Easily one of my all time favourite asylums I have been to. Absolute disaster of an ending with myself and my ex nearly getting done for criminal trespass, but totally worth the hassle.
We had the trip planned to Galway anyway, mainly to drink lots of local beer (fuck drinking Guinness out there when you have the likes of Galway Bay Brewery!) but St. Brigid's was a must do. Unfortunately for us, a certain sell-out Irish explorer sold his pics to a mainstream paper and the article was published days before we arrived. Knowing the media attention was a bad thing, we drove straight there before the weekend and got the place done. In and out in broad daylight, nearly got caught inside twice, great stuff. Sunday comes around, we get drunk and decided it was a fantastic idea to go back the next day. So hungover as hell, we did. Over the weekend the place had been smashed up quite a bit more, we knew as soon as we got inside everything looked different. Long story short, we got caught inside by some old boy who I presume was the caretaker. My god he was not a friendly man. Off he went to phone the old bill, 10 mins past and he never returned. We went looking for him and he was nowhere to be seen so we legged it. Obviously we were eventually picked up, its a small place and we stupidly went the wrong direction from the car! A long bollocking ensued and talk of getting fined a few grand and a few months in prison. We had been accused of trespass, breaking and entering and vandalism. We were searched and I was asked to show my pics, which I did, then asked to delete them. I offered to wipe the whole SD card because I didn't want any trouble, they said it was just ones from inside I had to delete but they would stand and watch. I deleted the whole card.
Little did they know those pics were from somewhere else taken in 2015 because I did the old SD card switcheroo when that old prick turned his back to make the phone call!
Absolutely worth all the drama.
The Connacht District Lunatic Asylum opened in 1833 with accommodation for 150 patients. Many commentators at the time thought the asylum would never reach capacity, and in fact feared it wouldn’t ever be even half full. Promotional advertisements were created ready to entice patients to the new asylum. These turned out to be redundant, however, and the asylum actually suffered with overcrowding throughout the years, despite being expanded many times. Poor Law Workhouses at the time were overcrowded, as was the prison system in Ireland, and both were relieved to be able to offload some of their more difficult inmates to the asylums. Connacht, like the other asylums at the time, was unable by law to refuse entry to anyone referred to them, and soon found they were filling up with long-term or incurable patients. Around the same time, emigration to America seemed a good option for many Irish people, however anyone exhibiting strange behaviour would likely mean refusal of entry into the USA for the entire family. Those family members were simply sent to the asylums where they would likely spend the rest of their lives while their families emigrated.
Designed by William Murray, based on an earlier design by Francis Johnston, Connacht was built with an X shape layout and cost £27,000. The plan was based on the “panoptic” concept for prison layouts whereby the governor and his staff would occupy the central structure, easily able to monitor the entire institution with the wings radiating outwards.
My only external. It was raining when we left the first time so did a quick point and shoot one.
I did totally bump @AndyK's composition for this one though!
It broke my heart to see the mirror like this. The old boy claimed we did it, hence the vandalism accusation, but the police admitted he had reported it to them not long ago.
Continued...
We had the trip planned to Galway anyway, mainly to drink lots of local beer (fuck drinking Guinness out there when you have the likes of Galway Bay Brewery!) but St. Brigid's was a must do. Unfortunately for us, a certain sell-out Irish explorer sold his pics to a mainstream paper and the article was published days before we arrived. Knowing the media attention was a bad thing, we drove straight there before the weekend and got the place done. In and out in broad daylight, nearly got caught inside twice, great stuff. Sunday comes around, we get drunk and decided it was a fantastic idea to go back the next day. So hungover as hell, we did. Over the weekend the place had been smashed up quite a bit more, we knew as soon as we got inside everything looked different. Long story short, we got caught inside by some old boy who I presume was the caretaker. My god he was not a friendly man. Off he went to phone the old bill, 10 mins past and he never returned. We went looking for him and he was nowhere to be seen so we legged it. Obviously we were eventually picked up, its a small place and we stupidly went the wrong direction from the car! A long bollocking ensued and talk of getting fined a few grand and a few months in prison. We had been accused of trespass, breaking and entering and vandalism. We were searched and I was asked to show my pics, which I did, then asked to delete them. I offered to wipe the whole SD card because I didn't want any trouble, they said it was just ones from inside I had to delete but they would stand and watch. I deleted the whole card.
Little did they know those pics were from somewhere else taken in 2015 because I did the old SD card switcheroo when that old prick turned his back to make the phone call!
Absolutely worth all the drama.
The Connacht District Lunatic Asylum opened in 1833 with accommodation for 150 patients. Many commentators at the time thought the asylum would never reach capacity, and in fact feared it wouldn’t ever be even half full. Promotional advertisements were created ready to entice patients to the new asylum. These turned out to be redundant, however, and the asylum actually suffered with overcrowding throughout the years, despite being expanded many times. Poor Law Workhouses at the time were overcrowded, as was the prison system in Ireland, and both were relieved to be able to offload some of their more difficult inmates to the asylums. Connacht, like the other asylums at the time, was unable by law to refuse entry to anyone referred to them, and soon found they were filling up with long-term or incurable patients. Around the same time, emigration to America seemed a good option for many Irish people, however anyone exhibiting strange behaviour would likely mean refusal of entry into the USA for the entire family. Those family members were simply sent to the asylums where they would likely spend the rest of their lives while their families emigrated.
Designed by William Murray, based on an earlier design by Francis Johnston, Connacht was built with an X shape layout and cost £27,000. The plan was based on the “panoptic” concept for prison layouts whereby the governor and his staff would occupy the central structure, easily able to monitor the entire institution with the wings radiating outwards.
My only external. It was raining when we left the first time so did a quick point and shoot one.
I did totally bump @AndyK's composition for this one though!
It broke my heart to see the mirror like this. The old boy claimed we did it, hence the vandalism accusation, but the police admitted he had reported it to them not long ago.
Continued...
