CLICK the Omeka logo to begin using the World Within Walls Omeka archives and exhibitions
Exhibition Webiste
World of Work
The asylum, and later the hospital, was an important source of employment in the local area. Jobs ranged from the Resident Medical Superintendent, to nurses, attendants, groundskeepers, dairy maids and even the bandmaster for the Asylum Band and organist for the church.
Conditions varied for those working in the asylum. In the early years, for example, the Resident Medical Superintendent got an annual
salary of £400, with a fine house to live in. The matron got a salary of £100 a year, with apartments in the asylum and allowances of fuel, light, washing, bread, milk and vegetables.
While other staff, such as nurses and attendants, were offered job security, regular wages, food and accommodation, their hours were very long and their accommodation was not as spacious. The work was tough both mentally and physically.
From the earliest days of the asylum, work played a large part in the daily lives of patients.
Work was seen as a form of therapy, and continued to play a role in the treatment of patients throughout the twentieth century.
One record from 1897 gives us an insight into the kinds of work that patients carried out in the asylum. Like all of life on the wards, this work would have been segregated by gender, with men and women doing different jobs.
Duties included:
Assisting attendants in the wards
-
Garden or field labourer
-
Clerk
-
Storekeeper
-
Messenger
-
Stoker
-
Tailor
-
Shoemaker
-
Upholsterer
-
Painter
-
Joiner
-
Mason
-
Laundry work
-
Officers’ quarters
-
Needlework
-
Knitting
Patients continued to work at the asylum, and later the hospital, until the 1970s. Following the Mental Health Treatment Act 1961, patients were paid for their work from January 1963.
Inside and outside of the laundry building; many of the female patients would have worked here washing the clothes and bedclothes from the hospital
© 2014 The Health Service Excutive
Site designed and produced by Stair: An Irish Public History Compnay