New book will honour 160 years of St Loman's
For almost 160 years St Loman’s Hospital has been a landmark on the physical, economic and social landscapes of Mullingar, and now it is the subject of a new book by a group of members of staff, past and present.
Since February of last year, Joe Maleady, Margaret O’Neill, Anne Masterson, Breffni O’Reilly Irwin, and Frank and Odran Hines have been pouring over old hospital records and for the new book, which will chronicle the history of St Loman’s from when it welcomed its first patient in August 1855 to when it said goodbye to its last in December just gone.
Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, Joe, who spent his entire working life in St Loman’s, entering as a “gosson” on January 26, 1967 and leaving on the same date 44 years later, revealed that the group’s efforts have been made easier by the meticulous record keeping of their Victorian predecessors.
“We have the books going back to the first patient that arrived, in August 1855, and it’s in perfect condition. I think that’s a credit to the people that have gone before us,” said Joe.
“Everything is documented, every penny that was spent, how much each patient was costing the asylum, as it was called at that time.”
Designed by architect John Skipton Mulvany, who also designed the railway stations in Mullingar and Killucan, St Loman’s was for many decades the single biggest employer in the town. For a large part of its existence, it was also a self-sufficient community where all of its needs were provided through the hard work of patients and staff. “It was totally self sufficient. We had an abattoir, we had a farm, we had dry stock for the abattoir. At one time there were 16 horses in there – at the time before tractors. And all that was done by the patients and the staff.
“Paddy Flanagan told me that in 1943 during the world war, the patients and staff went out to the bog and they cut the turf for the boilers. The kitchen was a thriving place. Every evening the tractor and trailer would come and there’d be cabbage, or turnips, or carrots and they were all backed up, put into this wash, which was a huge thing and brought into by a conveyor into the kitchen. You are talking about nearly 2,000 to be fed.
“If there was a rip in something, it was sent to the sewing room. If your shoe was gone, you didn’t go out and buy a new pair.
“We had records showing how many vests were made, how many patients’ shoes were made. As a junior you would have had a job once a month of filling a basket. All them shoes were brought over to the cobblers. If your suit had to be mended, it was brought over to the tailor. These were all on site.
“The funny thing was, most of these people were nurses. The assistant land steward was Paddy Flanagan’s father. His father was a nurse but they disseminated all the staff everywhere and his father became assistant land steward. Paddy Duffy was a nurse but he looked after the cows – they looked after the patients in those areas.”
Loman’s initially treated patients from Meath as well as Longford and Westmeath. Up until the 1940s, a person could find themselves being admitted for a variety of indiscretions that had little do with mental health problems. It was only after the introduction of the Mental Health Act in 1945 that someone could voluntarily admit themselves.
“They [patients] were put in for anything, if your behaviour resembled anything that was abnormal, you were put in. And up to pre-1945 you had to be signed in. If you had to be signed in you had to be signed out, so that person might never turn up to sign you out,” Joe said.
While he and his companions were initially reluctant to undertake such a mammoth task as compiling the book, which is due out in November, Joe says that they felt compelled to honour the memories of the thousands of patients and staff that passed through the hospital’s doors over the last 160 years.
“We’re excited about it. It really would have been a shame not to do it. I do think we owe it to the hospital and the people that were there. The staff, the patients and their families.”