St Loman's Hospital

History

St Loman’s Hospital

The main block of St Loman’s is a freestanding 41 bay, 3 storeyed hospital built on twenty-five acres of land purchased in 1848 for which eventually opened as the Mullingar District Lunatic Asylum in August 1855. It was extended 40 years later. The hospital is a well-detailed Victorian institutional complex, in the Gothic style with extensive Tudor Gothic detailing. The structure was built to designs by John Skipton Mulvany, possibly the most celebrated architect operating in Ireland at the time. It cost £35,430 to build, equivalent to €3.2 million in today and was built to accommodate 300 patients. The first patients were transferred from the Richmond Surgical Hospital in Dublin, and all of them were female. In the grounds of the hospital, there are various buildings including a chapel which was constructed 1886, a nurses' home and an infirmary which were built 1940.

While looking further into the history of the asylum it was apparent that there were plenty of dramatic events that took place over its lifetime. A severe lack of care for the patients was a common occurrence during the time the hospital was open. There are multiple accounts of mistreatment in the early to mid-20th century. The most notable account was of Hanna Greally who was admitted in 1943 by her mother after witnessing the Blitz. Greally published a book in 1971 called Bird’s Nest Soup which is said to provide a grim picture of life inside one of these institutions in the 40s-50s. On top of the poor care at Loman’s, a reported 1304 bodies are buried in the grounds, with the last body being buried in 1970. Each grave is unmarked, and a cross is stored somewhere in an outbuilding on site with a number attached. Aside to the dark history behind this institute, Loman’s was subject to an ISIS chemical attack hoax where the nurse staff were delivered an envelope containing a white powder and a note with the message “ISIS is going to get you”. This sparked the Gardaí and army to respond and lockdown the hospital and put a cordon in place until the Army Bomb Disposal unit had examined the powder. The closure for this hospital should have been prompt after the Inspector of Mental Health Services produced a report in 2007 with findings of poor conditions such as peeling paint, damp, poor sanitary facilities and many more. The report ended with the statement: “every effort must be made to close the hospital immediately”. The main building shut years later in 2013. However there are 2 newer active wards within the grounds and sections that are still live connecting to the main derelict block.

The only issue was doing so unsuspectingly. Part of the site is currently used as a walk-in COVID test centre, so the front was not an option.

Externals. The building was too big to fit in frame and the trees sadly blocked the overall view of the main block.

Inside, the building was navigated by 3 corridors across 3 floors each spanning different lengths of the structure. Each floor had a different colour scheme and array of items, furniture, medical equipment, etc… remaining. The first floor spanned the entire length of the block and was more complex in its floor plan compared to the remaining floors.

Every inch of the corridors that weren’t patient rooms were filled with an assortment of items and this continued throughout.

The corridors over here were full with disposed of PPE equipment and modern waiting room chairs.

More beds could be found in the kitchen still.

The COVID beds crammed into small kitchen spaces.

It was a shame as it would have been nice to capture the hall without a cluttered floor, but aye well. She confirmed that the beds were for COVID patients but won’t ever be used again.

Back to the current timeframe and the group headed up to the first floor and out of harms way. Plenty of hospital beds that originally resided here were dotted about and yet again the corridors didn’t disappoint.

Following suit, the hallways shifted and narrowed. This hallway had the director of nurse’s office and some other less interesting rooms leading off from it.

Some other miscellaneous rooms.

A huge range of medical equipment, photographs, documents, typewriters, signs, and everything else you could think of was crammed into this otherwise bland room. You could spend hours rummaging through everything that was in here and the room was rather small.

The chair.

And a penny farthing?... You can also see the oral irrigator underneath the sowing machine.

The other side of the room had the countered area and more interesting finds including a complete skeleton model.

Some close ups of other items.

Model of in the inner ear.

The second floor continued to impress with a more vibrant colour palette used.

The design changed multiple times the further you moved through this area of the hospital.

The change was interrupted by this lovely hallway and hall that would have served as another canteen area perhaps?

Another office led off the corridor, similar to the director of nurse’s office below.

The hall.

Some nicely placed hydrotherapy baths.

Modern ward rooms were most prevalent up here. Some of them still had the beds in.

Finally, a couple of rooms that used to hold patient records. A thorough look through confirmed that all records had been moved to the proposed place on each filing cabinet.