Downshire’s history brought to book by former nurse
Playing croquet on the lawns of the Downshire. One of the old photographs included in Sean Kelly's book about the history of the hospital
“THERE is something about the Downshire, and almost everybody who came to work in it would say that. There is something about it that gets a hold of you,” says Sean Kelly.
He and I are sitting in the Downshire Hospital’s Great Hall, chatting about his book on the history of this fascinating and beautiful building, of which moments before he had given me a tour.
The Co Down former nurse (“I was born and reared locally in the Teconnaught area”) is looking forward to the official launch of his book, entitled A Grand Old Lady, in just a few weeks’ time, on March 16.
And having been linked in some way to the hospital since he came to train there as a student nurse after leaving school, right up until he retired from the profession 10 years ago, there could be no one better qualified to take on the task of compiling the history of this institution, which was opened on October 8, 1869, and at one stage catered for around 1,200 patients.
“There is some history of mental health nursing in my family - my aunt had been a ward sister (at the Downshire) and she talked a lot about it,” says Sean.
“I started my training here in 1965 and have really been associated with the Downshire ever since. I worked as a nurse on the wards here until the 1970s.”
He then began teaching student nurses on the wards - “so I didn’t lose contact with the patients at all” - and eventually his career took him to Purdysburn (in Belfast) and the School of Nursing at Queen’s University, until he became a nursing advocate after his retirement.
It was at this time he actually decided he “would like to do a history of the place”, but found the task to be more difficult than he had anticipated.
“When I set about doing it, I just met a brick wall as regards to research. I couldn’t get my hands on reports. I couldn’t find anything, nobody knew where anything was. I gave up in frustration.
“Then just about a year ago, Dessie Bannon ( recently retired director of Adult Services for the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust) approached me and asked if I could do the history of the Downshire, because by the summer of this year, there would probably be no patients left here.
“So between Dessie and his staff and a lot of other people we eventually assembled all the records that we could get, right back to the first annual report in 1870.”
It was Sean who came up with the title ‘A Grand Old Lady’ for both his book and the hospital itself. He says he feels it conveys exactly how the impressive, traditional looking building appears to visitors coming up the drive when they see it for the first time.
A purpose-built asylum, the Downshire catered for around 330 patients and was full to capacity within a year, Sean recounts.
The first patients - 30 of them, transferred from the asylum in Belfast - were taken to Downpatrick by train and paraded up through the town in front of a band to the Downshire, where a “big reception” was held for them.
“There were always more patients than there were beds, right up until the 70s and 80s,” says Sean.
“When it opened, there were around 30 staff. There would have been a medical superintendent and head nurse on the female side, and head attendant on the male side.”
He reveals that it wasn’t until “well into the 1900s” that such medical staff started to get trained specifically in the area of mental health.
Generally, their role encompassed so much more than healthcare and medicine, and Sean says that staff were involved in taking patients on trips to the theatre, cinema, swimming baths and other places. Such outings were commonplace in the hospital, and as Sean says, that made it ahead of its time in terms of staff’s beliefs about allowing patients to integrate with the community.
“Even in early reports there are mentions of patients being taken outside the hospital down the town to be entertained. There’s even mention of some of the patients being allowed out on their own. That would have been totally unheard of in most institutions of that time. So they were blessed really, with the calibre of medical superintendent that they got. And that seemed to rub off on the caring staff, so they always had a more liberal viewpoint.”
He reveals that there was also a “big emphasis on occupation for people with mental illness” at the Downshire, and one of the outlets for that was the farm, where patients helped to grow and produce all the meat, milk and vegetables used by the hospital.
It is now closed, but was situated on the site of the new Downe Hospital in Downpatrick.
“They had their own workshops where they made their own clothes and shoes - the place was really self sufficient,” Sean continues.
“Obviously they wouldn’t have been able to occupy everybody, as some people wouldn’t have been physically able (to do certain tasks), so they eventually started to bring in occupational therapy departments where lighter work could be done indoors.”
In the early 1950s. Northern Ireland’s first qualified occupational therapist, Tom Page, came to the hospital, and Sean says “everything just took off from there”, adding that “Tom’s ideas fitted in with what the medical and caring staff had been doing - the importance of keeping people occupied and active.”
The gradual shift towards care in the community inevitably led to a reduction in the number of those who resided ‘in house’, and this was particularly prominent from the mid 70s onwards.
“The hospital had a terrific relationship with the Down County Welfare Authority and they started setting up hostels. Patients were moving from the hospital into hostels and from hostels in to attended living,” says Sean.
“And around the same time the powers-that-be here were instrumental in setting up the Industrial Authority Organisation, which provided ‘normal’ work outside the hospital for patients - that was another big step for integrating people back into the community.
“As the years went on there was less need for this type of building.”
Sean’s book, A Grand Old Lady, will be available to purchase from March 11. For information on how to get a copy, you can contact him directly on 02844 615519.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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