IN THE OLD DAYS, Dublin city centre had an amazing variety of hospitals, most of which have now either disappeared or been redeveloped in the suburbs. The first Dublin hospital was set up in 1180, in what is now Thomas Street and since then, some 100 hospitals were established in the city.
By present day standards, the specialities of those old hospitals were often extraordinary.
One of the strangest was the Westmoreland Lock Hospital, one of three Lock hospitals in Ireland (they were also popular in England and in various parts of what was then British empire). The one in Dublin was founded in the 1750s, and in 1792, it was transferred from Donnybrook to Townsend Street, almost next door to the present location of The Irish Times. It lasted there until the early 1950s, being demolished in 1955.
The Lock hospitals were for women with sexual diseases and under the Contagious Diseases Act, women could be forcibly removed to the Lock hospitals in Dublin, the Curragh and Cork. If the patients were found to suffer from venereal disease, they were detained until such time as they were certified as cured. Often, the women were put out of their misery; the favourite form of euthanasia was “smotheration”.
Another unusual old Dublin hospital was the Cow Pock Institution, set up in 1804 to provide free vaccination against smallpox. During the vaccination sessions, a tiny amount of “lymph” which contained cowpox virus, was placed in a small scratch in the arm, giving the patient immunity. As the only reliable source of vaccine was a lesion of a vaccinated patient, after patients had been treated, they had to return after one week.
During the 18th century, some of Dublin’s greatest hospitals were founded as charitable institutions. Jervis Street hospital was set up in 1718 by six Dublin doctors as a charitable infirmary offering free medical services to the city’ s poor. From its inception, it was primarily an accident hospital.
Dr Steeven’s Hospital opened in 1733, funded with the money left by a Dublin doctor of that name to his sister, Grizel. It closed in 1987 before becoming the headquarters of the Eastern Health Board. The Meath Hospital was similarly funded by charitable donations; it opened in 1753 to provide health care for the people of the Liberties. Just over a decade ago, it moved to its new location in Tallaght.
Mercer’s Hospital was another charitable institution set up to cater for the sick poor. It opened in 1734 and as part of its fundraising, its board of governors invited Handel to Dublin to help raise funds. The end result, musically speaking, was the first performance, in 1742, in Fishamble Street, of the Messiah. Mercer’s was the main beneficiary. After the hospital closed in 1983, it was put to a variety of other uses, including Mercer’s Institute for Research on Ageing.
Specialised hospitals include the Rotunda maternity hospital, dating back to the 1750s and one of the few old city centre hospitals still in its original location. The Coombe Women’s Hospital dates back to 1826, with an ambition to move to a new site from its present Dolphin’ s Barn location.
Holles Street maternity hospital, dating from 1894, has similar ambitions for a new site. But whether such projects can be realised in the current economic climate remains to be seen.
St Patrick’s Hospital was opened at Bow Lane in 1757 with a bequest from Dean Swift and it has been caring for the mentally ill ever since. But the great asylum at Grangegorman, dating back to 1810 and renamed as St Brendan’s psychiatric hospital in 1960, has gone. The plan is for the entire new campus of the Dublin Institute of Technology to occupy 26 hectares of the site.
The oldest hospital in or near the city centre is St James’s, which can trace its lineage back to a hospital for orphans set up in 1702.
Other Dublin city centre hospitals have transferred to out-of-town locations. Simpson’s, once in Parnell Street, is now in Dundrum. It was founded in 1779 by a merchant and land owner, George Simpson, who suffered from poor eyesight and gout in his old age and decided to set up a hospital to benefit “reduced gentlemen” suffering similar afflictions. The old Children’s Hospital in Harcourt Street, whose origins went back to 1821, moved to Tallaght.
While many of the 18th-century hospitals were set up as charitable institutions, Catholic orders played a huge role in the following century, mirroring the strong Protestant ethos of Dublin hospitals such as the Adelaide.
The Sisters of Charity started St Vincent’s Hospital in the former town house of the Earl of Meath, at St Stephen’s Green, in 1834. This was the first Catholic hospital in Ireland and the first hospital to be administered and staffed by women. It remained in St Stephen’s Green until 1970, when what is now St Vincent’s University Hospital was opened at Elm Park on Dublin’s southside.
What is now the Mater Misericordia University Hospital, still on its same site on Dublin’s northside, was another religious creation, run by the Sisters of Mercy. It opened in 1861 and for many years the old Mater private nursing home was situated in a nearby Georgian terrace, before being replaced by the modern Mater Private Hospital.
When the nuns were in charge of various Dublin hospitals, discipline was strict and hygiene was such that the idea of superbugs would never have crossed anyone’s mind.
While many of the old hospitals, such as Mercer’s and Sir Patrick Dun’s (1788), were long since converted to other uses, the latest Dublin hospital closure to be announced is that of St Bricin’s military hospital at Arbour Hill. Founded in pre- independence times as the King George V military hospital and designed by the Royal Engineers in the British army, its staff and facilities are being transferred to The Curragh.
But those old city centre hospitals have left their mark on the city in unexpected ways, such as the connection between the Messiahand the old Mercer's Hospital. Also, when the old Jervis Street hospital staged Araby, an oriental fête, in 1894, to raise much-needed funds, little did anyone think that the name of Arabywould live on in the title of one of Joyce's short stories in Dubliners.
The Dublin Handel Festival runs until April 19th. See www.templebar.ie