St Loman’s features in book of abandoned Irish buildings
‘Abandoned Ireland 2’ is the recently-released book by award-winning photographer Rebecca Brownlie
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Election posters, PPE equipment and a moulding wheelchair in this corridor at St Loman’s. Photo: Rebecca Brownlie Abandoned_NiImage 2 of 5
Rebecca Brownlie’s ‘Abandoned Ireland 2’ features shots from the decaying interior of St Loman’s Hospital.Image 3 of 5
Some fine architectural detail can be discerned on this arched structure at St Loman’s. Photo: Rebecca Brownlie Abandoned_NiImage 4 of 5
Equipment stands unused in the building. Photo: Rebecca Brownlie Abandoned_NiImage 5 of 5
Bottles which once contained medications. Photo: Rebecca Brownlie Abandoned_NiPhotographs from the disused St Loman’s Hospital in Mullingar, are among the collection of shots that feature in ‘Abandoned Ireland 2’, a recently-released book by award-winning photographer Rebecca Brownlie.
Brownlie, originally from County Down, has a passion for both photography and abandoned buildings, and in Abandoned Ireland 2, using both words and pictures, she provides a glimpse into the faded beauty of Ireland’s abandoned buildings and estates as they become cloaked by ivy, veiled in dust.
‘A Shameful Asylum’ is her title on the chapter relating to St Loman’s, established in 1848 and closed in 2013.
The photos show equipment still in place and corridors beginning to submit to the mould that almost inevitably colonises buildings left unused and unheated in our damp climate.
One particularly striking photograph shows an abandoned wheelchair, in a corridor strewn with unused PPE masks, and, oddly, what appears to be a large election poster.
Brownlie tells a little of the history of St Loman’s, and of the stories of a couple of the residents who were treated there, revealing that in 1958, a report revealed that at that time, there were 21,000 patients – 0.7 per cent of the population – confined in mental hospitals.
Brownlie also finds an abandoned aeroplane in Meath; she photographed a shop still partially-stocked with decades-old groceries and due for demolition the next day, as well as countless once-magnificent mansions; a church made from tin; derelict linen mills; a now-silent cinema.
She tells the stories of the inhabitants of now-empty houses and cottages she photographed, and even got to photograph an abandoned shopping centre in Bangor.
One of her eeriest ports of call is that of a stately house in which, it is claimed, a family celebrated Christmas, then took off that night, and never returned.
With more than 200 evocative photographs from all over Ireland, there is something for everyone to pore over in this stunning coffee-table book.