SAINT ITA'S HOSPITAL, PORTRANE, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL HOSPITALS IN IRELAND by Ophélie Ferlier

"He gave the little wealth he had

To build a house for fools and mad,

And showed by one satiric touch

No nation needed it so much."

Lines on the Death of Dr Swift by Jonathan Swift

Ireland had a leading place in the establishment of lunatic asylums in the nineteenth century.  New developments in psychiatry, which aimed to treat mental illness like any other, lead to the creation of the lunatic asylum as an independent institution, separate from prisons and general hospitals.  Although Saint Patrick's Hospital (1757), or Swift's Hospital, built with funds from the estate of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), was the first in Ireland, the Richmond Asylum (1810-5), now Saint Brendan's Hospital, Grangegorman, was the first purpose-built public lunatic asylum in the country.  Even before completion, however, it was overcrowded and needed an extension [1].

As early as 1817, a Select Committee was appointed to evaluate the situation of the mentally disordered and proposed the setting up of a national network of lunatic asylums for the poor [2].  A Commission of General Control and Correspondence was established, which divided Ireland into districts containing between one and three counties each.  Using an architectural model already developed by William Stark (1770-1814) for the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum (1804), Francis Johnston (1760-1829) and William Murray (1789-1849) proposed two standard building types in a Classical style, mixing the radial and panoptic plans.  These were applied in the 1820s and 1830s to the District Lunatic Asylums at Armagh (1820-5); Ballinasloe (1831-3), County Galway; Belfast (1826-9), County Antrim; Carlow (1829-31); Clonmel (1832-5), County Tipperary; Derry (1825-9); Limerick (1823-6); Maryborough (now Portlaoise) (1831-3), County Laois; and Waterford (1833) [3].

Workhouses, established under the Poor Law Act, 1838, were used to house the pauper insane, but pressure on space and their unsuitability for treatment of the mentally ill led to a further step in the history of Irish asylums.  In 1843, a House of Lords Committee recommended the establishment of a Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Dundrum, the enlargement of existing asylums, and the building of new ones.  This was to lead to a golden age of corridor plan asylums in a Gothic or Tudor style [4].  Killarney Lunatic Asylum (1847-52), County Kerry, and Mullingar Lunatic Asylum (1847-53), County Westmeath, are good examples of the type.  In 1860, George Wilkinson (1814-90), formerly resident architect to the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland (fl. 1839-55), re-entered the public service as architect to the Board of Control.  In 1863 orders were given for the construction of six new district asylums in Castlebar (1860-6), County Mayo; Downpatrick (1865-9: Henry Smyth (d. 1894), archt.), County Down; Ennis (1863-6: William Fogarty (c.1833-78), principal archt.), County Clare; Enniscorthy (1863-6: James Barry Farrell (1810-93) and James Bell (1829-83), joint archts.), County Wexford; Letterkenny (1860-5), County Donegal; and Monaghan (1863-7: John McCurdy (c.1824-85), archt.) [5].  Local authorities could employ their own architect or use Wilkinson at a special fee, which they did at Castlebar and Letterkenny.

With the Richmond Hospital continually overcrowded it was decided, in 1892, to erect an additional asylum for the Dublin region, covering counties Dublin, Louth, and Wicklow [6].  Portrane House, the early eighteenth-century home of the Evans family surrounded by a 460 acre demesne, was chosen as the site [7].  The grounds also featured a folly modelled on the early medieval round tower in Kildare town, erected (1843) by Sophia Evans (née Parnell) (d. 1855) in memory of her husband George Hampden Evans MP (d. 1842).  By 1853 the demesne had passed to their extended family and was subsequently purchased by James Considine about 30 years later [8].

Fig. 1: "SELECTED DESIGN FOR ASYLUM FOR RICHMOND DISTRICT, PORTRAINE, CO. DUBLIN, G.C. Ashlin, RHA, Architect" from Building News 1895, p.509.

In August 1894 a limited architectural competition was staged to select a suitable scheme for the asylum.  George Coppinger Ashlin (1837-1921), the partnership of Carroll & Batchelor (formed 1892), and William Kaye-Parry (1853-1932) were the finalists.  Despite its higher estimated price, Ashlin's project, entitled "Aspect" and in a late example of the Gothic Revival style, won the competition, but on the condition that its cost would be reduced (fig. 1) [9].  Ashlin's design was selected because it offered the most space and could be realised with few modifications [10].  His professional experience and past partnership with Edward Welby Pugin (1834-75) were also no doubt helpful.  Alfred Ignatius McGloughlin (1863-1940s) collaborated on the project [11] and supervised its construction until a domestic scandal compelled him to leave Ireland for the United States circa 1900 [12].  Building work lasted from 1896 until 1903.

Fig. 2: "PORTRANE ASYLUM, DONABATE, Ground Plan".

The asylum at Portrane was designed to accommodate 1,200 patients.  Yet there were still problems with overcrowding and in 1895 it was estimated that approximately 800 patients could not be accommodated in the new buildings [13].  In 1896, thirty women were accommodated in the original Portrane House, which later served as a residence for the Medical Superintendant before being demolished in the late twentieth century [14].  From 1897, additional temporary buildings were built, housing up to 400 patients and continuing in use until recent years (fig. 2) [15].

Fig. 3: "NEW LUNATIC ASYLUM, PORTRANE, CO. DUBLIN, G.C. Ashlin RHA PRIBA, Architect" from Building News 27th April 1900, p.573.

Saint Ita's Hospital was Ashlin's largest secular commission [16].  It was also the most expensive building executed by the British Government in Ireland [17].  The difficulty of site access and the importation of construction materials, including slate from Antwerp, no doubt contributed to the cost, although some of the brick was locally supplied by the Portmarnock Brick Company.  The complexity of the plan also added to the cost (fig. 3): it belongs to a new generation of asylums built on an echelon or broad-arrow plan, first used at Gloucester (1879).  An octagonal corridor connects a series of independent pavilion buildings, allowing each of them a clear southerly view on the sea (fig. 4) [18].  This plan type has nothing to do with that of a prison – rather than locking up and throwing away the key, the health of a patient was to be achieved through the sensation of space and the opening towards nature.

Fig. 4

The building's symmetry is a familiar feature reflecting the institutional segregation of the sexes.  Inside each section, the patients were separated in four categories depending on the acuteness of their illness (figs. 5-6).  The patients were separated by type of illness and not by behaviour - by the end of the nineteenth century, it was obvious that the mixing of different types of mental illnesses was prejudicial for their healing.

 
(left to right) Fig. 5: Male Chronic and Semi-Acute Buildings; Fig. 6: Male Recent and Acute Buildings.

Fig. 7: Entrance.

Only the two chapels break the symmetry on either side of the entrance (fig. 7) [19]: the Catholic chapel seating 800 (fig. 8), and the Church of Ireland chapel seating 250 (fig. 9).

 
(left to right) Fig. 8: Catholic Chapel; Fig. 9: Church of Ireland chapel.

Within the octagon are the nurses' quarters and the common buildings, including the general stores and the dining hall.  An impressive clock tower doubled as a water tank in the event of a fire (fig. 10).  These prestigious buildings contrast with the service buildings located to the north-west – the laundry, coal store and the engine and boiler house with its tall characteristic chimney (fig. 11).

 
(left to right) Fig. 10: Clock Tower; Fig. 11: Chimney and Clock Tower.

At Portrane, Ashlin managed to combine an ambitious architectural programme with a human scale, a significant achievement in the evolution of lunatic asylums before the advent of the modern psychiatry.

Ophélie Ferlier. Student curator from the French Institut National du Patrimoine, on a placement with the NIAH, February-March 2010.

1          Reuber, Markus, "Moral Management and the "Unseen Eye": Public Lunatic Asylums in Ireland 1800-1845" in Jones, Greta and Malcolm, Elizabeth, Medicine, Disease and the State in Ireland, 1650-1940 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999), p.215.

2          ibid., p.208.

3          ibid., p.222.

4          O'Dwyer, Frederick, Irish Hospital Architecture: A Pictorial History (Dublin: Department of Health and Children, 1997), p.12.

5          ibid., p.12.

6          The British Medical Journal 24th July 1897, p.254.

7          Bates, Peadar, Donabate and Portrane: A History (Dublin: Self Published, 2001), p.170.

8          ibid., p.170.

9          The Irish Builder 1st April 1895, p.84.

10        Bates, Peadar, Donabate and Portrane: A History (Dublin: Self Published, 2001), p.170.

11        Building News 27th April 1900, p.573.

12        Irish Architectural Archive Biographical Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1940.

13        The British Medical Journal 25th May 1895, p.1180.

14        The British Medical Journal 31st July 1897, p.292.

15        Building News 27th April 1900, p.573.

16        Williams, Jeremy, A Companion Guide to Architecture in Ireland 1837-1921 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994), p.165.

17        ibid., p.165.

18        The Builder 22nd August 1896, p.160.

19        Williams, Jeremy, A Companion Guide to Architecture in Ireland 1837-1921 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994), p.166.

Photography by the author with the exception of figures 4 and 5 by Helena Bergin.  Archival drawings reproduced courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive.

FURTHER READING

Bates, Peadar, Donabate and Portrane: A History (Dublin: Self Published, 2001)

O'Dwyer, Frederick, Irish Hospital Architecture: A Pictorial History (Dublin: Department of Health and Children, 1997)

Reuber, Markus, "Moral Management and the "Unseen Eye": Public Lunatic Asylums in Ireland 1800-1845" in Jones, Greta and Malcolm, Elizabeth, Medicine, Disease and the State in Ireland, 1650-1940 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999)

Williams, Jeremy, A Companion Guide to Architecture in Ireland 1837-1921 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994)

Irish Architectural Archive Biographical Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1940 (www.dia.ie)