Local history: Mayo sanatorium was reopened after 1939 fire
By Tom Gillespie
ON June 30, 1941, the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, Mr. P.J. Ruttledge, performed the official reopening of the new tuberculosis sanatorium at Creagh, Ballinrobe. The facility was destroyed by fire two years earlier.
In the following Saturday’s edition of The Connaught Telegraph there was an extensive half-page coverage of the historic reopening event.
The following is an edited version of that report.
Period to the formal opening, the building and the newly constructed nurses’ home was blessed by the Archbishop of Tuam, Most Rev. Dr. Joseph Walsh, who was accompanied by Fr. Finn, C.C., Ballinrobe.
The new building is in two sections and is one storey. And it can accommodate more than 60 patients. It is graceful in outline and presents a pleasing view to the eye. It is in the most modern style and is creditable to both architect and contractor alike, Mr. C.J. McNamara being the designer and Mr. M. Kilcawley the contractor.
His Grace the Archbishop addressed the gathering from one of the balconies.
He said: “One cannot but admire the splendid efforts made by the minister and members of the Mayo Board of Health to help the sick and afflicted. Some years ago they provided a County Hospital, well-staffed and replete with all modern requirements, to secure the best medical attention and comfort even for the poorest inhabitants of the county.
“Today we see the opening of this sanatorium, which will restore strength to limbs weakened by the dreaded scourge of tuberculosis; and, if it is not possible to bring back perfect health in many cases, at any rate the treatment here will being relief and comfort to the sufferer and at the same time ensure that many others will be safe from infection.”
After the blessing ceremony the Minister for Local Government declared the new building opened.
The minister, touching on the matter of the treatment of tuberculosis in Mayo, said he did not want to bore the gathering with a number of statistics he had in hand, but he should tell them that on the whole they were most fortunate regarding the efforts made to treat the disease in the past.
Mayo used to be in a pretty bad position, he said, with regard to tuberculosis, but with the aid of doctors and the valuable help of nurses constantly, the disease was got under control and a great measure of treatment was being supplied.
Statistics showed that great strides in coping with the disease had been made, and their medical men should be greatly thanked for bringing the figures down to what they now were.
He did not think that the medical men were thanked as they should be or that their work was appreciated as it should be. They might have positions which looked alright to the ordinary man, but they had often gone outside the actual scope of their work to perform deeds and make researches which they were not bound to do.
In his own position, he had been attacked from time to time because this or that was not done. But he was only a layman, and when recommendations were made to him, affecting changes of a big nature and touching medical matters, he could not give a decision and had to refer such recommendations to the Medical Research Council, where there were men better suited to give decisions on such important subjects.
From the Historical Ballinrobe website, Averil Staunton has edited an essay by Bridie Mulloy on the history of the sanatorium.
In 1924, the Creagh Estate, originally owned by the Knox family, the local landlords, was handed over to County Mayo Board of Health to be used as a sanatorium for tuberculosis B. patients.
Until 1954 approximately 40 or 50 patients at a time were accommodated there under the supervision of Dr. James Gibson Thornton, Castlebar, who held clinics in the principal towns of the county through which patients were admitted.
March and October were the worst months for TB deaths. There were a few weeks in these periods when there were up to 20 bodies in the morgue - once Colonel Knox’s coach house. Most of the patients were immigrant workers from Achill, Mulranny and north Mayo, who had contracted TB in the harsh conditions of the Scottish tatty fields, the tillage lands of Lincoln and Cambridgeshire, the coal mines of Wales, and in the grim housing conditions available to people in indoor services during World War II.
Patients who were in reasonable health were encouraged to walk around the grounds and some of them loved to help with light farm chores in the meadows and tillage fields. Many became so attached to Creagh that they dreaded the monthly clinic, which was held on Sunday, in case Dr. Thornton would tell them they were well enough to go home; an understandable reluctance since home was often in an isolated village with few comforts and scanty food. They knew they would miss the routine of a walk after breakfast, a rest after lunch, four o’clock tea, another walk, and then supper followed by music or a singsong before lights went out at nine o’clock.
A disastrous fire of 1939 destroyed the main building where patients were housed.
After the fire the sanatorium was out of operation for two years until the new chalets with verandas were built. These housed 22 men and 22 women in each unit. Men and women were segregated, even when close to death, as they lay in their beds or just sat in the sunshine; segregation was the rule of the time.
Great efforts were made by the sanatorium directors to make the place self-supporting during the war years. They decided to put sheep, which would be fattened for slaughter, into the garden, but the sheep ate plants which caused many of them to die. It was then decided to put in goats to eat the poisonous plants, but the goats, being adventurous animals, got out and climbed on to the verandas or any climbable place and proceeded to denude shrubs around the nurses’ home (the remaining part of Creagh House).
In 1959, Creagh, with 350 acres, was sold to An Foras Taluntais (The Agricultural Institute) by Mayo County Council and served as a research station for the next 30 years. The nurses’ home was turned into an assembly hall for committee meetings, field days, lectures, etc.
In the late 1960s, after Dr. John Mulqueen was appointed director, an important job of reclamation was carried out on the cutaway bog bordering the Castlebar Road. Now the heather and scrub are replaced by lush green grass and the damage done through removing bog mud for fertilisation is completely repaired.