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ST KEVIN’S IN Cork city has been making headlines this week after the iconic building was gutted by a fire on Tuesday night.
The imposing building is infamous among people in Cork who describe it as a chilling and unnerving place with a dark past. It’s a name people remember their parents referencing when they were being scolded as children.
Following this week’s blaze, it’s thought that up to two-thirds of the structure has been destroyed with photos showing that the roof has completely collapsed.
The large red-brick building from the late-19th century has a daunting past as a mental health institution and has been left derelict for the past 15 years after closing in 2002.
To explore the history of the imposing landmark, TheJournal.ie has delved into Oireachtas, newspaper and online archives and reports.
Photographer and historian Tarquin Blake of Abandoned Ireland has described how St Kevin’s was built as an annex at the eastern end of Our Lady’s Hospital complex in 1893 and originally accommodated 490 patients.
The people who ended up in it were often victims of misfortune, illness and abandonment.
Reports from the Inspector of Mental Hospitals reveal that the institution was a vermin-infested, dirty, dark confinement where people who were guilty of nothing were incarcerated.
Discussions about the reports in the Seanad from the 1930s paint a damning picture.
In 1934, the Seanad heard that no soap or towels were available and there were no curtains on the windows or seats in the toilets. Senators were also told that the lavatories were dirty. Patients’ own money was used to buy six washing machines for use by 21 female patients in one ward.
In 1935, many patients were in bed when inspectors called at 5.30pm. There were no curtains in the dormitories and sheets of plywood were being used to cover all the broken windows in the bathroom of one male ward which housed 22 patients.
Some people were incarcerated in units that were roofed like a stall and doors were closed by three farmyard bolts.
In 1936, it was reported that there was no activities during the day and patients just sat around waiting for bedtime, which was somewhere between 5.30pm and 6.30pm.
The Cork Examiner described it as a “chapter of horrors” in 1937. The inspector said rubbish, litter and toilet rolls were discarded around the exterior of Our Lady’s while connecting corridors and walkways were “dirty beyond description”. Inside walls were peeling and windows were dirty with an opaque matter, while toilets were also dirty with floors sometimes filthy and wet.
A report by the Inspector of Mental Hospitals in 1938 revealed that Our Lady’s cost £10 million to £11 million to run annually. The Inspector stated, “The service provided by the hospital is extremely poor and for the most part appears to provide the worst form of custodial care.”
A report on the hospital in 1939 was described as an “appalling, distressing, disturbing, and offensive document” that confirmed the hospital was “a disgrace”.
The conclusion of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals’ Report stated:
Over the years the conditions inside Our Ladys Hospital and St Kevin’s was condemned and declared a total disgrace. The people incarcerated in the asylum were guilty of nothing. Vulnerable, innocent and harmless. They did not deserve what was done to them. Victims of misfortune, victims of illness and indeed, tragically, of abandonment. They were locked up in a vermin-infested, unsanitary, dirty, dark confinement.
Despite the horrific details of the treatment of patients throughout the 1930s being made public, St Kevin’s facility remained open for psychiatric patients – and was consistently the focus of much controversy.
810 admissions in 1998
Our Lady’s Hospital was a mental health institution built in the 1840s. The complex was made up by a number of major buildings, Our Lady’s – also known as the Grey Building – and St Bridget’s which only closed in the early 1990s. Our Lady’s, St Bridget’s and several smaller buildings were subsequently sold by the former Southern Health Board.
St Kevin’s, St Ann’s, St Dympna’s and St John’s closed between 2001 and 2009. These buildings and a number of smaller buildings remain in HSE ownership.
A Report of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals from 1999 described how inpatient care was provided at Our Lady’s Hospital and St Anne’s 46-bed acute unit.
Twenty beds were provided in St Kevin’s long-stay psychiatric unit and a further 40 beds were provided in the intensive care unit at St Kevin’s Block, Our Lady’s Hospital.
One-hundred-and-six patients were in the hospital and acute unit on 31 December 1998. About 25% of patients had been hospitalised for more than five years, 11% for between one and five years, 51% for between three and twelve months and 13% for less than three months.
Fifty-eight patients were prescribed electroconvulsive therapy ECT in 1998.
The report also stated that the ”physical conditions in the intensive care units in St Kevin’s were most unsatisfactory“.
Fifty-five accidents to patients and seven accidents to staff were recorded. There were seven recorded assaults on staff, two of which were deemed serious.
There were 810 admissions to inpatient care during 1998 and 228 were first admissions. Seven patients had their temporary orders extended during the year and 12 patients became new long-stay patients in 1998. There were 820 discharges and four deaths in the same year.
The opening of a new mental health unit at Mercy University Hospital was a priority in 1998 and the report stated that referrals to St Anne’s Unit would cease once the acute unit in the Mercy Hospital opened.
Plans for St Kevin’s
Locals reacted to the news of the fire this week by saying it was a shame the 200-year-old building was left derelict for so long and that no restorative work was done to re-purpose it.
In 2007, the then-Health Minister Mary Harney revealed that €6,000 a week was being spent on security for the building. She noted that €1,590.975 was spent between 2002 and 2007.
However nothing has happened the building despite the expense of security.
The HSE has said that the site has been offered to other government departments with a view to making it available for sale on the open market. However, it confirmed that the building has not been put up for sale.
A spokesperson told TheJournal.ie:
The HSE has recently engaged with an estate agent to discuss the potential of bringing the campus to the open market. A property valuation is being prepared by an estate agent, should the property be put on the open market, in the event that other state agencies are not interested in acquiring the campus.
During the week local councillors told this website that accommodation for homeless families or students could be two of several options to explore.
Discussions about the building have been ongoing for years. Speaking in 2013, Fine Gael TD Brian Hayes told a Seanad debate that the HSE “seeks value for money in deciding whether to sell or redevelop properties and this is often a complex and difficult balancing act”.
He said the HSE property committee rejects any proposal that does not meet the requirements and does not achieve value for money. He added:
The topography of the Shanakiel campus and the presence of rights of way make its disposal difficult and a particularly complex undertaking.
He said the HSE “continuously reviews vacant property with a view to refurbishing, rebuilding or redeveloping properties, such as the remaining Shanakiel campus”.
Security
The building was previously owned by the former Southern Health Board, before the HSE took it over during its establishment in 2005.
The HSE has defended the security it had in place at St Kevin’s saying rigorous security measures were “reviewed and updated continuously”.
In a statement it said, “The HSE have a contract in place with an external security company who provide twice daily security patrols.
To prevent unwanted access into the buildings on the campus, the HSE arranged the installation of 235 fixed panel shutters, to accessible windows and doors on lower floors of the campus buildings.
“A CCTV system is installed on the perimeter of the site and is monitored on a 24/7 basis.”
They added that maintenance teams carried out weekly inspections of the site and carried out repairs as and when needed.
Security has now been stepped up at the site with a spokesperson telling this website, “A continuous security presence has been placed on the site and will remain in place for the immediate future. An exclusion zone will be created around St. Kevin’s building with the use of Heras fencing.”
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Europe needs change , the current policy isn’t working, politicians sit in their’s expensive houses, in expensive neighbourhoods… ordinary citizens have to deal with havoc of open borders
@michal heba: Havoc? Grow up.
@michal heba: you’re anti-immigrants gained zero support. While “open border” parties dominated. Your lot lost.
@9QRixo8H: Not in Austria, apparently! Sooner or later, Ireland will wake up to the consequences of unfettered illegal migration.
@frank dowling:
There was a fella from Austria a while back who was fairly far right. The early1940′s were a diificult time for Europe due to his beliefs. I wouldn’t look to Austria for guidance in this matter. It didn’t end well the last time.
@Paul O Connor: sure your man from Austria wasn’t far right, he was just a concerned citizen!
@9QRixo8H: a semiliterate comment if I ever saw one and an example of the level of intellect that supports open borders.
Here, I hope this helps youse
’Your’ is a possessive adjective that is used to describe something as belonging to ‘you’. ’You’re’ is a contraction of ‘you are’. Almost always followed by a gerund or a noun.
@Thomas Sheridan: guess who else supported ‘open border’ parties? The ENTIRE nation.
@frank dowling: Absolutely
@Paul O Connor: There was another guy from Georgia knocking around at the time, from the opposite end of the political scale, and he was great fun at a party!
@9QRixo8H: in local elections, tf are they supposed to do when it come to border issues
@frank dowling: Agree. When the situation gets out of control like the rest of Europe then we’ll wake up.
Too much left wing wokeism around in this country at the moment without looking at the real problems this will bring in the near future
@michal heba: that’s what the far right do, if anyone voting far right thinks it will sort their problems, they are in for a rude awakening
@Damien O’Sullivan: Look up what being woke means. If you’re perceived meaning is the opposite of woke then you’re the problem.
@michal heba: Don’t notice any havoc.
A slow rise on right leaning politics across Europe in general. This will trigger many commentators here but it’s evident that Europeans are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the ability of their existing political party’s to deal with the huge problem that is mass immigration. Ireland isn’t alone here, the problems we see in every town, village and city in Ireland….are evident in most other country’s across Europe. We need a zero tolerance, hard-line policy on immigration. No the half baked process we currently have in place. Deportation needs to swift and final.
@Mick Joe: Or neoliberal policies and the rich becoming richer at the expense of everyone else is squeezing the majority and some are taking the convenient bait of blaming vulnerable migrants rather than understanding the actual reason.
The mass migration sentiment receive zero mandate from the entire nation. Not a seat did the anti-immigrant parties get. Migration is an issue to *you*, not the people. “Open border” FFG won.
@Rochelle Hart: You’re conflating
@9QRixo8H: SF vote went down from 25% in the 2020 GE and 35% support last October to a mere 12% this week. What could have caused this collapse. Surely not their brave open borders rhetoric?
@Thomas Sheridan: Except it is not SF that have been responsible for any immigration Ireland has.
It has been FFG, with The Greens and Labour before that.
By all accounts, those FFG parties have done rather well in these elections, although the full results are not yet known.
I’ve been a frequent traveler to Germany and have seen how the landscape has changed massively in the last 10 years – public pools have almost become no go for young women and signs have been put up in Arabic that it’s not ok to harass women. Very weird to see groups of bearded men standing on corners in small eastern German towns. On the other hand, food options have improved and Germans are speaking more English than before
I’d say the article below where FG migrants were elected has you foaming with hate.
@9QRixo8H: Not really – the key is contribution and integration – any migrants that contribute and integrate always add to the economy and a nation. It’s the silos and ghettos and the ‘us vs them’ crowd that causes trouble. Most successful countries have healthy immigrant communities ( Healthcare professionals in Ireland from Philippines/India, Tech Professionals in Silicon valley from around the world, Manufacturing workers in the UK from Eastern Europe etc). The problem arises with a small subset of migrants who never want to venture out of their tribe for religious or other reasons ( like moving to a country to purely leech)
@9QRixo8H: and so it should bent elections
Anyone less than a standard deviation left of center is far right. It gets monotonous.
@Oh Mammy: FFG are right wing.
Those to the right of FFG are tending to the far right, depending on just how nasty they are.
Honest question – why is right always ‘far right ‘ but left is just left and not ‘far left ‘?
There’s loonie bins in the far right who want want everyone deported but there’s also same loonies in far left who want everyone welcomed in because john Lennon sang about it
@Kush OMeara: not true. PBP are far left. FF and FG are centre right. Niall Boylan is right wing, SF are “whatever you’re havin’ yourself” and Derek Blighe is far right.
Far right is a relative term. With popularity in the UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria it begs the question as to whether they are truly far right or are some left leaning people unable to process alternative positions.
@Lewis Armstrong: in “The Road to Wigan Pier” Orwell explains why disillusioned left wingers were turning to fascism. Writing in 1937, he blamed the intellectual “crank leftists” for alienating the ordinary people and driving to the right. Fast forward to today and we have a name for those cranks – “Wokes” and they’re making the same mistake.
Those who don’t learn the mistakes of history..etc
@Lewis Armstrong: possibly slightly to the left, but leaning on the shoulder of the “traditional” right. Not much more than that. Although they’ll have to if they want to gain more seats and govern.
They’re very good at marketing themselves, and at highlighting the (perceived in places, real in others) islamisation of society. This goes down well with the electorate in general. Even left thinking friends of mine are veering to the far right when Daesh’s “lone wolf” attacks are amplified.
@Fran Ken: Why can’t you allow people to just get on with their lives?
Are you really such a snowflake that how someone chooses to live drives you nuts?
Calling someone who is bothered by how others choose to live their lives ‘woke’ simple shows us a great deal about you.
(And you probably call yourself a Christian too.)
@Lewis Armstrong: That’s about right, by the any historic standards neo liberal FFG are far right. The censorship of opposition speech tagged as misinformation and hate speech and closing of comments that oppose their narrative is typical of1930’s style far right parties,
How depressing. The EU is following the US down the right wing toilet.
@Sandra Duffy: been forced
The liberal elite in Europe hasn’t listened to the people for decades it’s no wonder people are turning in desperation to the far right. The old boys network that’s ruled western countries ( f.f f.g) are getting a bloody nose and quite frankly they deserve it.
Sure Hitler is from Austria, something in the water over there
@Sean Money: Austria has long been a reservoir of the far-right.
The death camps were a result of academic politics, so somehow, wider society manages to ignore the role the academic community plays in maintaining prejudice by trying to hide natural selection behind eugenics or social darwinism.
Yesterday, A commenter said I should take my views to one of the prominent Universities in Ireland; however, I was always content to remain with commenters here even if they find it difficult to stomach what natural selection actually looks like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy_xWKJubuY&t=3s
So there is no far right and far left, just cowardice, silence and watching comments erased.
@Gerald Kelleher: I hope that all the journal Hamas supporters will take the time to watch the linked video and realise that the Hamas forefathers were only too willing to collaborate with the Nazi regimes.
@Thomas Sheridan:
The Nazi regime was neo-darwinist.
https://www.azquotes.com/author/12265-Cecil_Rhodes
The worst part of it is that the Victorians derived their ideology from the neighbouring islands of Britain and Ireland and that nobody will face and I mean nobody.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Descent_of_Man_(Darwin)/Chapter_V
With SS levels of compliance to Vuctorian natural selection, how could the world be any other way?
@Thomas Sheridan: stupid comment
@Thomas Sheridan: The Palestinians are simply trying to defend themselves from the israeli colonist.
As we would do if what the isreali have done to the Palestinian were done to us.
As any would do.
Immigration .. immigration and politicians and profiting from immigration
Great news
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