Host, Camera Shy, Sammy DW and Myself popped over to Ireland in 2016 to see a few of the Asylums over there.
Host seemed to pick up some Irish bug/virus after the first night, which meant we had to quarintine him in the back of the car with myself.
Forster Green Hospital Mortuary
A change of clothes needed after this one and we had only just got off the plane.
Didnt bother with the rest of the Hospital as we had seen pictures and had better things on the list.
St Ita's Hospital/Portrane Asylum
Nice stroll along the coast and past many security guards sitting in cars, Even ask 1 directions.
took a while to get in to this one after trying different areas that led to no where.
History
Building commenced in 1895 on Portrane Lunatic Asylum, It was the most expensive building in Ireland paid for by the British Government having an initial budget of £200,000 but this rose to £300,000 by the time it was finally completed
Ennis District Lunatic Asylum
This one reminded me of Whittingham.
A kind of stroll in access until the alarm went off.
History
Closed in 2002 - Our Lady’s first opened its doors in 1868 and was then known as Ennis District Lunatic Asylum. For 134 years it continued to operate on the same site as a mental hospital and indeed until the 1950s very little changed in the manner in which it was run. The hospital was one of the largest public buildings in Clare and was both a large employer and purchaser of goods from local suppliers.It played an important role in the economic life of Ennis, especially in earlier years when jobs were scarce and pensionable positions were highly prized.
[/URL]
Connacht District Lunatic Asylum
A fun morning climbing over the biggest wooden fence ever seen, host was still suffering so we had to leave him in the car.
History
"The Connacht District Lunatic Asylum (CDLA, now St Brigid’s Hospital), opened in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, in 1833 and one of the earliest of the Irish district asylums. It was intended for the care of ‘curable lunatics’ and opened in a spirit of optimism with regard to its progressive role in public health. Its history, however, is one of continual struggle: to prevent the admission of unsuitable cases, to secure additional funding and to offer reasonable standards of care under difficult conditions. In common with the majority of other District Asylums, the CDLA was continually overcrowded, housing in November 1900, for example, 1,165 patients in accommodation designed to hold 840. Its evolving role in Irish society throughout the nineteenth century, then, throws some interesting light on public perceptions of the insane, the authority of the medical profession and changing social mores. The nineteenth century may fairly be described as the century of the asylum, with a worldwide growth in the institutional care of the insane. Within this large picture the Irish case is especially interesting. Ireland was one of the earliest states to embrace the asylum system, and by the end of the nineteenth century had experienced one of the most rapid proportionate growths in asylum admissions in the world. When one considers that Ireland’s population actually declined sharply from mid-century, this growth is all the more startling. Yet early advocates of asylums had neither proposed nor anticipated that institutional care should be made available on such a scale. Rather, it had been hoped that only nine 150-bed asylums would prove sufficient to care for the whole of the country, and indeed several commentators argued that this would prove a gross over-provision."
[/URL]
Host seemed to pick up some Irish bug/virus after the first night, which meant we had to quarintine him in the back of the car with myself.
Forster Green Hospital Mortuary
A change of clothes needed after this one and we had only just got off the plane.
Didnt bother with the rest of the Hospital as we had seen pictures and had better things on the list.
St Ita's Hospital/Portrane Asylum
Nice stroll along the coast and past many security guards sitting in cars, Even ask 1 directions.
took a while to get in to this one after trying different areas that led to no where.
History
Building commenced in 1895 on Portrane Lunatic Asylum, It was the most expensive building in Ireland paid for by the British Government having an initial budget of £200,000 but this rose to £300,000 by the time it was finally completed
Ennis District Lunatic Asylum
This one reminded me of Whittingham.
A kind of stroll in access until the alarm went off.
History
Closed in 2002 - Our Lady’s first opened its doors in 1868 and was then known as Ennis District Lunatic Asylum. For 134 years it continued to operate on the same site as a mental hospital and indeed until the 1950s very little changed in the manner in which it was run. The hospital was one of the largest public buildings in Clare and was both a large employer and purchaser of goods from local suppliers.It played an important role in the economic life of Ennis, especially in earlier years when jobs were scarce and pensionable positions were highly prized.
[/URL]
Connacht District Lunatic Asylum
A fun morning climbing over the biggest wooden fence ever seen, host was still suffering so we had to leave him in the car.
History
"The Connacht District Lunatic Asylum (CDLA, now St Brigid’s Hospital), opened in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, in 1833 and one of the earliest of the Irish district asylums. It was intended for the care of ‘curable lunatics’ and opened in a spirit of optimism with regard to its progressive role in public health. Its history, however, is one of continual struggle: to prevent the admission of unsuitable cases, to secure additional funding and to offer reasonable standards of care under difficult conditions. In common with the majority of other District Asylums, the CDLA was continually overcrowded, housing in November 1900, for example, 1,165 patients in accommodation designed to hold 840. Its evolving role in Irish society throughout the nineteenth century, then, throws some interesting light on public perceptions of the insane, the authority of the medical profession and changing social mores. The nineteenth century may fairly be described as the century of the asylum, with a worldwide growth in the institutional care of the insane. Within this large picture the Irish case is especially interesting. Ireland was one of the earliest states to embrace the asylum system, and by the end of the nineteenth century had experienced one of the most rapid proportionate growths in asylum admissions in the world. When one considers that Ireland’s population actually declined sharply from mid-century, this growth is all the more startling. Yet early advocates of asylums had neither proposed nor anticipated that institutional care should be made available on such a scale. Rather, it had been hoped that only nine 150-bed asylums would prove sufficient to care for the whole of the country, and indeed several commentators argued that this would prove a gross over-provision."
[/URL]
Last edited:
