BY JOHN FITZGERALD
St Canice’s Mental Hospital in Kilkenny closed its doors in 2006, drawing down the curtain on a long history of care for those afflicted by a range of non-physical illnesses. Former residents, and their relatives and loved ones, have mixed memories of the institution.
Treatment of the mentally ill has evolved through the decades, but at the time this building opened, the life of any person thus afflicted could be a grim one indeed. People often suffered unnecessarily due to a lack of understanding of mental illness, on the part of both the medical profession and wider society.
I accompanied the Kilkenny Heritage Walkers on a visit to the old St. Canice’s hospital building recently.
Before the talk began, we had to seek shelter under the expansive canopy of a tree when the suitably grey sky unleashed a downpour. The weather was in keeping with the sombre atmosphere of the site. Through a squally haze, historian Paddy Neary relayed the story of St. Canice’s.
As he spoke, umbrellas sprang open. A group of ramblers and a dog walker with his lurcher raced for cover, scattering autumn leaves in their wake.
Paddy told the story without frills. He let the listener draw his or her own conclusions, and reflect on a part of our history often overlooked or ignored.
The creation of the institution that would later become known as St Canice’s, he explained, commenced in 1848, and was designed to cater for 150 inmates. It was part of a series of publicly funded asylums erected under the auspices of the Board of Works. The estimated cost was £21,500.
It opened in 1852 as Kilkenny District Lunatic Asylum. The name today shocks many people, then but there’s a world of difference between attitudes back then and our present way of thinking.
Paddy recalled that the first person admitted to the asylum was a 70-year-old woman. She was one of more than fifty people transferred from the Carlow District Hospital for the Insane. She lived for seven years at the Kilkenny asylum before dying, according to hospital records, of “natural causes.”
A further forty-seven people arrived on official opening day from the Kilkenny Lunatic Asylum, which called itself a “a small house of correction”, from the county prison, and ten others from the general district.
The first Resident Doctor at the hospital, Dr Joseph Lalor, found significant challenges in his management of the institution. He complained that attendants lacked sufficient experience, and that the building itself had not been completed. He also found that water supply was both inadequate for the number of inmates and impure. He was concerned too about storm damage to parts of the building
By the first winter after its opening, work had commenced on the addition of a farm and garden to the asylum, amenities deemed essential to keeping the inmates active. Such work was beneficial to their mental health and wellbeing.
The asylum had, initially, a staff of twenty-two, whose annual wage varied between four and twelve pounds. The estimated cost of each inmate was about £18 per year. Meals were, by the standard of the times, reasonable and nourishing. A portion of oatmeal, rice and new milk, for breakfast, with bread and milk for dinners on some days, and beef, peas and soup on other days of the week, with whatever vegetables happened to be in season.
Despite the stigma attaching to mental illness, the institution had to turn away many applicants or referrals; such was the demand for its services. From 1868, even more people sought to gain access to the hospital after a new Act of Parliament allowed direct admissions by certain categories of people without the necessity of having to serve jail time first, as previously required.
The occupations of those entering the institution were diverse. Among those listed for the second part of the 19th century are labourers, colliers, fiddlers, hat makers, fruit sellers, dyers, farmers, tailors, and publicans. The hospital also recorded the education level of inmates.
The numbers at the hospital continued to grow and by 1902, it had 440 patients. To accommodate the increasing demand for space Lacken House opened in 1906 (Lacken operated until the 1960s when a fire engulfed the building.)
By 1939, the institution had its own farm, with pigs, cattle and vegetables. It also had workshops with a range of skills and needs catered for…tailoring, shoemaking, and painting among them. It had two churches, a laundry, a boiler house and an adequate water supply.
It was in the 1950s that the asylum came to be known as St Canice’s Mental Hospital- a welcome change from its former Victorian title, in keeping with changing times and attitudes, but a far greater change for the institution came in 1980 with the advent of community-based rehabilitation. The patient numbers dropped drastically. In later years, the opening of a psychiatric unit at St. Luke’s Hospital saw a further decline in the traditional role of St. Canice’s and in 2006, the old building finally fell silent.
The treatment of mental illness had come a long way since that day in 1852 when the 70-year-old woman from the Carlow District Hospital for the insane stepped through the high creaking doors of Kilkenny District Lunatic Asylum.
By the time that Paddy Neary concluded his lengthy presentation, the rain had abated, but a light drizzle persisted. The old building looked greyer and bleaker through the silvery droplets that a breeze fanned across the extensive lawn. It took on a mantle of sadness and quiet despair…faintly echoing its institutional past.
Paddy handed the microphone to Marianne Kelly who recounted the story of the Marian Shrine at St. Canice’s. This stands on the lawn directly opposite the main entrance to the building.
We crossed the lawn to view the impeccably- kept grotto.
Marianne recalled that in 1954, members of nursing and other staff at St. Canice’s banded together to have a statue installed on the grounds of the hospital. This offered great solace and spiritual comfort to patients and staff alike. Thousands knelt at the grotto to pray to the Mother of God.
Prior to 2014, people left coins of all denominations on a pier at the grotto, some to ask favours of Our Lady, and others in thanksgiving for favours granted. For years patients, staff and visitors prayed at the secluded spot. It was a true oasis of peace in a troubled world.
But in 2014 disaster struck. A raging storm uprooted a tree that fell on the grotto, knocking over and badly damaging the statue. Marianne and others networked and lobbied, and to the rescue came noted monumental sculptor, Pat Murphy of Callan.
He had the statue repaired and restored to the grotto in September of that year, a day of immense relief and celebration for the people of Kilkenny. In the past, patients and staff had looked after the maintenance of the grotto. Today, the HSE has taken over that delicate and noble duty, and the shrine continues to attract visitors.
The Heritage Walkers and those who had joined them for the talk at St. Canice’s thanked Paddy Neary and Marianne Kelly for another thoughtful journey back in time.
They also commended Marianne for her meticulous research into the origins of the Marian statues of Kilkenny. Writer/journalist Jimmy Rhatigan also cites her project in his book on exceptional achievers in the county.
