The Ennis Lunatic Asylum Today. The name was changed to Our Lady’s Hospital before it closed in 2002.
In the Irish tradition, the oldest son in a family succeeds the father and inherits the entire estate.
This was not the case in our family.
Born in 1838, our great grandfather, Henry Patrick Reilly, was the youngest child and the second son in his family. His brother, Edward, was two years older. Yet, Henry obviously was the chosen son of the family. During his lifetime, he left a long paper trail of documents and newspaper articles making most of his life an easily accessed open book.
Unlike Henry’s life, Edward’s was one of silence and mystery.
In 1836, Edward Reilly was born at Moher Lodge to Elizabeth Fleury (1798-1870) and Patrick Edward Reilly (1799-1872).
There were already two daughters in the family so the birth of a son was probably the cause of much celebration!
Eliza had been born in 1833 and her sister Hannah Marie - Nannie - followed in 1835.
When Elizabeth and P.E. had arrived in Kineilty in 1829, they leased Moher Lodge and its surrounding 72 acres from Captain Francis Macnamara for £60 a year.
Moher Lodge. Today it is the Cliffs of Moher Yoga Retreat Centre.
Located on the famous Cliffs of Moher, the Lodge must have been a very comfortable home for the family. Five children were born and raised here and our great great grandparents lived there until about 1865 when they moved to Woodpark House near the Monastery of the Christian Brothers in Ennistymon.
In 1864, P.E. described Moher Lodge:
“The Dwelling-house contains a Parlour, Drawing-room and Study,
FIVE Bedrooms, Dairy, Pantry, Laundry and store-room and a Good Kitchen,
with New Cooking Range and a continuous flow of water from the cistern to boiler & kitchen,
a water closet, force pump with a never-ending supply of water to cistern,
a Coach House, a Stable for two horses, all enclosed in a lock-up yard.”
A year after Edward’s birth, his sister, Mary, was born and Henry Patrick followed in 1838.
Located in North Kineilty, Moher Lodge is situated off a minor road, West of St Brigid's Well. It must have been a beautiful place to grow up.
Besides its proximity to the beach and the Cliffs, Moher Lodge is a ‘Stone’s Throw’ from St Brigid’s Well.
Entrance of St Brigid’s Well
There are holy wells all over Ireland, but St. Brigid's Well in Liscannor is one of the most popular.
The ever-flowing springs inside St Brigid’s Well
The Well attracts visitors year round and neither locks nor closes its doors at night. Thousands of mementos, rosaries, prayers and pieces of clothing have been left in the stone grotto of the Well.
You can read more about Moher Lodge and St Brigid’s Well here: https://ennistymon.blogspot.com/2017/05/moher-lodge_3.html
The five Reilly children must have played together on the Cliffs and visited the Well often. Their home was situated in one of the most beautiful spots in Ireland - maybe in the world.
Cliffs of Moher in 1900.
In about 1853, Edward and Henry were sent away to boarding school in Ennis: Springfield College.
Springfield College in Ennis. Now know as St Flannan’s College
Here is a description of Springfield College:
"....... stands on three acres of land, tastefully laid out,
including extensive play-grounds, noble racket-courts and,
in the absence of out-door exercise, large play rooms.
".... The school rooms, which are spacious, lofty and thoroughly ventilated,
are capable of accommodating 200 pupils.
"... There are two Resident Masters engaged who, in turn,
supervise the students and continually attend upon the pupils.
"... The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered up in the
College Chapel and Catechetical Instructions
are given by one of the Rev. Gentlemen of the Parish."
".... The Dormitories, large, elegantly ventilated, can accommodate 60 boarders.
For more about Springfield College, go here: https://ennistymon.blogspot.com/2017/06/springfield-college.html
The Reilly boys did well in their studies at Springfield.
We find that Henry had distinguished himself in Latin, Euclid, French, English Composition and Geography and is also mentioned in the Category of "Exhibitioner" in three different subjects: Greek and Latin; Science and Modern Language.
Edward Reilly also earned his share of Honors that year at Springfield: Euclid, Algebra, German, Geography and Arithmetic. In addition, he, too, was an "Exhibitioner" with his younger brother in Greek & Latin, Science and Modern Languages.
As you can see, Springfield College offered a rigorous, classical education.
In 1857, the annual tuition at Springfield College was only £30 paid half yearly, in advance.
Quite a deal!
"The success of these pupils after the ordeal of such examinations -
FIVE days, SIX hours each day -
is proof of the talents of the pupils, as well as of the superior knowledge, zeal and attention of their
Masters in cultivating those latent talents to perfection."
Quite a deal!
Springfield is now known as St Flannan's. I contacted the school but, unfortunately, they have no student records dating to Springfield College so I have lost the "Edward Trail" for now.
And, of course, Henry's records are not available either.
After his graduation, Henry moved to Dublin to apprentice with the successful solicitor, Matthew Kenny, Esq.
But, Edward just disappeared.
Whereas Henry’s name is found in numerous newspaper articles, professional directories, legal society records, Petty Sessions Records, Ennistymon Union Logs...... Edward is no where to be seen.
What could have happened to him after leaving Springfield?
Quite unexpectedly, I did come across his name while researching a post about the Reilly and Milward family’s support of the Sisters of Mercy and their school bazaars in Ennis: https://ennistymon.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-reilly-family-school-bazaars.html
The Sisters held Annual Bazaars in 1857 and every year ~ until 1872 ~ and the local newspaper, The Clare Journal and Ennis Advertiser, would publish reports on its success, its attendance and its volunteers.
These Bazaars always needed the support of the community for their success and the Sisters could always count on the ladies of our family to volunteer their services.
Mrs Ellen O’Brien Milward, our great great grandmother and Mrs Fanny Gavin, Edmund Burke-Browne's sister, were usually responsible for refreshments.
Our great great maternal grandmother, Ellen Maria O’Brien Milward (1820-
Miss O'Rielly (Henry Patrick's sister), Edmund Burke-Browne (married to Eliza Reilly, Henry’s older sister) and John Harnett Milward (our other great great grandfather) always participated with their attendance and donations.
Our great great paternal Aunt, Hannah Marie (Nannie) Reilly (1835-1911)
Our great great maternal grandfather, John Harnett Milward (1817-1870))
Without fail, from 1857 until 1872, the Sisters could count on these same family members to help make their annual fundraising bazaar a success.
However, in 1870, a new name appeared in the annual report of the Sisters of Mercy Bazaar.
In 1870, we have Mrs Gavin & Bessie chairing the Refreshment Stall.
Nannie is there and ~ the most surprising development of all ~ she is with their older brother ....... Edward Reilly, Esq was in attendance, too!
Nannie is there and ~ the most surprising development of all ~ she is with their older brother ....... Edward Reilly, Esq was in attendance, too!
Evidently, the two unmarried siblings were living at Woodpark House with their parents. Nannie was 35 and her brother was 34.
I had been thinking that, perhaps, Edward had been “intellectually disabled” but here he is listed with the title, Esquire, behind his name.
In the 19th century, Esquire, was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry. It was above the rank of gentleman and below the rank of knight.
So, Edward was known to the community as an Esquire which indicates he might not have been a recluse and had had some dealings with his peers.
He even went out socially with his sister.
He even went out socially with his sister.
But, after this appearance, his trail went completely cold.
I took a close look at his death record - the only official document I have found for him.
Death Record of Edward Reilly (1836-1890)
As you can read for yourself, Edward Reilly died at the Ennis Lunatic Asylum on October 27, 1890.
Initially, I had assumed that the Asylum might also have been used in those days as the local medical hospital. This was not the case.
The Ennis District Lunatic Asylum operated exactly as its name suggests. It was a State Psychiatric Hospital.
These pictures were recently taken inside the abandoned Ennis Lunatic Asylum.
According to his death record, Edward is described as a 53 year old bachelor and a “landed proprietor” from Ennistymon.
Labeled a “landed proprietor” indicates that he derived his living from the ownership of land, that is, from rents. However, I have found no property in his name nor a Will nor a grave.
The causes of his death were “marasmus” and “chronic brain disease” from which it was certified that he had suffered for twenty-five years - since he was 29 years old!
Marasmus is a Victorian synonym for a wasting away of the body. It can be caused by an insufficient intake of calories or protein and is characterized by thinness, dry skin, poor muscle development, and irritability. It sometimes was called phthisis, consumption or tuberculosis.
Evidently, his marasmus began four years prior to his death.
Contracting marasmus after an extended confinement at a Lunatic Asylum seems inevitable.
It is his 25 year battle with “chronic brain disease” that is more troubling/confusing.
Since we now know he was living at Woodpark House with his parents in 1870, perhaps he’d been diagnosed as suffering from mental illness since he was 29 years old but had not been committed to the Asylum until sometime after 1870.
After filing a Freedom of Information form with the County Clare Archives, two searches for Edward’s Records were conducted.
Unfortunately, none of his records have survived.
The former Ennis Lunatic Asylum, later known as Our Lady’s Hospital
Between 1810 and 1870, 22 district lunatic asylums were built in Ireland to accommodate an apparently growing population of the mentally ill and financial constraints was the only issue which checked the system’s further growth.
It did not take much evidence to have a person committed to an Asylum.
The Ennis District Lunatic Asylum first opened its doors in 1868.
Our Lady’s Hospital today. Now abandoned, it is the former Ennis Lunatic Asylum
The hospital was one of the largest public buildings in County Clare and played an important role in the economic life of Ennis. It was both a major employer and a major purchaser of local goods.
For 134 years, very little changed in the manner in which the Asylum was run. Wards were terribly overcrowded with only inches between the over 70 beds per room.
These pictures were recently taken inside the abandoned Ennis Lunatic Asylum.
According to Jacqui Hayes of the County Clare Archives, the Asylum ran on the “custodial approach” and the hospital was highly routinized.
There were no drug therapies available and highly disturbed patients simply had to be restrained.
Life in the Asylum: patients’ letters from Morningside, 1873-1908 by Allan Beveridge (History of Psychiatry, ix (1998), 431-469) offers valuable insight into the lives of the inmates.
These patient chronicles present a unique record of asylum life, as they were composed while a patient was inside the asylum and in a state of mental turmoil.
When initially incarcerated, many patients felt completely disorientated when they realized what had happened to them. It usually took some time for them to appreciate that they were actually incarcerated in a Lunatic or mental asylum.
Some were overcome with despair and dejection knowing that they were publicly perceived as mentally unsound. Since relatives had often been instrumental in their committal, patients frequently developed a deep distrust of their families.
These pictures were recently taken inside the abandoned Ennis Lunatic Asylum.
The Asylum day followed a predictable and unchanging timetable of early rising, eating, exercise and early to bed.
“... You would be sorry if you could see me,
sitting all day on the end of the seat,
among a lot of men you would almost be frightened to meet in the street
..... I am getting no special treatment at all.”
As well as complaining about the lack of liberty, inmates frequently described the boredom and tedium of institutional life.
“The food here is of the very coarsest.
Porridge or coffee for breakfast with dry bread,
at 11 o’clock dry bread and cheese, beer or milk, then a walk round the grounds in a gang.
Dinner at 2 o’clock broth and mutton,
another walk in the afternoon,
then tea at 6, one cup and almost dry bread,
then bed at 8 o’clock.
Between times you have to sit still and can do nothing but
think, think and think.”
Peter McM. implored his father:
’I cry to you from the very inmost depths of my soul
to use every means to get me out from this place.’
Charles C. wrote to his brother:
“I do not wish to live any longer ...
I cannot and will not live here any longer ...
If you do not come and take me out of here tomorrow,
you will not see me alive again.”
The attendants working at the Asylum were responsible for enforcing the rules and ensuring that their charges adhered to the strict institutional timetable.
Many of the more affluent patients looked down on these attendants. They found it undignified, if not galling, to be ordered around by those whom they considered their social inferiors. “Coarse and uncivilized” was the opinion that many of the better-off inmates held of their attendants.
These pictures were recently taken inside the abandoned Ennis Lunatic Asylum.
The most frequent charge against the attendants was that of physical brutality. For example, Daniel B recorded:
“Attendant Shaw brutally ill treated me on many occasions at the East House.
He injured my wrist by twisting so that it will never be right again ...
He always hit me hard in the stomach when he took me to the boot-room,
as he did almost daily, and was guilty of innumerable cruelties ... “
James B., a 23-year-old law student, wrote of the indignity of being physically manhandled by staff:
“Fancy a fellow of my age being
thrashed with a walking stick and
dragged off suddenly of a morning and
pitched head foremost into a bath and held down.
A bath does one good but to be kicked like a football and
twisted like a wet cloth is too much of a good thing.”
Admission to an Asylum plunged the new arrival into a strange and alien world, peopled by a bewildering variety of inhabitants. For many, the most disconcerting and disturbing feature of their new home was the other residents.
Since the Asylum received patients with a great range of mental and physical difficulties, newcomers were often shocked, if not appalled, by the state of some of their fellow residents.
These pictures were recently taken inside the abandoned Ennis Lunatic Asylum.
They witnessed their neighbors speaking in peculiar, incomprehensible ways, striking odd, bizarre postures, displaying vile personal habits, and becoming unpredictably violent.
The Asylum population was drawn from all classes of society and upper-class patients frequently complained that it was distasteful and undignified to mingle with the lower orders; while pauper patients often felt a mixture of shame and defiance at their lowly position.
These pictures were recently taken inside the abandoned Ennis Lunatic Asylum.
Many found the appearance and behavior of their new companions disturbing and, at times, repellent. For the more fastidious, the gross table manners of some inmates proved offensive.
Louis G. described his fellow inmates as ’poor unfortunates, vile and filthy only a shade removed from the beasts of the field.....’
He detailed his distaste:
“ Old codgers in every stage of decay share the table with me and have long beards -
a circumstance that don’t contribute to neatness
you see the beasts with their beards reeking of soup and broth and
as we have no napkins at breakfast or supper
the poor devils take their hands and wipe off the bits of vegetable and meat and
use the tablecoth, for further final cleansing of their hands.”
A great many patients felt that they should never have been in the Asylum at all. Countless letters protested the writer’s sanity and demanded immediate release.
John D., a watchmaker -
“Supposing I heard voices in my ears, real or imaginary that is
no reason why I should be sent here.
There was not a single act in my own home, or
since I came here to show why I should be under control,
but quite the opposite.”
Numerous patients blamed their relatives for their detention. Charlotte H. claimed:
“Father maliciously put me in here because
I made a complaint of the way
he was using me and trying to starve me to death.”
John M. also blamed his father:
“My poor weak father has been influenced by the lawyers
who have initiated Dr - to sign a lying certificate upon the facts of which
the sheriff has issued, a writ equally false ... I am a prisoner.”
Patients’ attitudes towards their family and friends often underwent a dramatic transformation and, for some, it permanently damaged their relationships.
It must have been an overwhelmingly desperate and despairing existence. Imagine spending decades here with one’s family living their lives just within a short drive away.
Since Edward’s Hospital Records have not survived, we do not know any details of his incarceration but we can assume that he experienced many of the emotions and physical hardships described in Beveridge’s research.
From his 1890 death record, we know that Edward was a Landed Proprietor - indicating that, at some point in his life, he was capable of handling his own business affairs.
We also learned that he had suffered from “chronic brain disease” for 25 years - since about 1865
Since he was living with his family at Woodpark House and had attended the Sisters of Mercy Bazaar in 1870, we can assume that, although he might have been suffering from brain disease at the time, he was still functioning on his own.
So, maybe he was committed to the Ennis Asylum in the 1870s ...... Spending 15 - 20 years as an inmate.
We do have another clue offering some insight into the dynamics which existed in the Reilly Family.
Sadly, two of Edward’s siblings had also died while patients at the Asylum and their records have survived. I intend to feature those stories in future posts but for now -
The admission papers of both siblings asked how the patient had contracted their insanity. In both cases, the answer was chilling.
They had inherited their insanity from their mother, Elizabeth Fleury Reilly (1798-1870).
The only documentation I have uncovered for our great great grandmother is her death record
Death record of our great great paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Fleury Reilly (1798-1870)
As you can see, Eliza died at home at Woodpark House from “asthma and heart disease”. Her youngest son, Henry Patrick, was the witness to his mother’s death.
According to her death record, she had been suffering from heart disease for a year.
Unlike any of the other members of her family, we have found Eliza’s burial crypt.
It is situated on a knoll alongside the road to Ennistymon on property owned by her husband in Ballyea South.
Burial crypt of Elizabeth Fleury Reilly in Knocknakilla Cillin, Ballyea South
This stone burial crypt is found in a small Limbo Cemetery called Knockakilla Cillin.
The vista from atop this knoll has remained unchanged in 148 years
A Limbo Cemetery is unconsecrated land intended for the burial of unbaptized babies and suicides.
Could Eliza’s insanity have caused her to commit suicide?
From what I have learned about Gentry life in 19th century Ireland, it would have been easy for P. E. or Henry Patrick to have influenced the Medical Registrar in order to save the family from the embarrassment and shame of admitting a suicide.
Why else would her husband have decided to bury her here and not in the local or Churchyard cemeteries?
We do not know.
We also do not know where Edward was buried.
This is a very sad chapter in our family’s history.
Thank you for reading.
EPILOGUE
History gives a nation its bearing on what it is and how its people are affected by what has happened in the past.
Its kings and queens, its wars - with victories and defeats - these all mold a nation’s culture into the way it views itself in the present.
In the same way, a family history presents how a family has survived and come to terms with the great social and cultural experiences of the ages.
We hope these stories will give each member of our family a foundation and, in some small way, explain how we came to be what we are today.
Hopefully, through these vignettes, our future generations will gain a knowledge of the energy and dynamism, the loves and hates, the errors and mistakes, the victories and failures, the struggles and successes that make us what we are.
Our family history presents a fascinating read - and, hopefully, some lessons to be learned in the process.
