Recently installed information board ignites new interest in old Mayo burial ground

THE erection of a new information board at a largely forgotten Mayo burial ground has ignited big interest among the public about its history.

St. Mary’s Heritage Society has been working with the Castlebar Municipal District and Castlebar Tidy Towns to honour the memory of the people who rest in unmarked graves at Aglish Graveyard in the county town.

Tidy Towns members erected a new historical information sign at the Aglish Graveyard site last weekend and the group has reported 'huge interest' from the public about the graveyard since then.

Castlebar Tidy Towns has shared information on its history, compiled by St. Mary's Historical Society.

The Tidy Towns group look forward to working with the historical society in upgrading the area into a dignified resting place for all buried there. Thanks was extended to David Mellett, Joe Mangan and Anthony O'Malley from the Castlebar MD for all their work with the groups on the project to date.

The history compiled by St. Mary's Historical Society sets out: The Castlebar District Lunatic Asylum, later known as St. Mary’s Hospital, was opened on April 26, 1866, so it will soon be the 160th anniversary of this opening.

The Castlebar District Asylum was one of several asylums built throughout the 32 counties in response to the Report from the Select Committee on Relief of Lunatic Poor In Ireland published in 1817 which highlighted the lack of facilities for the treatment of people with mental illness.

The first such facility west of the Shannon was the Connaught Lunatic Asylum, later known as St. Bridgit’s Hospital in Ballinasloe, which opened in 1833 and patients from Mayo had to travel there for treatment. So the opening of the asylum in Castlebar in 1866 was, at that time, a major development and improvement for this area.

As time went on, those patients who died in the asylum and whose remains were not taken home by their relatives for burial in their own area were interred in a mass grave on the asylum grounds at Aglish.

There is mention in the Register of the Board of Governors that at a meeting of the Governors held on December 12, 1885, that with the approval of the then Home Secretary, Lord Balford, a decision to open a graveyard on the asylum grounds at Aglish was taken, the purpose being for the burial of Roman Catholic inmates from the Castlebar Lunatic Asylum.

It is known that the graveyard in Aglish was used for the burial of patients who died in the asylum between 1878 and 1922 and whose remains were not taken by their relatives for burial in their family plot. It is less clear where patients who died during the first 12 years of the asylum's existence between 1866 and 1878 are buried but oral history suggests that they too were buried in this same area.

The Review of Registrar for Deaths and Discharges from1866 to 1922 shows that 1,956 patients died in the asylum during that 56-yer period. It should be pointed out that most died from physical causes, mainly from Tuberculosis (TB) or Phthisis, as it was referred to in the past.

Today, we have no way of knowing how many of these patients were taken home for burial in their family plot. The earliest written indication pertaining to the number taken back home for burial is for a small group of male patients who died in the asylum in 1901. Case notes for these men indicate that about 25% were taken by their families for burial in their native area, leaving the remainder to be buried in Aglish.

As one would expect, in the early years, it is likely that less patients were repatriated but over the years, as communication and transport systems improved, more and more people were brought home for burial.

1922 saw the end of burials in Aglish when the New Cemetery at Lough Lanagh on the Westport Road started to be used and where about 350 patients were subsequently buried in an unmarked grave. From the 1990s onwards, patients were placed in individually marked graves.

In later years, it had become the custom for families of deceased patients to take their relative home to be buried.

While we can never be sure of how many are interred in unmarked graves in the Aglish Graveyard the stark reality is that this ground is the resting place for hundreds of patients who died in the Castlebar District Lunatic Asylum. It is important to note, that while this burial ground is located in Castlebar town, those buried there came from all parts of Mayo.

For the past few years, the St. Mary’s Heritage Society, a small group of former employees from the Mayo Mental Health Service, under the chairmanship of Anthony O’Boyle, have been attempting to upgrade this burial area and develop a fitting memorial to the many buried there.

Former members of staff including Matt Shaw, Tom Scahill and Gerry Neary, at their own expense, cleared away this area and with financial assistance from the HSE, a plaque was erected an unveiled to the memory of those buried there at a religious ceremony on July 31, 2014.