Committal, discharge and varied institutional experiences in the Richmond District Lunatic Asylum, Dublin in the early 20th century: Legislative provisions, clinical cases and the position of ‘mental hospitals’ in Ireland's cultures of confinement

Founded in 1810, the Richmond District Lunatic Asylum at Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland, admitted tens of thousands of patients over the course of almost two centuries. Staff introduced many new treatments for mental illness, ranging from ‘moral management’ in the early 19th century to the biological treatments of the 20th century (e.g. malaria therapy, insulin coma, lobotomy). The Richmond was a model for the network of district asylums established across Ireland during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This article summarises the legislative underpinning of Ireland's high committal rates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; draws on the Richmond's archive to present two clinical cases of women who were committed to the Richmond in 1907 and 1908 but had different outcomes; and explores the nature of ‘institutional careers’ in Ireland's ‘mental hospital’ system in the early 20th century as one element within Ireland's cultures of confinement during this period.