Bird's Nest Soup Book

"It was a dustbin for people who were slightly different"

Growing up near Longford, the pressure of exams or parents would always lead myself or a peer to sigh "if they don't let up I'll end up in Loman's". St. Loman's Hospital (formerly the Mullingar District Lunatic Asylum, serving Longford, Meath and Westmeath) is situated on the Delvin Road in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. A mental hospital, an asylum - "The Big House".



This book is the story of Hanna (Johanna) Greally, a young Athlone woman who was signed in to St. Loman's at the age of 19 by her mother "for a rest" after a supposed mental breakdown. Hanna had returned home to her mother after working in the UK as a nurse. She ended up spending 20 years of her life in Loman's - this is her account of her time there.

This book is outrageously sad. Ireland has many positive things going for it - but our history of how we treat those with mental health issues is appalling. This isn't a million years ago - this was just in the 1950s. My Mum was a child. People were thrown into institutions for reasons that would cause uproar today - poverty, abuse, homelessness, addiction, family disputes. Women were thrown in and locked away for "bringing shame" on the family when they were raped. The abused, the depressed, the argumentative, the unwanted, the unloved, the sad, the quiet, the 'slow', the 'odd' - all locked away in dark, dank places and subjected to 'therapies' like ECT, Insulin Coma, Lobotomy, Sedation, Seclusion, Confinement. Thrown away, hidden, forgotten. When Hanna Greally was signed in circa 1946, she was one of 3,000 patients in Loman's. One of over 20,000 in Ireland at the time.

"I could never believe I had struggled through all my childhood of illnesses, measles, chickenpox, that I had studied to pass the matriculation in eight subjects, to be told obliquely that I was ineffectual, to become a byword, or even worse, to be remembered as a sort of female village idiot."

With the building above now due to be sold by the HSE only time will tell what the future holds - but there are many accounts of its past history. A miserable place full of sadness and despair, it's a place where humanity was stripped, hope was lost, spirits were broken, people were forgotten. 1,304 bodies are reportedly buried in the grounds of the hospital - the last one in 1970. As of 2011 they are unmarked, with numbered crosses being stored in an outbuilding.

This is a report from 2007. NINE years ago.

St Loman's, Mullingar:

Inspector's comments:

"Apart from the admission units, the conditions in areas of St Loman's Hospital remained very poor with damp, peeling paint, tiles lifting on floors, poor sanitary facilities, curtains falling down and drab and institutional-style furnishings and decor. A significantly large number of these areas were dirty, including sluice rooms and bathrooms and toilets. In short, the conditions that people with enduring mental illness have to live in permanently in St Loman's Hospital were deplorable....every effort must be made to close the hospital immediately."

Currently, all patients have been moved to other buildings and the 95% vacant building is now used for administration only. Elderly patients who have spent the bulk of their lives in St. Lomans have been moved to other units in Mullingar.

Hanna Greally was not one of the forgotten - she had a remarkable spirit. She fought to keep her identity, her humanity - she fought for her freedom, her liberation. She got out - and prompted a long overdue discussion in Ireland in the 1970s with the publication of this book.



A fascinating, very human account of a shameful period in Irish history. Personally I'd leave the forewords until you've read Hanna's account first.

Added information about St. Loman's Hospital from The Westmeath Examiner newspaper, the Mary Raftery documentary "Behind The Walls", the RTE Documentary on One Remembering Hanna Greally, available here, and local sources. Photograph of St. Loman's by Noel Fagan, Photograph of Hanna from Ars Medica.