental healthcare and, in particular, the large numbers in psychiatric hospitals. The following decades saw determined efforts by Government and health services to move psychiatric care away from institutions into the community. By 2003, there were fewer than 3,700 psychiatric inpatients – an 80 per cent decrease in four decades.

The changing uses of the massive and usually well built institutions is also interesting. St. Columba's in Sligo being one of the most prominent: http://www.imt.ie/opinion/2010/10/preserving-the-history-of-the-old-asylums.html
http://www.sligotown.net/lunaticasylum.shtml

If anyone has further information on the outdated treatment methods that were acceptable in different eras it may be interesting to look at.

CDfm

Pauline Prior of Queens has addressed the issue from a gender point of view and also makes the point that with emigration that the proson & "lunatic " population grew disproportionately.

As the general population decreased—falling from approximately eight million in 1841 to 6.5 million after the Famine and to 4.5 million in 1900—both the prison system and the asylum system expanded steadily.5 The expansion of the prison system raises interesting questions, as scholars debate whether or not serious crime actually increased in the second half of the nineteenth century.6 As part of the planned expansion of the asylum system, and to solve the problem of holding lunatics in an already overcrowded prison system, a special facility with accommodation for approximately one hundred people was built at Dundrum, County Dublin, for the confinement and treatment of criminal lunatics in 1850. The Dundrum facility predated the establishment of a similar institution at Broadmoor, England, opened in 1863, but it mirrored the ideological approach to crime and mental disorder evident throughout Britain and its colonies at this time.7 .

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1472557/

jonniebgood1

Known as Irelands first psychiatrist was Dr. William Saunders Hallaran. He operated Corks first 'Lunatic asylum'. He wrote one of the first books in relation to Irish Psychiatry in 1810. He is best know though for his use of the Dr. Cox 'circulating chair'. So much so that it became known as Halarans or O'hallarans chair. Its a very interesting looking device that basically does what you'd imagine. It rotated the patient at up to 100 revolutions per minute as a form of treatment to assist the doctor in getting the patient to comply with his wishes such as taking medicines. It was also used for long periods of hours to subdue patients. Sounds a bit Victorian but then I suppose it was before her anyway!

In several cases of continued insanity, excellent effects after a few trials. In some who, from disposition to violence, and necessity, were closely confined to solitary apartments, rendered them easy of access, of kind and gentle manners ; and doing most willing service in daily occupation of cleansing, and attendance on sick. Previously, invariably affected from swing, with a smart fever of eight or ten days' duration, the apparent cause of this change. Cannot mention a case of chronic insanity cured, but from established utility, thinks every insane institution should be provided with one. In a few cases of private practice, where not at hand, as well as in public, in which it could not be repeated, has contrived to confine his patients in close hammocks, slung by two parallel ropes from ceiling, and supported at angles by cords, with eyes hooked to the upright ropes. A gentle oscillatory motion thus readily obtained, applicable particularly after effects of swing, where continuance of sleep of importance. If nausea or vomiting desirable in first instance, oscillatory motion should be held in reserve; and by twisting parallel ropes to full extent, so as to let them return, by retexation, to former position, action of stomach powerfully excited : this followed by refreshing sleep. Attendant, on continuing rocking motion of hammock, in a darkened room, has continued to prolong it, for eight or ten hours, without intermission. This method of subduing furious maniacs has succeeded in an admirable manner. Deprives them of all power to resist, and prevents the possibility of injury to themselves, by beating against a wall or bedpost. Thus, too, completely enveloped, and kept sufficiently warm, and by silence of attendant, violence may be again thus restrained.

http://sj.blacksteel.com/media/mental/p97.html

As mentioned the idea originated with a Dr. Cox

His novel technique was rotating the body in a specially designed chair. Initially modest and later extravagant claims were made for the therapeutic benefit of ‘Cox’s chair’. It was widely adopted in Europe in the first decades of the nineteenth century, but lost favour thereafter. Its benefits have proved to be scientific rather than medical because it was adopted by students of the senses to investigate vertigo; a century later it re-emerged as the Bárány chair for the clinical assessment of vestibular function. The legacy of Cox’s chair, and its related treatment of swinging, are to be found in funfairs throughout the world.

CDfm

Here is a more detail from another Pauline Prior Article.

The case of Mary Rielly is also of interest in the context of two current debates—gender and crime and gender and mental health. The first debate is concerned with the gendered nature of crime and its punishment.7 It focuses on gender differences in criminal behavior and in legal outcomes. Throughout the world, men feature more visibly in crime statistics than do women, especially for crimes associated with violence. Certain crimes such as infanticide, however, have been linked historically to women. Theorists argue as to the reasons for specific gender patterns of criminal behavior and suggest that as women take a more equal role in economic and public life these patterns will change. In addition, there are gender differences in the ways in which men and women are treated within the criminal justice system. Women have sometimes received harsher treatment than men for the same crime and vice versa. Reasons given for this differential treatment include arguments about the perceived roles of women and men in society, roles that label men as naturally aggressive and women as naturally passive. Women, who act in a way that is “out of character,” for example by killing a man, may be treated harshly by the courts, while men who kill women may receive lighter sentences because of a general social acceptance of male violence.The second debate is concerned with gender differences in the experiences and manifestations of mental disorder and in society’s response to these experiences.8 In the past, women have featured more prominently than men in psychiatric statistics. This has led to the conclusion that women have higher rates of mental illness than men. However, in recent years, a number of psychiatric morbidity studies in the US and Europe have suggested that most of the early research was based on service use that was inherently biased toward this outcome. Specifically, mental disorders associated with men (such as personality disorder and substance abuse) were excluded from the research definition of mental illness, and those associated with women (depression, anxiety, hysteria) were highlighted. Current research, which includes mental health problems associated with personality disorder and substance abuse, points to a different conclusion—that men show higher levels of psychiatric morbidity than women. Their lower level of visibility in psychiatric statistics may stem from the ways in which mental health services are organized and the lower levels of use of these services by men.
These two debates—on gender and crime and gender and mental health—intersect when crime is linked with mental disorder, personified in the mentally disordered offender, or in the parlance of earlier times, the criminal lunatic. Historically, women predominated in asylums in most countries, while men predominated in prisons. Institutions for criminal lunatics tended to have similar gender patterns to prisons, with men predominating. As might be expected, Ireland was a little different—with men (especially young men) predominating in all of these institutions.9
Before 1850 Ireland did not have a specific facility for criminal lunatics. They were sent to prison, from which they were sometimes discharged to the district asylum nearest to their home. This was not a satisfactory situation as far as the prison authorities were concerned, and in 1850 a Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum for Ireland was opened at Dundrum village on the outskirts of Dublin. It predated the establishment of a similar institution at Broadmoor, England (which opened in 1863) and continues to function as the Central Mental Hospital for the care of mentally disordered offenders in the Republic of Ireland. The opening of Dundrum was part of the expansion of both asylum and prison provision in the nineteenth century.10 It is interesting that this expansion occurred at a time when the general population and the level of serious crime were both decreasing. As shown by Vaughan and Fitzpatrick, the Irish population decreased from approximately 8 million in 1841 to 6.5 million after the Great Famine and to 4.5 million in 1900.11 In parallel, serious crime decreased after 1850. Thus, Ireland was one of the safest countries in Europe in the late nineteenth century.12
The new asylum provided a real alternative to the traditional sentences (the death penalty and penal servitude for life) for those who had committed serious crimes and were deemed insane.13 A study of the people confined there (as criminal lunatics) reveals a highly gendered approach to murder and manslaughter.14 Though there were women “criminal lunatics” in Dundrum, they were in the minority; they were more likely than men to have committed petty crimes; and when they killed another person, it was highly likely to be a child.15 Women who killed men rarely found their way into Dundrum. The Inspectors of Lunacy for Ireland wrote in 1855, “We have no record of a female killing her husband, the most common mode of destruction among women being infanticide.”16
Because this pattern continued, women who killed men were absent from the medical records at Dundrum. An intensive search of other sources—such as convict records, crime statistics, and court records—revealed information on at least twenty women who were convicted of the murder or manslaughter of men during the second half of the century, but of only one who was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. This was Mary Rielly, who spent four years of her life as a criminal lunatic in Dundrum.17

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523382/

Taking this a step further - I wonder how the Magdelene Launderies were classed.

In the town I grew up in the local mental home housed a lot of people including the mentally handicapped.

They werent happy clappy places.

The Mental Hospital dominated the west side of Cork City

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

Taking this a step further - I wonder how the Magdelene Launderies were classed.

In the town I grew up in the local mental home housed a lot of people including the mentally handicapped.

They werent happy clappy places.

The Mental Hospital dominated the west side of Cork City

The magdelene laundries were the Irish version of the international magdalen asylums for reforming prostitutes initially. The first was on leeson street. The catholic church in Ireland was more enthusiastic than other countries as is well known.

As the phenomenon became more widespread, it extended beyond prostitution, to unmarried mothers, developmentally challenged women and abused girls. Even young girls who were considered too promiscuous and flirtatious were sometimes sent to an Asylum. This paralleled the practice in State Run asylums in Britain and Ireland in the same period, where many people with "social dysfunction" were committed to asylums.

The women were typically admitted to these institutions at the request of family members or priests. Without a family member on the outside who would vouch for them, some penitents would stay in the asylums for the rest of their lives, many of them taking religious vows.

http://www.irelandinformationguide.com/Magdalen_Asylum

So the magdalene laundaries could be seen as a reform asylum for women who were considered unfit for society. I guess the term "social dysfunction" means both people who were socially unacceptable at the time due to both their mental capacity and sexual demeanour. It also appears that as the 20th century progressed that women guilty of infantacide were sent to the magdalen asylum rather than the lunatic asylums which had previously been the case (as per CDFM link above):

In the light of evidence that Magdalen asylums were used, for example, to incarcerate women convicted by the Central Criminal Court of infanticide and remand cases under the Criminal Justice Act (1960), the role and function of the asylums certainly changed after independence. For example, sections 9–11 of the 1960 act allowed the courts to use institutions outside the formal criminal justice system to remand young female offenders, rather than place them in prison.

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume13/issue2/reviews/?id=113825

CDfm

Were they ever used for other "deviants" gays or lesbians or atheists ?

What effect did the famine have ? Were there post trauma famine victims and the elderly i.e workhouses ?

jonniebgood1

The gay- lesbian- and particularly athiest would be an interesting angle in relation to how the church became involved in the asylum system, as refered above for the magdalen asylums. I have'nt found anything on these yet!

A report from 1907 into the Richmond Asylum (grangegorman) deals with the workhouses in that era. The workhouses seemed to take on people with disability in local areas but did not have any facilities to deal with these people. The authorities seemed to be worried that they had liability for these people even though they did'nt want to take them on. From the report:

the Joint
Committee at its meeting on 15 August 1907 when they
received correspondence from the guardians of the North
Dublin Union Workhouse “enclosing a report from Dr Courtenay,
Inspector of Lunatics, in which he states that the lunacy
wards of the workhouse are overcrowded and the condition
of the insane there deplorable” (pp:408). On 26 September
1907, the Joint Committee held a special meeting “on the
question of dealing with the lunatics at present housed in the
different workhouses of the Asylum District” (pp:455). At this
meeting, the Joint Committee’s law adviser provided a
response to the Committee’s “query as to the liability of the
County to maintain all the lunatic poor of the Asylum District.
In my opinion under Section 9 of the Local Government Act,
1898, the Committee are bound to maintain them, and if the
Union authorities of each asylum district were to send every
weak-minded person in the workhouse to the asylum, the
Committee would be bound to accept the custody of such
patients”

It is quite critical of conditions in a workhouse for the 'insane' as follows:

The ‘special committee’ visited North Dublin workhouse,
where they found “that the provision for the inmates of the
lunatic departments is truly deplorable. The overcrowding is
very marked, and calls for prompt relief” (pp:14). The female
ward for “healthy lunatics” is “little more than a dungeon,
ventilation is inadequate, and the beds are laid upon wooden
trestles. The patients are obliged to take their meals in this
repellent place” (pp:14). The male wards “are much overcrowded…
Forty-two of the patients are confined to bed, 20
of them being of the dirty class. Ten patients have to be
spoon-fed” (pp:14). The ‘special committee’ concluded that
“all buildings occupied by the lunatic patients are deficient in
light and air”

from http://www.ijpm.org/content/pdf/364/Richmond.pdf

This report also makes the definition between the 'idiot' and the 'lunatic' which I have seen crop up in several different sources so far.
From this report it seems that the 'idiot' or 'imbecile' is roughly defined as "individuals with learning disability". A 'lunatic' is defined as being"very wide and would seem to include any feeble-minded person"

The summary at the end of the report is similar in that its conclusions could be still applicable today.

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

They werent happy clappy places.

The Mental Hospital dominated the west side of Cork City

The Eglinton asylum in cork- http://www.abandonedireland.com/ourlady.html

The stairs had full height bars to avoid the danger of the patients throwing themselves over the balustrading- see photo:

delta_bravo

What I find fascinating about these asylums (particularly St. Itas in Portrane) they are built at huge expense, generally with great optimism about good treatment and best practice for patients and now we look at them 100 years on and think that they are cesspits of misery. I wonder will people looking at our current psych hospitals in 100 years time be of the same opinion of what we now consider to be best practice and look upon it in disgust.

jonniebgood1

delta_bravo wrote: »

What I find fascinating about these asylums (particularly St. Itas in Portrane) they are built at huge expense, generally with great optimism about good treatment and best practice for patients and now we look at them 100 years on and think that they are cesspits of misery. I wonder will people looking at our current psych hospitals in 100 years time be of the same opinion of what we now consider to be best practice and look upon it in disgust.

The very development of these buildings shows a great progression in the society of the time. You are correct in that the treatment of patients is often looked down upon but that is most likely the same if we compare many common things with those of 100-200 years ago, e.g. living conditions, housing, work conditions, etc. The buildings themselves are quite celebrated for their architecture, they are amongst the finest public buildings of their respective era's. I know from looking around St. Columba's in Sligo before it was renovated that it was a fascinating place. It had been empty for about 10 years when I looked around it but there were several pieces of equipment and fantastic architecture in every corner of the building. It is interesting though that the Richmond conclusions of 100 years ago can still apply today- Dr. Norman said in his 1907 report that “an institution specially equipped for teaching the teachable and improving
the improvable is essential”. This is still applicable theory.

brianthebard

CDfm wrote: »

In the town I grew up in the local mental home housed a lot of people including the mentally handicapped.

Not 100% related but I read an article about Montessori teaching from the Irish Review, 1912, in which the author states that one of the tests of Montessori's teaching methods was to take some mentally handicapped children from an Italian hospital (asylum I guess) and educate them to the level of a normal child which she did easily and with great success.
Now that sounds great and all but what it suggests is that there were tons of kids who were a bit slow or had learning difficulties or were late developers or whatever who were being classed as mentally handicapped or simpletons and quite probably sent to these institutions and if not that then the most menial and degrading jobs. And this was at the start of the 20th century so one can only imagine how often this might happen 100 years beforehand.
And don't forget all the people on the 1901 and 1911 censuses (not censi :P ) who were listed as lunatics. They might have been kids put into the asylums then released as adults or people who had nervous breakdowns or dozens of other issues what saw them put into these institutions for a time.

CDfm

In the mid 80's I came accross the same situation in Dublin and a young wonan was being prepared for independent living.

jonniebgood1

The styling of the 19th century buildings seems to have been aimed at being impressive with the expectation that this would help rehabilitate the patient/ inmate.

The designers of the asylum
insisted that it was the virtue of the asylum-asphysical
thing to assist in the cure of deranged thought.
The building itself was seen to be a critical tool for
rehabilitating the lunatic. 12
The provision of a suitable building is in fact a most essential
condition to any judicious fonn of treatment. The treatment
of the lunatic is to be accomplished not merely in but
by the Asylum, which may be looked upon as a great therapeutic
instrument itself, without which the efforts of the
physicians could accomplish little. [Fogerty 1867:39]
The designers of the asylum strove mightily to cut up
space into places on a calculus of junction. It was
precisely the regular, cyclical aspects of the human
condition-eating, sleeping, working, recreation-that
demanded separate spaces. Here, function is a timed
timelessness that organizes life in the abstract but is
itself unconnected to anyone life, and still less to any
one place. More importantly, this construction of function
is connected to no particular story but a calculated,
orderly cycle of human existence. The "people work"
(Goffman 1961:1-124) of the 19th-century asylum was
accomplished by and through a transparent instrumentality,
the asylum building, whose logic was itself a balm
to disordered minds.
The fundamental issue for lunatics in this cultural
imaginary was precisely the fact that, like children, they
did not understand the ordering of the world.13 They
were unclear about their place within it, how to move
about in it properly, and their correct (i.e., productive)
purposes therein. Thus, the 19th-century asylum, as
understood by writers such as William Fogerty (1867),
was both logically and self-consciously designed by
concerned, paternal agencies as an elaborate map or
model to guide lunatics. It was divided into male and
female spheres, spaces for work and recreation, exercise
and rest. The inmate learned such divisions and
labored within them as a major step toward the production
of himself or herself as a new person.

From a great paper viewed at http://eprints.nuim.ie/1935/1/JS2_Mad_Kings.pdf

I have'nt got to read it all but will do as its well written and interesting.

jonniebgood1

A short summary of the progression of treatment of 'lunatics' in Ireland was given in 1942 by the minister for public health, a Dr. Ward.

in medieval times lunatics were treated in monastic hospitals, but to what extent those hospitals dealt with the problem of lunacy it would now be impossible to say. Subsequent to the suppression of the monasteries, the earliest provision for the institutional accommodation of the insane took the form of cells in workhouses or houses of industry. The first of these were provided in the Dublin [1079] House of Industry about the year 1728. Cells had been provided in the year 1711 in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, for soldiers who were mentally deranged. During the course of the next century the authorities of houses of industry continued to provide cells or wards for the insane. In some few cases asylums were provided at the houses of industry. In connection with the Cork House of Industry, an asylum was erected in 1787 which subsequently became the Cork District Lunatic Asylum. In that year, also, a Prisons Act was passed containing a section which empowered grand juries to raise moneys for the support of wards for destitute insane persons in houses of industry. In 1815 there was established in Dublin an asylum which subsequently became the Richmond Asylum, and many of the insane persons in the house of industry were transferred to it.

As regards the arrangements for the admission of persons to mental institutions it appears from the report on the census for the year 1851 that towards the end of the eighteenth century a large number of violent lunatics and wandering idiots were committed to the county prisons, a separate portion of each prison being set apart for them. By direction of the Government of the day, given in the year 1816, admission to lunatic cells or wards in the Dublin House of Industry was restricted to such patients as were deemed incurable and had previously been received into the lunatic asylum.

Leads me to wonder will the 1851 census be availiable online?

Questions include reference to the general appearance of the buildings as refered in previous posts. Dockerell supposed :

most of them are terrible looking institutions from the outside, and I have often thought that many of the people who went in there would stand a very poor chance of recovery if they were at all sensible to the appearance of these institutions

He also deals with problems of who funds the care

Another feature of the Bill is that a woman is liable to maintain her illegitimate children while a man does not have to maintain his illegitimate children. Would the Parliamentary Secretary enlighten the House as to why, in cases where it has been legally proved that a man is the father of illegitimate children, he does not have to maintain them? Supposing there is an affiliation order against him, in other words that he is the legally recognised father, why has he not to maintain these children? I think that is a great defect in the Bill.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1944/11/29/00061.asp

CDfm

Sir William Wilde father of Oscar was highly involved in the Census of 1851 and the extracts should be available on-line

There are some tables here from the 19 th century oncluding 1851

http://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/11845/1/HRB_Mental_Illness_in_Ireland.pdf

Table 1.1 Number of lunatics and idiots at large, in asylums, in prisons and 20
in workhouses 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891.

CDfm

Here is a bit on Limerick

Disease and poverty were inextricably linked at this time with clear distinctions being
made between those paupers who were ‘deserving’ of charity such as widows, orphans
and the sick and those who were ‘undeserving’ such as beggars and vagrants. Ireland of
the early 18th century had plenty of the latter and the state dealt with them in a number of
ways, mostly harsh: incarceration and forced labour in Houses of Correction (the
forerunners of modern prisons), transportation to the colonies as indentured servants, and
confinement and compulsory work in Houses of Industry. The declared purpose of the
latter was to provide “an asylum for the aged and infirm, and a bridewell for the
profligate, idle and refractory”
Limerick House of Industry (1774-1841)
Houses of Industry were founded in Dublin in 1703 and in Cork in 1735. Following the
enactment of legislation by the Irish Parliament in 1772 and 1774, several Houses of
Industry were founded in other cities in Ireland. The Limerick House of Industry was
built on the north bank of the river Shannon opposite the Custom House, which had been
completed in 1769. Bishop Gore provided the site for the House of Industry at an annual
rent of one peppercorn forever and the Grand Juries of Limerick County and City (the
local government of the day) donated £500 towards the cost of building. Rev. Deane
Hoare designed the rectangular building which has a fine cut stone façade and Launcelot
Hill supervised the construction. Joseph Johns, the Mayor of Limerick, laid the
foundations on the 10th of March 1774. The building was designed to house 200 people
and Dr Edward Smith of Dublin gave £200 for the provision of cells for lunatics in the
infirmary, which was behind the main building in the garden.
In 1823 a wing was added for the accommodation of seventy infirm women and two
workrooms for spinners and weavers. The House of Industry at this time also had two
schools catering for 180 pupils. Thirty to fifty percent of inmates were deemed sick and
another 15% were classed as lunatics. A visitor to the House of Industry at Limerick,
found: ‘madmen stark naked girded only by their irons, standing in the rain, in an open
court’. Foundlings (abandoned children) were also admitted but in 1783 it was noted that
of 106 foundlings admitted during the previous year 86 had died. The diet was
monotonous consisting of oatmeal stirabout and potatoes. The able bodied were made to
work and discipline was harsh with chaining of inmates a common practice. In 1824
Pigot’s Directory gave the following view of the purpose of the House of Industry: The
House of Industry, which is a fine spacious building, on the North Strand, is an
establishment of the first consideration, as it relieves the mind and sight from the
wretched subjects that would otherwise infest the streets. By 1827 the House of Industry
held 450 inmates (twice the number it was designed to hold). In 1841 it was replaced by
the new Limerick Workhouse, which had been built on Shelbourne Road. The Limerick
House of Industry buildings became a British military barracks, the Strand Barracks, until
the 1920s when it was taken over and used as a store by Limerick Corporation. In the
1990s the buildings were converted into apartments.

Limerick District Lunatic Asylum (1827-1925)
The mentally ill were generally not well cared for before the 18th century. Early attempts
at institutional ‘care’ consisted of providing cells in the Houses of Industry and an asylum
for lunatics was provided at the Limerick House of Industry. In its first 20 years the
asylum accommodated 215 people with mental illness. Conditions were terrible, the cells
were small (6ftx10ft) and disease was rife. Restraint was by clamping on irons around the
wrist and ankles and physical and sexual abuse was common.
The early 19th century witnessed a change in societal attitudes to the mentally ill, who
were seen as being a group distinct from beggars and vagrants. The York Retreat,
founded in Yorkshire in 1796, pioneered a more humane treatment approach to mental
illness. There was a concern that the insane were being maltreated in the overcrowded
workhouses and prisons. Segregated institutional management was seen as the solution,
which led to the erection of the Richmond Asylum in Dublin in 1815. Ireland was to be
the first country in the western world with a system of public asylums for the insane.
Twenty-two asylums were built during the 19th century following passage of the Irish
Lunatic Asylums for the Poor Act in 1821.
The Limerick District Lunatic Asylum, which initially served the counties of Limerick,
Clare, and Kerry, was completed in 1826 at a cost of £35,490. Separate asylums were
later built in Killarney (1852) and Ennis (1868). The Limerick Asylum provided
accommodation for 150 patients and opened on 8th January 1827 on Mulgrave Street.
Space for another 150 patients was added later. Patients were considered to be curable or
incurable, the latter were probably handicapped and these were left in the House of
Industry until it closed in 1840. Initially a Board of Governors managed the asylum, but
the 1898 Local Government reforms brought it under the control of the local authorities.
In Limerick a new authority called the Limerick District Mental Hospital Committee was
established and to this both Limerick Corporation and Council contributed members and
finance. In 1925 the hospital was formally renamed the Limerick District Mental Hospital
and in 1959 St Joseph’s Hospital. The hospital continues to treat patients with mental
illness but most are now treated in the community or at the psychiatric unit at the
Midwestern Regional Hospital.

http://www.3bv.org/wp-content/uploads/1-med-docs-in-limerick-pg1.pdf

jonniebgood1

Thanks for link to the 'houses of industry'

This is a discription of the Dublin Poorhouse (adjacent to the foundling hospital) from recordings from Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville's journey in Ireland, July-August, 1835:

jonniebgood1

On RTE tonight a documentary about the history of the asylum system in Ireland. The second part is next week. Excellent program IMO.

'Behind the Walls' is a two-part documentary series charting the history of Ireland's psychiatric hospitals. Part one lifts the lid on this vast system - during the middle decades of the 20th century, Ireland led the world in locking up more of its people per capita in mental hospitals, ahead even of the old Soviet Union.

This documentary reveals damning evidence of appalling conditions within the hospitals, information which was kept secret by the State. It also tells the remarkable story of Hanna Greally, locked up for almost 20 years, but who emerged to write about her experiences in the 1970s, becoming one of the very few to chronicle her experiences behind the walls. http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/behind_the_walls.html

I will post link to it on RTE player when it appears.

Nhead

On the 1851 census the returns were destroyed same with 61,71,81,91. The extracts remain and have been published.

ejmaztec

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

On RTE tonight a documentary about the history of the asylum system in Ireland. The second part is next week. Excellent program IMO.
I will post link to it on RTE player when it appears.

It was up very soon after the programme finished.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1110935

My missus wanted it recorded and I managed to screw it up, so she'll have to watch it online.:(

jonniebgood1

Some of the information in the program was unreal. I'm going from memory but 21,000 people in the asylum system in the 1950's at the same time as we had 500 people in prison is unusual to say the least. Also hard to believe was the widespread use of the procedure to remove the frontal lobes of the brain (lobotomy) and also the inducement of insulin coma's. These were unproven treatments that the program was very critical of. However it was'nt pointed out in this programme that the reason these treatments were carried out was that they had in some cases had success from them:

In our enthusiasm to do things to the patients put into our care, we have inflicted terrible damage on many of them. Take, for example, the recipients of interventions such as lobotomy and insulin-coma treatment. For many years, these interventions were hailed as dramatically successful by doctors, families and even patients. For some they appeared as ‘life-saving’. Patients who were catatonic got up and talked and left hospital. If they had not been successful in some way or another they would not have been performed over such lengthy periods of time. At least 40,000 lobotomies were performed in the US, 17,000 in the UK. I don’t know how many were performed in Ireland. In many cases it was only later that dreadful deficits were noticed and eventually lobotomy went out of fashion. Not all doctors recommended lobotomy, but some were enthusiasts and if you came under their care, there was a good chance that you would be given that intervention http://www.dohc.ie/issues/ect/patbracken_presentation.pdf?direct=1

Regardless of this they still amounted to experimentation. Of course the most shocking thing from the documentary was that it seemed many people with very little reason were interned in these institutions. The use of Hanna Greally and her book about being interned in Mullingar illustrated this clearly http://www.athloneheritage.com/famo/hgreally.html

CDfm

The small number in prison is a very valid point and was not that clear from the programme.

Hanna pops up everywhere from mental health to political science to women's studies.

There is a suquel Flown the Nest which was reconstructed from an unpublished manuscript following her death.

http://corkuniversitypress.typepad.com/cork_university_press/2009/09/flown-the-nest-by-hanna-greally.html

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

Were they ever used for other "deviants" gays or lesbians or atheists ?

What effect did the famine have ? Were there post trauma famine victims and the elderly i.e workhouses ?

There was a change at some stage from the asylums being a necessary and humane way of dealing with those who required specialist treatment, to being a place where people were put for convenience to hide them from the public. The programme mentioned the post famine era as one of the reasons for the large rise in numbers. Prior to the famine farm holdings were divided up amongst the sons. After the famine the small farm holdings were blamed by many of the survivors. This led to a change in inheritance practices with land being left to the eldest son thus meaning alot of men were left idle in the community.

CDfm

Reference was made to emigrants being turned back from Ellis island after departing to the USA from Cobh to the Lee Road Mental Hospital in Cork.

I wonder if there are records of those sent back ?

SugarHigh

I listened to a radio documentary about Hannah a few months ago and found it really so interesting so was glad when the tv doc also focused on her. I haven't read the book but I'll try and pick it up from cork university soon.

Anyway I do remember hearing she appeared on the late late show in the 70's. Does anyone know if this footage still exists? I missed parts of the tv doc so I'm not sure if they showed any of it. Would be great to see. The radio doc had interviews with people who knew her and they were very honest about societies views towards people like her.

jonniebgood1

ejmaztec wrote: »

It was up very soon after the programme finished.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#!v=1110935

The 2nd part of the documentary was on tonight. Not nearly as informative in historical terms as the first episode. This one was dealing mostly with contemporary issues.

There was a reference to a 1980 article on the treatment in the institutions. The article is a very interesting piece: http://www.politico.ie/component/content/article/35-health/3099-the-scandal-of-the-mental-hospitals.html

The numbers had come down by 1980 to 14000 people contained dow from the high number in the 1950's.

CDfm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The 2nd part of the documentary was on tonight. Not nearly as informative in historical terms as the first episode. This one was dealing mostly with contemporary issues.

There was a reference to a 1980 article on the treatment in the institutions. The article is a very interesting piece: http://www.politico.ie/component/content/article/35-health/3099-the-scandal-of-the-mental-hospitals.html

The numbers had come down by 1980 to 14000 people contained dow from the high number in the 1950's.

It is hard to visualise what it was like back then. In the late 80's I did some charity work with the mentaly handicapped and the conditions had improved from the starting point of the programme (1980)but were still way behind europe. Some of the funding was milk money just to give you an idea of the shape we were in. We were an EU accession state.

A friend was a visitor to the Lee Road in Cork and was held in a room by a patient - a woman - who was there for killing someone. I knew someone else who lost it thru drug use and was a patient in Waterford and recovered wonderfully from being catatonic to go to college and do a masters.

A lot of the problem not highlighted was the sheer lack of money for the transition. For every euro the government put towards new modern programmes the EU put 2.


There were some very simplistic portrayals. Some people are that ill that long term hospitalisation is inevitable. I thought it unfortunate that they used former patients to highlight sexual abuse. Important yes,but,in the institution I worked at the amount of fundraising and help from the local community and business - bus drivers, supermarkets, pubs, clothes shops, churches (north and south), even Guinness was involved internationally. It was phenomenal. These included unfunded programmes and capital programmes using money from donations and charity.

Care in the community did not just happen.

The second part of the programme made good TV but was hardly representative of the massive regeneration that took place. It missed to opportunity to compare then with conditions in similar institutions in EU accession states such as Romania in the now.

Rant over.

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

A lot of the problem not highlighted was the sheer lack of money for the transition. For every euro the government put towards new modern programmes the EU put 2.

Was money the reason for the fluctuating fortunes of these institutions? There was alot of money spent on them initially. I was amazed at the Architectural detail on the asylum in Sligo when I looked at it years ago. It is a hotel now but it was derilict at that time. Despite this it was still quite clearly the stand-out building in the whole town. The 'mad kings' paper quoted already explains how the decorative nature of the finish was surprising even when it was built initially.

asylums in
rural Ireland were self-consciously designed to be imposing
structures. The Lunatic Asylum, for example, is
mentioned as a very prominent building in three local
histories of County Sligo.23 When the institution was
opened in 1854, the countryside was not given to large
buildings, with the exception of widely scattered manor
houses. Most of the large Catholic churches in rural
Ireland are late-19th-century products (Larkin 1972,
1975). It is no surprise, then, that one of the common
names for asylums throughout rural Ireland (including
Sligo and Leitrim) in both Irish and English is Big House
(lr. teach m6r), a designation it shares with seignorial
manors. This issue of relative architectural extravagance
of 19th-century asylums is even acknowledged in
government sources. In the middle of the last century,
John Nugent, a career medical bureaucrat who held the
Inspector of Asylums post for nearly 50 years, contrasted
the former and current living conditions of the
ever-growing number of inmates under his charge as the
difference between "a hovel and a palace. "24
The institution in Sligo town is impressive even on
the scale ofIrish asylum buildings. A few years after the
opening of the Sligo-Leitrim institution, a special commission
appointed by the Treasury awarded a 10 percent
rebate for the extra costs involved in what the
commission considered serious frivolities in the building.
While the commissioners were agreed that the public
buildings ofIreland "should not reflect too much its
crime, its poverty, or its misfortune," fiscal responsibility
was still fiscal responsibility.25 From the start, then,
the designers of asylums in Ireland, and the Sligo-Leitrim
institution in particular, called attention to these
buildings as "important places." http://eprints.nuim.ie/1935/1/JS2_Mad_Kings.pdf

So how much money did the newly built asylums have in the early years of their existence (19th centruy)? They must have been well funded judging by the quality of the buildings. Most to the issues that I see highlighted about them would be generally from the past 60-70 years which coincides with them being overcrowded and then underfunded. Was this different than the late 1800's where extravagences seem to have occured if the Sligo institution was typical:

This survival was one of many testaments to the
gentry pretensions of the asylum's upper management,
pretensions that included formal dances held in the
mental hospital under the seignorial munificence of the
resident medical superintendent and a yearly parade
led by this same personage of all the ambulatory patient
population accompanied by the asylum brass band playing
military airs, a tradition that lasted until after World
War I (Saris 1994: ch. 4). http://eprints.nuim.ie/1935/1/JS2_Mad_Kings.pdf

And when did the funding problems begin- 1940's, 1900's or were they always there?

Most of my consultants agree that the Straw Lodge
is a section in the female wing of the Old Building whose
name marks a time of hardship for the institution. Due
to severe overcrowding at the turn of the century and
fmancial wranglings between Dublin and the newly created,
nationally minded county councils over the proper
distribution of tax moneys (particularly, the desire of
the latter to show that self-government meant lower
taxes), the financial situation of the asylum became
precarious. In the end, for some years, straw was spread
out over the floor and used as bedding by the patients,
hence the name Straw Lodge.

CDfm

I think the programme last night was the "Wikipedia" edition.

Descriptions of dealing with the mentally ill from 1820's included digging a hole in the mud cabin and keeping them there.

In the UK psychiatric wards were attached to workhouses

http://www.studymore.org.uk/4_13_ta.htm

However, Ireland had its own system- check this link

SAINT ITA'S HOSPITAL, PORTRANE, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL HOSPITALS IN IRELAND by Ophélie Ferlier

"He gave the little wealth he had

To build a house for fools and mad,

And showed by one satiric touch

No nation needed it so much."

Lines on the Death of Dr Swift by Jonathan Swift

Ireland had a leading place in the establishment of lunatic asylums in the nineteenth century. New developments in psychiatry, which aimed to treat mental illness like any other, lead to the creation of the lunatic asylum as an independent institution, separate from prisons and general hospitals. Although Saint Patrick's Hospital (1757), or Swift's Hospital, built with funds from the estate of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), was the first in Ireland, the Richmond Asylum (1810-5), now Saint Brendan's Hospital, Grangegorman, was the first purpose-built public lunatic asylum in the country. Even before completion, however, it was overcrowded and needed an extension [1].
As early as 1817, a Select Committee was appointed to evaluate the situation of the mentally disordered and proposed the setting up of a national network of lunatic asylums for the poor [2]. A Commission of General Control and Correspondence was established, which divided Ireland into districts containing between one and three counties each. Using an architectural model already developed by William Stark (1770-1814) for the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum (1804), Francis Johnston (1760-1829) and William Murray (1789-1849) proposed two standard building types in a Classical style, mixing the radial and panoptic plans. These were applied in the 1820s and 1830s to the District Lunatic Asylums at Armagh (1820-5); Ballinasloe (1831-3), County Galway; Belfast (1826-9), County Antrim; Carlow (1829-31); Clonmel (1832-5), County Tipperary; Derry (1825-9); Limerick (1823-6); Maryborough (now Portlaoise) (1831-3), County Laois; and Waterford (1833) [3].
Workhouses, established under the Poor Law Act, 1838, were used to house the pauper insane, but pressure on space and their unsuitability for treatment of the mentally ill led to a further step in the history of Irish asylums. In 1843, a House of Lords Committee recommended the establishment of a Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Dundrum, the enlargement of existing asylums, and the building of new ones. This was to lead to a golden age of corridor plan asylums in a Gothic or Tudor style [4]. Killarney Lunatic Asylum (1847-52), County Kerry, and Mullingar Lunatic Asylum (1847-53), County Westmeath, are good examples of the type. In 1860, George Wilkinson (1814-90), formerly resident architect to the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland (fl. 1839-55), re-entered the public service as architect to the Board of Control. In 1863 orders were given for the construction of six new district asylums in Castlebar (1860-6), County Mayo; Downpatrick (1865-9: Henry Smyth (d. 1894), archt.), County Down; Ennis (1863-6: William Fogarty (c.1833-78), principal archt.), County Clare; Enniscorthy (1863-6: James Barry Farrell (1810-93) and James Bell (1829-83), joint archts.), County Wexford; Letterkenny (1860-5), County Donegal; and Monaghan (1863-7: John McCurdy (c.1824-85), archt.) [5]. Local authorities could employ their own architect or use Wilkinson at a special fee, which they did at Castlebar and Letterkenny.


http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/Surveys/Buildings/BuildingoftheMonth/Archive/Name,804,en.html

I don't know exactly when the funding problems began but from memory just prior to independence with old age pensions etc and the begining of the welfare state was the first time historically that the income from Britain exceeded our payments to Britain. So at independence we were benchmarked to Britain.

Cumhann Na Gaedhael were great at balancing the books and Willie Cosgrave was a publicans son - so if we looked at treatment in Irish hospitals against UK hospitals

Certainly, by the time Ireland joined the EU our system was well below EU common standards and the grant aid system operated to modernise the system.

Funding was only given to schemes pursuant to those.

If you took the Magdalene Launderies that recieved some funding into the 1970's using methods dating from the 19th century-that type of institution would not be eligible for grant aid. So the Health Authorities developed new approaches to maximize funding. The inmates where possible were churned into the new facilities.

I imagine the system in Ireland remained unchanged following independence until 1980 or so.

jonniebgood1

The programme in its first part gave a figure of 21,000 people in institutions in the late 1950's. There were only 500 people in prison at that stage. How many people were in magdalene laundries (or other institutions) in this period? It may be an aside but there were alot of people held against their will.

CDfm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The programme in its first part gave a figure of 21,000 people in institutions in the late 1950's. There were only 500 people in prison at that stage. How many people were in magdalene laundries (or other institutions) in this period? It may be an aside but there were alot of people held against their will.

Are there census extracts out there

I have a feeling that there are not accurate records for the Magdelene Launderies available.

Another thing would be the population of industrial schools ?

There were alternatives to prison including a stint in the army which would happen for young offenders.

For minor offences where a bench warrant would be issued someone would disappear to england for 12 months after which the warrant would expire. There were no passport controls of any kind.

I reckon they were fairly relaxed about pursuing people who legged it for anything but serious offenses.

What was the Irish prison & psychiatric institution population in the UK ? Should they be looked at in aggregate.

And mortality in prisons & institutions , TB was very contageous so life expectancy if incarcerated would have an affect on the prison population.

What other types of "residential" homes were there ?

CDfm

Here is an interesting link

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=ids&requesttimeout=500&folder=47&paper=111

And a link to a pdf with lots of stats

MHRU Publication

Mental illness in Ireland 1750 - 2002: Reflections on the rise and fall of institutional care

Author(s):Dermot Walsh
Publication Date: 7 December 2004Download PDF:Download PDF (387 Kb)
Publisher:Health Research BoardPlace of Publication:Dublinhttp://www.hrb.ie/health-information-in-house-research/mental-health/publications/mhru-publication/publications//166/

And another and another showing the Irish as an ethnic group

The idea that people may have escaped to England is something that seems possible

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1562353/

emmab353

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