Our shameful asylums

For two centuries, mental healthcare in Ireland was ignorant and cruel. Conditions in hospitals were barbaric, with more admissions meaning more profit. It was big business, says Richard Fitzpatrick

TO be mentally ill in Ireland in the 19th century was tough. According to testimony to a committee in the House of Commons, about the Irish, in 1817: “When a strong man or woman gets the complaint [madness], the only way they have to manage is by making a hole in the floor of the cabin, not high enough for the person to stand up in, with a crib over it to prevent his getting up.

“This hole is about five feet deep, and they give this wretched being his food there, and there he generally dies.”