St Brendan's Mental Hospital Grangegorman - Preservation and Access project (360G-Wellcome-098005_Z_11_Z)

The key goals of this project are to preserve and make accessible for research the archives of St. Brendan's Mental Hospital, Grangegorman, Dublin. Opened in 1814 as the Richmond Lunatic Asylum, prior to the establishment of a countrywide network of district asylums, this was the earliest and remained the largest of the Irish public asylums. The archives comprise the most extensive and most important collection of hospital records of any type in Ireland and are an unrivalled source for research into the history of the treatment of mental illness and many aspects of social, economic and cultural history. Currently stored in very poor conditions, they urgently require safeguarding in archival custody. The National Archives is seeking funding for staff for 1 year to carry out the initial archival, preservation and conservation processing of this collection, thereby ensuring its security. We estimate from our previous experience of hospital records that it will take 2 years to carry out full processing. While the National Archives is currently active in accessioning the archives of some smaller regional mental hospitals, we are prohibited by government embargo from taking on the staff necessary for processing a transfer on the scale of Grangegorman, although we are prepared to support the project in other ways should this application be successful. Archival and conservation scoping surveys of the archives, carried out in February 2011 and funded by a grant from the Wellcome Trust, recommended work by an experienced Archivist, supported by others, for approximately 2 years and by a Conservator and Preservation Assistant for at least 6 months. See archival report by J. Etherton and conservation report by J. Rhys-Lewis attached.