From the archives: Footballing greats of Mayo's St. Mary’s Hospital

By Tom Gillespie

PART TWO

LAST week we reminisced on the history of St. Mary’s Hospital, Castlebar, which ceased to cater for psychiatric patients in November 2005. Staff at the institution were deeply involved in sporting organisations in the county town, particularly Castlebar Mitchels.

Among them were Patsy Horkan of the maintenance staff and Josie Munnelly who were on the Mayo team who won the All-Ireland junior football title in 1958.

In a special feature in The Connaught Telegraph, to mark the closure of St. Mary’s as a hospital in 2005, Patsy Horkan remembered with fondness the many sporting events which occupied staff members outside their working hours.

As Patsy put it: “Sport was our socialising. We only went to the pub at Christmas time.”

With nine senior county championship medals and one minor medal with Castlebar Mitchels, and an All-Ireland county junior medal under his belt, Patsy was undoubtedly a keen Gaelic footballer. He played in all of the Mitchels' famous five-in-a-row county finals from 1950 to 1954.

Gaelic football was very popular, and there was a large staff participation in the town league where there was fierce competition between St. Mary's and the Bacon Factory team.

He continued: “The town league was reputed to have been as good as any county championship. You had the Hat Factory, the Bacon Factory, St. Mary's and St. Gerald’s College. The top men in the St. Mary's team were Josie Munnelly and Tom Quinn. Henry Kenny played with the Hat Factory (Enda's father) and Michael Hynes. Games were played in either St. Mary's or MacHale Park and there was real rivalry.

“A lot of the staff played for Castlebar Mitchels. In the later years you had Tommy Quigley, Sean Larkin (who was in charge of the Mitchels team), Josie Munnelly, Tommy O'Boyle and Jim Devaney. They were all nursing staff. Up to the late ‘70s St. Mary’s football teams were playing at national level with the McCormack brothers and other staff members.

“Tug-o-war was popular too. The staff would have a team and travelling teams would come to St. Mary's to compete.”

And with a handball alley close by, the game was played by staff and patients alike.

After the closure of the hospital many former clients were living independent lives with a little help and support from staff at community mental health centres.

One such service user spoke to The Connaught Telegraph in November 2005 about his time in St. Mary’s, and who subsequently move back to the community where he remained happily, and about his love of poetry, reading and art.

The first time he was admitted to St. Mary’s was in 1967 after he suffered what people regarded as a nervous breakdown. He was a teacher and was admitted on a voluntary basis at the age of 27.

He said: “I was in Ward 4, which was an open ward, but there were a lot of patients there and a lot of old people. Many would have preferred to be at home but they were kept in there, not against their will, but they would have preferred not to have been there.

“What I remember about it was there seemed to be good nurses there. It wasn’t encouraged that we go down town so we stayed in and there was a canteen opposite the hospital where we used to go.

“I wasn’t very happy. I would have preferred to have been at home. We used to get up in the morning and have breakfast and sometimes some of us would go to Mass in the church at about 9 a.m. I can’t remember much more about it but I know in the evening we used to say the Rosary before we’d go to bed.

“I was discharged then and I went back to teaching but I felt myself that I wasn’t welcome in the job after having been in hospital. I was regarded as being a lame duck. At the time I wasn’t bitter but I was a bit disturbed by it.

“When I was in St. Mary’s it was a disturbed period of my life.

“Now (2005) I live from day-to-day and come up to the day centre. We have art on Tuesdays and I love that. I’m also pursuing a third-level course and am studying for an honours BA degree. I am enjoying it and I am happy enough.

“I’m much better than I was when I was in St. Mary’s. I have the same people looking after me in the day centre now. It is great. It was all male nurses in St. Mary’s but there is a mixture now. I think it is better that way.

“I have gone back to St. Mary’s for a look. I have memories of it and of patients there. There were dances and socials which were enjoyable.”

Dr. Fidelma Creaven, who was a consultant psychiatrist at St. Mary’s, summed up the developments which led to the closure of the hospital.

She said: “The demise of institutions like St. Mary's Hospital began in the 1960s, after the discovery of effective treatments for mental illness. Up until then, people who suffered from mental illness often remained in psychiatric hospitals for long periods because treatments were unavailable. The burden of mental illness, combined with having to spend long spells, sometimes up to decades, away from home and family undoubtedly caused terrible suffering for all concerned.

“The discovery of the first antidepressants and anti-psychotic medications in the early 1950s led to a gradual but very significant change in the treatment of mental illness.

“With the use of these medications, patients began to recover from mental illness and no longer needed to remain in hospital for long periods. Hence the need for large hospitals like St. Mary's became less.

“The 1970s became the era of rehabilitation and attempts were made to help patients regain the skills they had lost because of the illness or because of having spent a long time in hospital.

“Over the following three decades, as treatments improved and community mental health services developed, increasingly less and less people with mental illness required to spend long periods in hospital. Today (2005) in Mayo, a person who becomes ill can be treated for a short period in the Adult Mental Health Unit at Mayo General Hospital or at home in their own community, by their local community mental health service, thereby reducing suffering and leading to an earlier recovery.

“Hence, St. Mary's Hospital, which has served the people of Mayo since 1866, like many other such hospitals, both in this country and throughout Europe, has come to the end of an era.”