|
St. Dymphna's Memories
 On
the left is an image of St
Dymphna's Lodge, on Athy Road, just beyond the Seven Oaks Hotel
(formally the Crofton Hotel). The picture is taken looking towards
Carlow.
St Dymphna's hospital, a memory. St Dymphna's hospital was surrounded by high walls to prevent the patients escaping and to stop the public being able to see inside. The walls were lowered in the early 1960s and the public were allowed access through the grounds from the Dublin road to the Athy road. I think a Doctor Blake was instrumental in this new approach. The hospital had its own farmland, crops, including vegetables for the hospital kitchens, were tended by male patients under supervision. They had their own herd of cattle and the beasts were slaughtered on a weekly basis in a small stone shed not far from the church (now the military museum). The hospital had its own tailor Mr. Moloney. The male patients were dressed in grey herringbone tweed suits with matching caps and hobnailed boots. The male inmates of the "workhouse" and later The Sacred Heart hospital had similar attire but their suits were brown tweed. I never saw female patients on the streets of Carlow but men from both institutions were a regular feature. The staff of the hospital included "Attendants" perhaps these were the forerunner of nurses! In the early 1960s Dr. Berthram Blake, a movie enthusiast, showed films for the inmates and staff in the hall every Tuesday and Friday. If you were well connected you could "sneak" in, later they gave that hall for Cathedral Parish Bingo sessions (before Youth Centre was built). In 1995, the hospital archives were transferred to the National Archives in Dublin. I think the dance hall was, in reality, the dining hall, which was used for a number of functions including the nurses annual dinner-dance. It was looked forward to with eagerness by the dancing fraternity with music provided by the likes of Mick Delahunty, Maurice Mulcahy, etc., etc. The hall was big with a very fine timber floor. I don't know how many patients are there now but the building and grounds all have a pleasant aspect and seem to be kept in good order. I remember in the 90's, on my visits to Ireland, we would walk through the grounds from the Dublin Road on a Tuesday night to get to the dance in the hotel. It never bothered us that it was pitch black along that path, We would come back the same way, late as it was. To the left of the path was a huge wall, probably the height of the wall that Carloman2 refers to. A few years later I visited at the hospital, finding it light and airy, with the patients seeming to be well taken care of. People were institutionalize for being more than heavy drinkers?? I wonder if they ever came to the realization that once the drinking stopped, they were perfectly normal and didn't need the institutionalization.
Carlow Lunatic Asylum-DEATHS One of the most common reasons for being there (for women) was to have a baby out of marriage - also there were other physical conditions that put people there - for example thyroid problems like hypothyroidism and mixodema - nowadays fixed so easily with medication. Another example is epilepsy - now treated with medication also. Institutions (From the ‘How-to' instructions on searching the 1911 census) People in institutions like prisons, army and police barracks, asylums and workhouses were often listed in the census only by their initials. Thus, Mary Smith will be listed only as M.S. If you think the person you seek was in an institution in 1911, first try the return for the institution, if you know it, as the ancillary information on the return (age, county of birth, previous occupation etc.) will help you to decide whether this is the right person. If you don't know the institution, or merely suspect that someone might have been in one, use their initials plus the age and sex boxes to narrow it down, eg M S, 25, female. Source: Jack Langton, Frances Heidel, J.J. Woods, Carloman2 (P.P), Michael Purcell & Anna Golan Please report any links or images which do not open to mjbrennan30@gmail.com |
