ABOUT

 

The World Within Walls Exhibition is a joint venture between the HSE Cavan Monaghan and Monaghan County Museum.

The exhibition is part of a wider local history project commissioned and funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and delivered by Stair: An Irish Public History company under the guidance of the HSE World Within Walls project reference group.

 

This ground breaking exhibition provides a fascinating insight into the history of St. Davnet’s, County Monaghan. The site has gone by a number of names over its life time and has evolved from Cavan Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum, to the Monaghan Mental hospital, then St. Davnet’s hospital and finally a multi-purpose campus. In more recent years the campus has begun to close its wards as mental health care changes in nature and becomes increasing focused on providing care in the community. It is in this context that this exhibition aims to recall the histories of the institution, charting its evolution from 1869 to the modern day.

 

For generations the buildings which make up St Davnet’s have been a silent witness to the changing history of County Monaghan. Thousands of people have passed through its halls, some spending the majority of life there either as staff or as service users. Yet for the majority of the population of Monaghan and indeed Cavan, St Davnet’s own story has remained largely untold. This pioneering exhibition will present a poignant and challenging display of the history of an institution’s evolution from a district lunatic asylum to a community service. The story will be told through original artefacts, archives, images, audio visual displays, catalogue and a dedicated website with additional information on all of the themes explored in the exhibition. The display forms a key part of a larger project which was enacted by HSE Cavan Monaghan to conduct thorough investigation of the archives which date back to the opening of the Asylum in 1869.

 

 

The Project

 

The World within Walls project aims to remember the histories of St. Davnet’s former psychiatric hospital in Monaghan town.  St. Davnet’s was founded in 1869 to cater for Cavan and Monaghan counties. The site itself, which was in many ways a world within walls, has had a significant impact on the social and economic development of the town. The history of St. Davnet’s was engaged with in a number of ways: an archival project documented the records of the hospital, oral histories have been gathered, community projects completed, a history book written and the exhibition.

 

Through these various means World within Walls paints a multi layered picture of an institution which formed a key element in the history of Cavan and Monaghan and helps to raise awareness of the changes which have occurred in our provision of mental health care over the last 145 years.