The Meath Hospital in Dublin, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 was founded in 1753. Situated in the Earl of Meath's Liberty

Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore

The Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore was one of several manors, or liberties, that existed in Dublin, Ireland since the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century...

, the hospital was opened to serve the sick and poor in the crowded area of the Liberties

The Liberties

The Liberties of Dublin, Ireland were jurisdictions that existed since the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century. They were town lands united to the city, but still preserving their own jurisdiction. The most important of these liberties were the Liberty of St...

 in Dublin.

In the nineteenth century the Meath Hospital achieved worldwide fame as a result of the revolutionary teaching methods and groundbreaking research carried out by Robert Graves

Robert James Graves

Robert James Graves, M.D., F.R.C.S. was an eminent Irish surgeon after whom Graves' disease takes its name. He was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the founder of the Dublin Journal of Medical Science...

 and William Stokes, physicians of the hospital. One example was when during a typhus epidemic Robert Graves introduced the revolutionary idea of giving food during the illness ("he fed fevers" was what Graves requested be inscribed on his tombstone).

In more recent times the hospital developed specialised services in the fields of urology, psychiatry, orthopaedics, haematology, endocrinology and nephrology.

The hospital was incorporated in 1998 into Tallaght Hospital

Tallaght Hospital

The Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Dublin, incorporating the National Children's Hospital , often referred to simply as Tallaght Hospital , is a teaching hospital in Tallaght, County Dublin, Ireland. Its academic partner is the University of Dublin, Trinity College...

 and moved to Tallaght

Tallaght

Tallaght is the largest town, and county town, of South Dublin County, Ireland. The village area, dating from at least the 17th century, held one of the earliest settlements known in the southern part of the island, and one of medieval Ireland's more important monastic centres.Up to the 1960s...

, although the original building continues to serve as a respite home.

Notable physicians

• John Cheyne (1777–1836) began work in this hospital in 1811.
• Sir Philip Crampton
  Sir Philip Crampton
  Sir Philip Crampton, 1st Baronet, FRS was an eminent Irish surgeon and anatomist.-Life:Crampton was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of a dentist. He was a childhood friend of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the United Irishman, and a cousin, on his mother's side, of Thomas Verner, Grand Master of the Orange...
  
   (1777–1858) was first appointed surgeon to the hospital in 1798 (though not fully qualified).
• Patrick Harkan, of Raheen, County Roscommon, was appointed in 1817. He later went on to the Cork Street Fever Hospital
  Cork Street Fever Hospital, Dublin
  The Fever Hospital was a hospital that opened in Cork St. in Dublin, Ireland on 14 May 1804. The hospital was located in a poor densely-populated part of the Dublin Liberties, though it had large grounds...
  
  , where he remained for forty years.
• Thomas Hawkesworth Ledwich
  Thomas Hawkesworth Ledwich
  Thomas Hawkesworth Ledwich was an eminent Irish anatomist and surgeon.-Life:He was born in Waterford, where his father practiced law, son of Edward Ledwich and Catherine Hawkesworth, both of Queen's County...
  
  (1823–1858) took over from Philip Crampton in 1858.
• Rawdon Macnamara (1822–1893) became surgeon in 1861 (a post his father had occupied).