One name at least is remembered at St Senan's

Behind St Senan's psychiatric hospital in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, there is a small cemetery. Nobody knows how many people are buried there and nobody knows their names.

There is an exception. Rose Quinn, who was abandoned by her family and died in the Wexford district lunatic asylum, as St Senan's used to be known, has not been forgotten.

It is thanks to a four-year investigation by her great-niece, Patricia Quinn, that Rose's fate has come to light. Patricia's findings suggest that Rose was one of countless Irish people, mostly women, banished to asylums and erased from memory in the first half of this century.

Patricia, who lives in Wexford, first heard of Rose when she began to compile a family tree shortly before her father died in 1994. He listed his aunts and uncles, all familiar names, and then added: "And there was Rose." It was the first time she had heard the name.

Her father went on to describe his recollection, as a six-year-old, of standing outside the parish church in Clogheen, Foulksmills, in 1906, as his mother tried to persuade Rose, then aged 35, to go through with an arranged marriage against her will.

All he knew was that Rose married the man but refused to live with him, was committed to an asylum and died within a year. "I decided I had to find out about her life, so I started trying to get information from St Senan's."

Initially the hospital was unable to assist, and said records from the time were not available. It referred her to Wexford County Council, which at one time was responsible for health administration, but it, too, had no information. In the meantime Patricia established that Rose was not buried with either her husband's or her own family.

She did not become aware of the cemetery behind St Senan's until September last year, when she decided to call to the hospital and seek information directly. A staff member took her to the back of the hospital and showed her the small, private cemetery.

Some small white crosses were placed by a boundary wall, and a larger cross stood in the middle. But there were no names and nothing to mark individual graves. "That was an emotional moment. I felt it was a sadly neglected place."

Although Patricia felt she had finally found her great-aunt, the sight of the cemetery only strengthened her resolve to get more information about what had happened to her. She also wanted to have a monument erected to all those buried there.

She wrote letters to local politicians, clergy, a newspaper, anybody who might be able to help. A researcher with South East Radio, Ms Margaret Hawkins, took an interest in the issue and real progress has been made over the past 12 months.

St Senan's appointed a senior nurse to trawl through hospital records and on February 16th he phoned Patricia with the information she had sought since 1996: Rose was admitted to the asylum on February 16th, 1907, with "melancholia". This was three months after her marriage.

She died, probably from TB contracted in the hospital, on May 4th the same year, less than six months after her wedding.

The records also show she had been transferred to the asylum from the workhouse at New Ross. The circumstances in which she went to the workhouse in the first place are not clear, but she could have been referred there by the asylum if it was overcrowded.

Ms Hawkins, who produced a documentary, said in carrying out research for the programme she had learned that women were much more vulnerable to the possibility of being committed to asylums in the early part of this century. The reasons could be as spurious as "moral insanity".

A historian with the Institute of Irish Studies in Liverpool, Ms Elizabeth Malcolm, told the programme that asylums used private burial grounds because church services were expensive.

The cemetery at St Senan's was used until the 1940s and probably came into being shortly after the asylum was opened in 1868. The manager of the hospital, Ms Jean Hendrick, confirmed yesterday that it was not known how many people were buried there.

So far the names of about 12 people likely to have been interred have been established, on the basis that records show they were not removed for funerals elsewhere. However, nobody else has ever approached the hospital to make an inquiry similar to Patricia's.

Ms Hendrick said the hospital was continuing to examine its records but would like people to come forward if they had any information. Rose Quinn had been committed at a time when there was a huge stigma attached to having a family member in an asylum. "People were disowned by their families. Once they came in they were disowned for life," she said.

"Who knows how many of us have family members who died in similar circumstances and were never told about them?"

The dead of St Senan's had not been forgotten by staff or patients, she stressed, and for the past 30 years or so a pattern had been held at the cemetery each summer. While it may have looked neglected when Patricia visited, the hospital had maintained it as well as it could.

Patricia's quest came to a "happy end" last Friday when a monument was unveiled at the cemetery by the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey. It carries the dedication: "Sacred to the memory of all the people who were laid to rest in this graveyard many years ago." A committee has also been established by the hospital to oversee the maintenance of the cemetery in the future.

Margaret Hawkins' documentary, Forgotten People, was broadcast on South East Radio on Monday and will be repeated on Wednesday, November 1st, at 8 p.m.