Helen Dreelan Matron St. Vincent's Hospital

A nursing career which includes six years spent as an outpost nurse in a nursing station catering for the people of Northern Newfoundland and Labrador comes to an end shortly when Helen Dreelan retires as matron of St. Vincent’s Hospital, Athy.  Helen came to the position in St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1999 and I met her soon afterwards as she was involved with a number of Athy Lions Club fundraising events.  Always helpful and never less than cheerful Helen brought a keen sense of shared responsibility and a wealth of experience to the profession of nursing management.

 

Helen qualified as a registered nurse in Dublin and later worked as a staff nurse in several different hospitals in the capital city.  She later took charge as head nurse of the urology unit in Galway University Hospital.  In 1987 she joined the Grenfell Regional Hospital services and spent the next six years as the nurse in charge in Mary’s Harbour nursing station in southern Labrador.  For the young Ballymore Eustace native, this was an extraordinary change of working environment as she worked in sub-arctic conditions where the temperature in winter times fell as low as minus thirty degrees.

 

The Grenfell Regional Health Board was established in 1981 to take over operational responsibility for the delivery of health care and social services in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador.  William Grenfell, an English doctor who first went to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1892 as part of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, opened cottage hospitals in the villages scattered along the inhospitable coastline of Labrador.  Mary’s Harbour was one of the small coastal villages with a population of a couple of hundred people, situated in the south-east coast of Labrador.  In Labrador itself there are three ethnic groups, the Inuit, the native Americans and descendants of European origins.  The village of Mary’s Harbour has no roadwork to any of the other towns and villages on the Labrador coast.  The nearest village was a 25 min. boat ride or a 10 min. plane trip away.  Medical facilities in the sub-arctic environment of Labrador village of Mary’s Harbour were provided by head nurse Helen and another nurse whose day to day work was complemented by visits every four or six weeks by the District Medical Officer and the District Dentist. 

 

Winter on the coast of Labrador lasts from November to early May when temperatures can fall so sharply as to freeze rivers and sea alike.  Inshore cod fishing, which is the principal occupation of the coastal villagers in Labrador comes to a standstill in winter, resuming only in May each year.  The summer fishing season is short but busy and October sees the fishermen returning to Mary’s Harbour to prepare for the winter.  Life as an outpost nurse in the Labrador coastal village, as one can imagine, can be extremely challenging.  It was a challenge Helen Dreelan as a nurse from Ireland found simulating during her six years there.  She also found enormous job satisfaction in providing a comprehensive medical service for a scattered community whose lives are regulated by the harsh weather conditions which give a seemingly unending horizon of frozen lakes, snow and ice. 

 

Helen took up the position of matron of St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1999 and now, in addition to that role, is also Director of Nursing for the Kildare West Wicklow area.  St. Vincent’s Hospital which first opened as a workhouse in January 1844 has seen a large number of both lay and religious masters and matrons in its 173 years’ history.  Many of us will remember the legendary Sr. Dominic who for many years epitomised all that was good in Irish religious life and whose charity earned for her the respect and gratitude of many.

 

Plans for the building of a new 100 bed hospital unit has been developed and approved during Helen’s stewardship of St. Vincent’s Hospital.  That stewardship has also been marked by many improvements to both the existing building and to the system of care afforded to patients in St. Vincent’s Hospital.   As a nurse manager and matron of the hospital Helen Dreelan has demonstrated admirable management and leadership skills.  Looking back at the history of nursing in Ireland we tend to overlook the enormous contribution made by the religious orders to hospital management in the past.  Helen was the first lay person in recent years to take on the role of matron of St. Vincent’s Hospital and in remembering her contribution we should also acknowledge and recall the contribution of the Sisters of Mercy who first came to work in the former workhouse in the 1870s.

 

Our congratulations, best wishes and thanks to Helen Dreelan who will be retiring on 30^th June.

 

St. Vincents Hospital

St. Vincent’s Hospital is in the news again.  It’s the Damocles sword of closure hanging over it which brings it to our attention.  The threat to the future of the building which was erected as a Workhouse a few years before the onset of the Great Famine has been ever present since the H.S.E. came into existence.

I can remember a time when the Health Services were operated on a county basis, with day to day control of the services in this area exercised by Kildare County Council.  The Hospital, renamed St. Vincent’s after its Workhouse days came to an end, was then in the careful and sympathetic control of the Sisters of Mercy.   

The Sisters, who first arrived in Athy in 1851 in response to an appeal by the Ballitore-born Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Cullen, took charge of the Workhouse Hospital on 24^th October 1873.  The first Sister Superior of the Union Hospital as it was then called was Sister Mary Vincent Bermingham who was appointed Superioress of Athy’s Mercy Convent 15 years later. 

The Hospital flourished under the guidance of the Sisters of Mercy and when the first Free State Government came into power the Sisters of Mercy were formally assigned to run the institution which we now know as St. Vincent’s.

Many members of the Sisters of Mercy order have worked in the Workhouse and St. Vincent’s Hospital since 1873.  We can all remember some of them and particularly recall matrons such as Sr. Peig Rice and St. Dominic McHugh. 

The masters of the Workhouse, as they were once called, included Robert Walker, uncle of the famous clergyman Monsignor Patrick Boylan of Barrowhouse.  Walker later became Private Secretary to the Irish Parliamentary party member and renowned journalist/author T.P. O’Connor.

In 1949 an interdepartmental committee was set up to examine the future of county homes throughout the country.  It was recommended that a number of those institutions, including Athy, would be refurbished and extended to provide accommodation for the aged and chronic sick.  Niall Meagher, who was then the County Architect, designed and planned the extensions to the old Workhouse building, which extensions were constructed by Bantile Limited of Banagher.  The work which started in July 1966 took almost 3 years to complete, at a cost of £250,000.00.   The new buildings contained two blocks for 100 female patients, three blocks for 168 male patients and a 14 bed maternity unit.  The maternity unit was closed in October 1986 and the 268 beds have been reduced over the years so that following the most recent reductions there will be only 120 beds. 

In 1985 the National Council for the Elderly published a report ‘Institutional Care for the Elderly’ which was followed three years later by a Government Policy Report on services for the elderly entitled ‘The Years Ahead’.  Both of these reports commented favourably on the services available at St. Vincent’s Hospital but it would seem that because of the ongoing financial difficulties being experienced by the H.S.E. that the accommodation in St. Vincent’s is being scaled down and may eventually be listed for closure. 

Such an eventuality would have a devastating effect on Athy given the very substantial employment the Hospital gives, particularly for female workers.  In addition the non availability of local accommodation for the aged and chronic sick would be an extremely severe drawback for the local community.

When the Eastern Health Board published in 1994 my short history of St. Vincent’s Hospital I began the narrative of the Workhouse story by quoting an unidentified correspondent of the Athy Literary Magazine.  He wrote disparagingly in March 1838 of the ‘spiritless and inert beings that form the more elevated circle here in Athy.’  ‘There is not a town in Ireland’ he continued ‘so completely neglected.’  He invited his readers ‘to visit us through our weekdays and ramble through our deserted streets to see the able bodied labourers at our corners, hoards of beggars at our doors, disease and famine in the hovels of the poor.’

That was one dispirited description of Athy in 1838, the year in which the Poor Relief Act was passed which led to the siting of the Workhouse in Athy.  We are experiencing hard times but nothing on the scale of those unfortunate people who in 1838 had yet to face five years of famine in the following decade.

Our local community must stand up and ensure that our geriatric hospital remains in place.

Proud history of St. Vincents

Sixteen years ago I was approached by Eddie Matthews of the Eastern Health Board and asked if I would write a history of the local hospital, St. Vincent’s. The publication was to be ready for the 150th anniversary of the hospital’s opening as a workhouse which had predated the Great Famine by just over a year. The opening of Athy Workhouse on 9th January 1844 came just in time to relieve some of the harshest effects of the famine in and around the South Kildare area.

Regrettably when I began my research I was dismayed to find that all of the Workhouse records had been destroyed. The loss of this invaluable original source material was a huge disadvantage and prevented me from giving a detailed account of the institution as I traced its transition from workhouse to County Home to its final transformation as a geriatric hospital.

Kieran Hickey who was a staff officer in Kildare County Council when I was a lowly clerical officer wrote a foreword for the history of the hospital in his capacity as Chief Executive Officer of the Eastern Health Board. He mentioned how St. Vincent’s Hospital ‘now provides caring services for all levels of society. It is right and fitting that the hospital and its current staff, lead by Sr. Peig Matron, Dr. Giles O’Neill Medical Officer and Eddie Matthews Hospital Manager should celebrate what has been achieved and look forward with confidence to the next century and a half.’

I was reminded of what Kieran Hickey wrote sixteen years ago when I heard last week of local concerns regarding the possible closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Apparently some sections of the hospital have been closed and further admissions have been curtailed. This could be accounted for by seasonal staff shortages, but around the same time Martin Mansergh T.D. and Minister for State issued a statement regretting the partial closure of hospital services throughout the country. While acknowledging such closures as temporary measures he inferred that other closures were inevitable having regard to the difficulty of upgrading old buildings to meet the exacting requirements of 21st century medical standards.

Alarm bells went off when I heard this explanation for it immediately raised an issue which could weigh heavily against St. Vincent’s Hospital if the ‘health and safety’ brigade were required to make decisions about the Athy hospital.

Many of the buildings housing St. Vincent’s Hospital are old, their history going back to famine times. Therein lies a possible problem if the beaucrats are of a mind to close St. Vincent’s. Not being a county town Athy has none of the services or facilities which neighbouring towns such as Naas, Portlaoise and Carlow have come to expect. St. Vincent’s Hospital is the only local facility offering services on a countywide basis. It is an excellent institution which provides caring services as required for all levels of society in the county. That, more than the age of the building should determine St. Vincent’s Hospital’s future.

St. Vincent’s is part of our history, an important link with our past. It’s early years as a workhouse from where young female inmates were sent to Australia under a State sponsored orphan emigration scheme is the less appealing part of that history. The part played by the Sisters of Mercy in the development of nursing services in the workhouse infirmary is the happier side of its history. The Sisters of Mercy began to visit patients in the infirmary every Sunday soon after they arrived in Athy in 1852. When Elizabeth Silke was appointed Matron of the workhouse in 1867 she was responsible for looking after the female inmates without any nursing assistance. Soon afterwards the Board of Guardians asked the Sisters of Mercy to take charge of the workhouse infirmary. This they did on 24th October 1873. In time their influence extended to the workhouse itself and throughout most of the 20th century the Sisters of Mercy provided from amongst their numbers successive matrons for the County Home as the workhouse was called after 1923 and St. Vincent’s Hospital as it became in the 1960s.

One of the many interesting individuals who worked in Athy Workhouse was Robert Walker who was Master of the workhouse in the last 1870s. He was later Private Secretary to T.P. O’Connor M.P., Irish Parliamentarian and author who represented Liverpool in the British House of Commons. Walker was brother of Mrs. Ann Boylan, one time principal of Barrowhouse National School whose son, Monsignor Patrick Boylan was one of Ireland’s greatest scripture scholars. Monsignor Boylan who was Professor of Eastern Languages in Maynooth College died in November 1974 while he was Parish Priest of Dunlaoghaire.

St. Vincent’s Hospital has served Athy and County Kildare well for the last 166 years. We may be called upon sooner than we think to show our appreciation for this local institution by ensuring that it is not consigned to the pages of history.

Proud History of St. Vincents

Sixteen years ago I was approached by Eddie Matthews of the Eastern Health Board and asked if I would write a history of the local hospital, St. Vincent’s. The publication was to be ready for the 150th anniversary of the hospital’s opening as a workhouse which had predated the Great Famine by just over a year. The opening of Athy Workhouse on 9th January 1844 came just in time to relieve some of the harshest effects of the famine in and around the South Kildare area.

Regrettably when I began my research I was dismayed to find that all of the Workhouse records had been destroyed. The loss of this invaluable original source material was a huge disadvantage and prevented me from giving a detailed account of the institution as I traced its transition from workhouse to County Home to its final transformation as a geriatric hospital.

Kieran Hickey who was a staff officer in Kildare County Council when I was a lowly clerical officer wrote a foreword for the history of the hospital in his capacity as Chief Executive Officer of the Eastern Health Board. He mentioned how St. Vincent’s Hospital ‘now provides caring services for all levels of society. It is right and fitting that the hospital and its current staff, lead by Sr. Peig Matron, Dr. Giles O’Neill Medical Officer and Eddie Matthews Hospital Manager should celebrate what has been achieved and look forward with confidence to the next century and a half.’

I was reminded of what Kieran Hickey wrote sixteen years ago when I heard last week of local concerns regarding the possible closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital. Apparently some sections of the hospital have been closed and further admissions have been curtailed. This could be accounted for by seasonal staff shortages, but around the same time Martin Mansergh T.D. and Minister for State issued a statement regretting the partial closure of hospital services throughout the country. While acknowledging such closures as temporary measures he inferred that other closures were inevitable having regard to the difficulty of upgrading old buildings to meet the exacting requirements of 21st century medical standards.

Alarm bells went off when I heard this explanation for it immediately raised an issue which could weigh heavily against St. Vincent’s Hospital if the ‘health and safety’ brigade were required to make decisions about the Athy hospital.

Many of the buildings housing St. Vincent’s Hospital are old, their history going back to famine times. Therein lies a possible problem if the beaucrats are of a mind to close St. Vincent’s. Not being a county town Athy has none of the services or facilities which neighbouring towns such as Naas, Portlaoise and Carlow have come to expect. St. Vincent’s Hospital is the only local facility offering services on a countywide basis. It is an excellent institution which provides caring services as required for all levels of society in the county. That, more than the age of the building should determine St. Vincent’s Hospital’s future.

St. Vincent’s is part of our history, an important link with our past. It’s early years as a workhouse from where young female inmates were sent to Australia under a State sponsored orphan emigration scheme is the less appealing part of that history. The part played by the Sisters of Mercy in the development of nursing services in the workhouse infirmary is the happier side of its history. The Sisters of Mercy began to visit patients in the infirmary every Sunday soon after they arrived in Athy in 1852. When Elizabeth Silke was appointed Matron of the workhouse in 1867 she was responsible for looking after the female inmates without any nursing assistance. Soon afterwards the Board of Guardians asked the Sisters of Mercy to take charge of the workhouse infirmary. This they did on 24th October 1873. In time their influence extended to the workhouse itself and throughout most of the 20th century the Sisters of Mercy provided from amongst their numbers successive matrons for the County Home as the workhouse was called after 1923 and St. Vincent’s Hospital as it became in the 1960s.

One of the many interesting individuals who worked in Athy Workhouse was Robert Walker who was Master of the workhouse in the last 1870s. He was later Private Secretary to T.P. O’Connor M.P., Irish Parliamentarian and author who represented Liverpool in the British House of Commons. Walker was brother of Mrs. Ann Boylan, one time principal of Barrowhouse National School whose son, Monsignor Patrick Boylan was one of Ireland’s greatest scripture scholars. Monsignor Boylan who was Professor of Eastern Languages in Maynooth College died in November 1974 while he was Parish Priest of Dunlaoghaire.

St. Vincent’s Hospital has served Athy and County Kildare well for the last 166 years. We may be called upon sooner than we think to show our appreciation for this local institution by ensuring that it is not consigned to the pages of history.

Eye on the Past 720

Athy Workhouse (now St. Vincent's Hospital) was the subject of a report which appeared in the British Medical Journal in 1896. The report gives an interesting insight into the basic almost primitive nature of health services provided for the elderly and the insane 110 years ago.

“Athy is an important market town, and the workhouse, which is on its outskirts, draws its inmates from a large agricultural district. The medical officer, Dr. O’Neill, lives some distance from the house, and we were unable to time our visit to coincide with his. [Dr. O'Neill referred to in the report was Dr. Jeremiah who had been appointed Medical Officer the previous year in succession to his father, Dr. P.L. O'Neill who had held the position from 1874 to 1897] The matron, however, kindly placed herself at our disposal. In this workhouse the sick have overflowed into the body of the house. The infirmary originally planned for 30 patients, has at the present time to accommodate 42, and there are besides over 80 beds for cases of chronic infirmity requiring nursing, which are placed in the infirm wards in the body of the house. [The Infirmary was part of the original warehouse building which opened on 9th January 1844. As appears from the report it catered for the infirm who required nursing] There is an average of 95 inmates under treatment, exclusive of the lunatics, and this out of a total of 200, the number booked as being in the house on the night preceding our visit. The infirmary, consisting of a middle block and two wings, is given up to the cases which require most attention; in the middle portion is the operating room, on the first floor; below, the surgery, and the male side the kitchen, which occupies the space of two rooms. The walls throughout are whitewashed, the wall surface being smooth and the ceilings plastered. A match-board lining is carried round the walls at the height of the head of the beds. The windows are diamond paned, in heavy metal frames.; the upper half falls inwards, the lower turns on a pivot; there is no other ventilation. The bedsteads are principally the old harrow frame, with fibre mattresses, but on the male side; there are some spring beds. Between the beds were tables with a drawer on each side; there was a long table with benches for meals, and a few arm chairs. The ward crockery was kept in cupboards, and the linen store in a cupboard on the landing. In the operating room we were shown the instruments, which were creditably kept; this room contains a table, desk, and bed. On the female side the wards were not very full; an empty room was in use as a day room; in the second ward, of ten beds, was a child with acute chorea- we have seldom seen a worse case; another with phithis; a case of fractured thigh; anaemia; ulceration of the legs; a strumous child; and two women who were dressed. One of these told us that she “had her chest bad,” and the other had some internal trouble. On this side there are ten beds more than on the men’s side. The lower ward was used as a sleeping room for any inmates whose services were required at night in the wards. The male patients also were few in number. In the first ward, of six beds, they were all up; in the second, containing ten beds, three were in bed, one with bronchitis, another with an ulcerated leg, and the third was a case of senility. As the visit was paid in the summer we found the sick department at its lowest. The wards were being scrubbed, which gave them a disorderly appearance. The lunatics in this union are kept in cells. There is accommodation for six on each side, in three cells. [The reference to lunatics and the cells in which they were accommodated is a surprise revelation and the first reference I have found to the detention of the insane in the local workhouse] The so-called dayroom is the corridor outside the cells. These cells are bolted at night and there is no spyhole. On the male side were five patients; they were out in the exercise yard. On the female sides were two patients, seated on a bench in the corridor. An infant belonging to the wardswoman was in a cot in one of the cells. These divisions were clean, but unspeakably dreary and cheerless. The airing court on the female side, in which we were pleased to notice benches, is spacious and had growing flowers; it is used in common by hospital patients and by the idiots. The epileptics are in this class. The infirmary nursing is in the hands of three nuns who are not trained [The Sisters of Mercy first began to visit patients in the Workhouse infirmary some time in the 1870's. The Board of Guardians made an approach to the Order to take over responsibility for the Infirmary which they did in or around March 1880]; they have the usual pauper helps, one to each ward. The nuns are also responsible for the lunatics, though on both sides an inmate was in charge. There is no night-nurse; if necessary inmates are placed on duty at night, and if more nurses are required by day, a larger number of inmates is sent from the house; quantity is not stinted if the quality be more than doubtful. The maternity ward is in the body of the house, close to the infirm wards. It is a large room, having, however, only four beds, one of which was occupied; there is no labour bed. The ward is not good-dark, badly ventilated, and difficult to warm in winter; the windows are placed high in the wall, and on one side only. The beds are straw on the “harrow” frames. A door leads to the nursery, a small room, and beyond is a small garden in which is an open shed with bath and cold water tap, a privy and a receptacle for foul linen; the shed was much blocked with pails and odds and ends of lumber, making it practically useless for its original purpose. As previously mentioned, a large number of hospital patients are treated in the infirm wards, where 42 beds in two wards are assigned to them in each wing. These wards are fitted up as sick wards, and here we saw helpless cases-paralysis, old age, etc. On the male side there are 20 in bed, on the female side only 8. The matron is responsible for the nursing of these patients, and has a wardsman or woman in each ward. These wards are locked at night on the outside; there are no bells to the officers’ quarters, and though they are termed convalescent wards, most of the patients treated in them will never reach the convalescent stage. Nor are there any appliances for nursing, no water supply, no offices, no proper ventilation, the only light and air coming through a large window at either end of the ward. More serious still is the great distance between these wards and the infirmary proper, and the absence of all supervision at night. The guardians have placed good stoves in the wards, and also by the provision of small tables, chairs, etc. have endeavoured to overcome some of the difficulties of nursing, but the structural defects still remain. The sunk portion of the floor has been levelled, so as to provide space for the iron-framed bedstead with fibre mattress. In some wards we saw a few “harrow” beds in use. The fever hospital is a separate building [The Fever Hospital was separate from the Workhouse and was in operation before the Workhouse opened], standing on a higher level than the workhouse. It is better planned for the requirements of the sick, and as there is no fever, we were told that the doctor sends thither such patients as in his opinion require better air. It is nursed by two trained nurses and has its separate kitchen and laundry. In the girls’ and boys’ dormitories we were pleased to notice that the guardians had superseded the straw ticks on the floor by spring bedsteads, that they had levelled the floor, and on the girls’ side they had removed the partition, thus improving the light and increasing the cubic space. The fireplaces throughout are the old grates, except in the infirm wards. The kitchen is still in its primitive condition-huge boilers, with their separate furnaces, and no range. The water for house use is heated in the laundry. This laundry serves all departments, except the fever hospital. We are informed that the feeding troughs are still in use in the dining-hall for serving the stirabout to the able-bodied. In sanitary matters this house is on a level with others of its class.

The privies are on the trough system; they were not in a cleanly state, and in some cases we noticed great carelessness in placing the trough. There is one bath in the infirmary, with hot and cold water supply. There are no indoor conveniences. Soil buckets are used in the infirmary and infirm wards, and remain unemptied at night. The water supply is ample, and is pumped up daily.

The last Sister of Mercy in St. Vincents Hospital

A piece of history played out a few weeks ago passed unnoticed so far as most of us were concerned. St. Vincent’s Hospital, once known as the County Home and even before that as the Workhouse or the Poorhouse, was the venue as Sr. Catherine of the Sisters of Mercy retired after many years of personal service to the patients of that institution. Her retirement was a noteworthy event in its own right, but made all the more so when we realised that with her departure the last link between St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Sisters of Mercy was relinquished. It was in 1880 that the religious order founded by Mother Catherine McAuley some years previously were invited by the Board of Guardians to take over the running of the infirmary attached to the Workhouse. The nuns who had arrived in Athy in 1851 had been regular visitors to the Workhouse and were to be found there most Sundays ministering to the needs of the unfortunate inmates. Their good work soon came to the attention of the Board of Guardians who had been running the Workhouse since it opened in 1844. The Workhouse regime was harsh, separating husbands from wives and parents from children. At night-time the inmates were locked in their wards and responsibility for their care passed to long-term female inmates who without training or nursing experience had to look after their fellow inmates. Nursing then was of the most rudimentary type and it was not until the end of the 19th century that a properly trained nursing staff began to be available to Irish workhouses.

In the meantime the Sisters of Mercy had developed their own programme of weekly visits to the workhouse which eventually culminated in the invitation extended to them in 1873 to provide nursing sisters for the dark Victorian building which was Athy’s workhouse infirmary. With the foundation of the Irish Free State the Workhouse was designated as a county home and the Sisters of Mercy were by then in charge of the one time workhouse which provided care facilities for the elderly of County Kildare.

Sr. Catherine who retired on 31st March was the last of a long line of Sisters of Mercy who over a period of 130 years or so served the long-term and short-term patients who lived out their years in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Athy. She was born Mary Ann McGee to County Wexford parents and entered the Convent of Mercy in September 1955. Professed three years later she trained as a nurse in the Mater Hospital and did her maternity nursing in St. Finbar’s Hospital, Cork. Sr. Catherine spent the next 18 years working in St. Vincent’s Hospital until 1981 when she left for the Missions in Kenya. She was to remain in Kenya for ten years working as a nursing sister in the Machakos Diocese and in the Mata Hospital, Nairobi. On completion of her ten years abroad she returned to St. Vincent’s Hospital where she remained until her recent retirement.

As I write this article I do not have a list of all the Sisters of Mercy who served in St. Vincent’s from the time it was a Workhouse until the recent retirement of Sr. Catherine. I hope such a list can be compiled and indeed a similar listing of all the lay people who served in that institution should also be prepared. In any event we have the names of most of the doctors and the matrons who over 160 years ministered to the needs of the patients and inmates.

In relation to the medical staff the name O’Neill crops up with quite extraordinary regularity. The present holder of the title of medical officer to St. Vincent’s Hospital is Dr. Giles O’Neill who succeeded his father, Dr. Joe O’Neill in that post. The O’Neill family connections with what is now St. Vincent’s Hospital go back long before Dr. Joe’s time. It was his grandfather, Dr. P.L. O’Neill who was the first member of the family to be appointed Medical Officer to the then Workhouse. It was a position to which he was appointed in 1874 following the death of Dr. Thomas Kynsey who had been Medical Officer for the previous 31 years. Dr. P.L. O’Neill was replaced by his own son Dr. Jeremiah O’Neill in 1897. Four consecutive generations of the O’Neill family have held the position of Medical Officer and their combined service to date amounts to over 126 years.

During that time several members of the Sisters of Mercy were matrons of St. Vincent’s. The last religious to occupy that position was Sr. Peig Rice who retired a few years ago. Her time as matron was marked by an improvement in the patient care facilities, due in part to better financing of the health services and in part to generous voluntary contributions to the Patient Comfort Fund. Sr. Peig replaced the legendary Sr. Dominic who retired in 1981 after 41 years service in St. Vincent’s Hospital. She was in charge during the latter years of the institution’s life as a County Home and in the early years of its re-birth as St. Vincent’s Hospital. Legion are the stories told and retold of the mighty Sr. Dominic whose 24 years as matron of St. Vincent’s was marked by good natured generosity and charity extended to many down-and-outs who sought refuge and comfort within the hospital. A McHugh from Ballycorman, Ballylinan whose forebearers lost their lands during the Luggacurran Evictions of the 1880’s, Sr. Dominic joined the Sisters of Mercy in Athy in 1933. After her profession and on completion of her training as a nurse she returned in 1940 to St. Vincent’s Hospital where she was appointed Matron in 1957 in succession to Sr. Angela. The Sisters of Mercy who were matrons in the earlier decades of the 20th century cannot as yet be identified with certainty. Little is known of Sr. Angela or of Sr. Vincent, another matron drawn from the ranks of the Sisters of Mercy.

In 1994 the sesquicentennial of the hospital was celebrated. Just eight years later St. Vincent’s Hospital no longer has a member of the Sisters of Mercy on its staff. The proud achievement of the religious order in tending to the sick and poor of our area is now a matter of history. With the retirement of Sr. Catherine, the curtain has finally come down on another aspect of the work of the Sisters of Mercy in Athy. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude and to Sr. Catherine goes our best wishes for a happy retirement.

Workhouse celebrates 150 years

Last week in company with hundreds of others I visited St. Vincent's Hospital on the occasion of an Open Day celebrating its 150th Anniversary. A concelebrated Mass in the small Chapel attached to the Hospital was offered up for those past and present who passed through the gates of what was initially a Workhouse, later a County Home and today a Hospital.

As I stood within the narrow confines of the old Chapel images of destitute and hungry families ravaged by the potato famine crowded my memory. Those very walls which stood for 150 years had been witness to tales of misery, hunger and neglect which were the lot of Irish country folk when the Workhouse first opened its doors in 1844.

The corridors which later that same afternoon resounded to happy voices once echoed to the sounds of barefooted women and children whose only future lay within the precincts of the Workhouse. Their pinched starving faces were without laughter, their frightened hearts without hope as they shuffled along corridors which were now echoing to the sounds of people rejoicing and celebrating an Anniversary.

How many sad souls had given up all hope and entered the dreaded Workhouse in Athy we cannot now say. Full records are no longer available and those that exist conceal within their dusty covers painful memories that are now but names in columns. Across the Grand Canal a short distance from the present Hospital a neglected graveyard holds the remains of those who entered the Workhouse, never again to leave it. As in life their deaths were not marked by any ceremony. Their emaciated bodies were hurriedly carted across the road and over the Canal Bridge to be buried without the benefit of clergy in graves which would remain unmarked.

As the carefully prepared prayers were said in the Hospital Chapel, the ghosts of the past no doubt looked down on a world which they did not recognise. The Workhouse which in its early years provided minimum sustenance and care to the needy and the hungry was in time to change and to improve. The admission of the Sisters of Mercy as visitors and later as Nursing Sisters in the Workhouse ensured an overlay of compassion which up to then had been lacking. Improvements and modification to the harsh Workhouse regime gave us the County Home and later St. Vincent's Hospital. The ghosts of poverty and neglect were expurgated by many years of kindness and comfort afforded to the elderly men and women who have used the services of the County Home and St. Vincent's Hospital.

In celebrating 150 years it was a happy coincidence that two of the most enduring elements of the institution’s story played a significant part in those celebrations. The Sisters of Mercy came as nursing sisters to the Workhouse Infirmary in October 1873 and within a year following the death of the first Medical Officer Dr. Thomas Kynsey, a Castledermot man was appointed in his place. He was Dr. P.L. O'Neill, who was to be succeeded in time by his son Dr. Jeremiah, his grandson Dr. Joe and his great-grandson Dr. Giles. Today St. Vincent's Hospital has as Matron Sister Peg, a member of the Sisters of Mercy and Dr. Giles O'Neill as Medical Officer.

As I left the Hospital driving through the main gateways, I looked across the road towards the Workhouse graveyard. What were we celebrating I thought - was it the longevity of a building or a past which for so long remained hidden and unobserved. We had remembered on a Sunday in April 1994 those unremembered people who had gone before us and who once walked through the Workhouse gates in despair and hunger.

May they find the peace they never found on this earth.