St. Brigid's Hospital

The hospital, which was designed by William Murray, opened as the Connacht District Lunatic Asylum in 1833.^[1] After a redrawing of the asylum district boundaries in 1850, it was renamed the Ballinasloe District Asylum.^[2] New wings were completed in 1871 and 1882.^[2] As it expanded conditions became very overcrowded with nearly 1,200 patients by the early 1900s^[1] and, having been renamed Ballinasloe Mental Hospital in the late 1920s, it accommodated some 2,000 patients by the 1950s.^[3]

The facility became St. Brigid's Hospital in the 1950s. After the introduction of deinstitutionalisation in the late 1980s^[4][5] the hospital went into a period of decline and closed in 2013.^[6]