The church and the sick

Ihglcc

I watched the Magdalen laundries last night for the first time ever, then Philomena and the Raggy Boy and I am now depressed!!!

From what i have read and now know that the church "helped" women by trying to reform them and we all know the story of the laundries as mentioned above and workhouses.

But can anyone tell me what did the 19th-century church to for people with MS, physically and intellectually disabled and such.

I don't like to use the word "Handicapped" but back in the 19th century what did the church do to help them? Was there homes? hospitals? or a dark hole where they were put and forgotten?

goose2005

afaik the mentally ill were usually "cared" for by secular institutions - workhouses, lunatic asylums

Really good article here
http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/humaninterest/our-shameful-asylums-221854.html

http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/about/libraryresearchservice/onlinecataloguecollections/mentalhealthin19thcireland/

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/ireland-s-mental-hospitals-the-last-gap-in-our-history-of-coercive-confinement-1.1833379

Ihglcc

cheers goose

Peregrinus

goose2005 wrote: »

afaik the mentally ill were usually "cared" for by secular institutions - workhouses, lunatic asylums

Yup. Remember that until 1829 Catholicism was strictly legally limited in Ireland. When Catholic emancipation came, the first priority was building up the networks of parishes and parish churches, then schools under the new National School system.

The growth in Catholic "social" institutions - hospitals, schools for the deaf and blind, that kind of thing - came later in the nineteenth century, on the back of growth in religious orders.