St Patrick's Hospital
Encyclopedia
St. Patrick's University Hospital (originally St. Patrick's Hospital for Imbeciles) is Ireland's
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

 largest independent not-for-profit mental health hospital. It is located near Kilmainham
Kilmainham
Kilmainham is a suburb of Dublin south of the River Liffey and west of the city centre, in the Dublin 8 postal district.-History:In the Viking era, the monastery was home to the first Norse base in Ireland....

 and the Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park
Phoenix Park is an urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying 2–4 km west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its 16 km perimeter wall encloses , one of the largest walled city parks in Europe. It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth...

 in Dublin. Its sister hospital, St. Edmundsbury is located in Lucan
Lucan, Dublin
In the Irish language, 'Leamhcáin' is translated to 'Lucan', meaning 'Place of the Elm Trees'. The name probably comes from a people that travelled by river, as Lucan is the first place that Elm trees are encountered if travelling inland from the Liffey....

 County Dublin
County Dublin
County Dublin is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Dublin Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Dublin which is the capital of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first of the parts of Ireland to be shired by King John of England following the...

. St. Patrick's also provides a network of community mental health clinics called the Dean Clinics in several locations across Ireland. Currently there are clinics available in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

Services

St. Patrick's provides a wide range of treatment programmes. These include programmes for mood disorders (depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 and bipolar
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

 depression), anxiety disorder
Anxiety disorder
Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fear and anxiety. Conditions now considered anxiety disorders only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes explains that anxiety disorders are...

, an alcohol dependence
Alcohol dependence
Alcohol dependence, as described in the DSM-IV, is a psychiatric diagnosis describing an entity in which an individual uses alcohol despite significant areas of dysfunction, evidence of physical dependence, and/or related hardship.-Definition and diagnosis:According to the DSM-IV criteria for...

 / substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...

 programme, eating disorder
Eating disorder
Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions defined by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the detriment of an individual's physical and mental health. Bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are the most common specific...

s, anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...

 and bulimia, cognitive behavioural therapy, a young adult programme, an adolescent service, a dual diagnosis programme, a memory clinic and general mental health care.

It has departments of occupational therapy
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy is a discipline that aims to promote health by enabling people to perform meaningful and purposeful activities. Occupational therapists work with individuals who suffer from a mentally, physically, developmentally, and/or emotionally disabling condition by utilizing treatments...

, social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...

, cognitive behavioural therapy, clinical psychology
Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...

 and psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

. It offers day hospital, outpatient, inpatient, and community mental health services. The St. Patrick's Hospital Foundation raises funds for St. Patrick's.

History

It was founded in 1747 with money bequeathed by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

 following his death in 1745. He was keen that his hospital be situated close to a general hospital because of the links between physical and mental ill-health, so St. Patrick's was built beside Dr Steevens' Hospital
Dr Steevens' Hospital
Dr Steevens' Hospital in Dublin was one of Ireland's most distinguished eighteenth-century medical establishments...

. The architect was George Semple.

In "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift", the poet anticipated his own death:

He gave the little Wealth he had,

To build a House for Fools and Mad:

And shew'd by one satyric Touch,

No Nation wanted it so much:

That Kingdom he hath left his Debtor,

I wish it soon may have a Better.


Swift himself was declared of unsound mind by a Commission of Lunacy in 1742. Will Durant
Will Durant
William James Durant was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975...

 said of him: "He went a whole year without uttering a word."

The hospital retains Swiftian touches, with wards named after Stella (Esther Johnson
Esther Johnson
Esther Johnson was the English friend of Jonathan Swift, known as "Stella".Newfoundland-born author Trudy J. Morgan-Cole wrote a novel in 2006 detailing fictionalized portions of the Swift/Johnson friendship in The Violent Friendship of Esther Johnson...

), Vanessa (Esther Vanhomrigh
Esther Vanhomrigh
Esther Vanhomrigh , an Irish woman of Dutch descent, was a longtime lover and correspondent of Jonathan Swift. Swift's letters to her were published after her death...

), Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain.-Early life:Grattan was born at...

, the village of Kilroot
Kilroot
Kilroot is a townland in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It lies to the east of Eden, on the outskirts of Carrickfergus on the northern shore of Belfast Lough. It is within the Carrickfergus Borough Council area.-History:...

 (in County Antrim
County Antrim
County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...

) where Swift worked as Prebend at the church, and Laracor (County Meath
County Meath
County Meath is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Mide . Meath County Council is the local authority for the county...

) where he also worked as a clergyman.

The late Anthony Clare
Anthony Clare
Anthony Ward Clare was an Irish psychiatrist well known in the UK and Ireland as a presenter of radio and TV programmes.-Career:...

 was medical director of St. Patrick's in the 1990s. Maurice Drury, a friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...

, also worked there. The poet Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke (poet)
thumb|300px|Austin Clarke Bridge in [[Templeogue]]Austin Clarke was one of the leading Irish poets of the generation after W. B. Yeats. He also wrote plays, novels and memoirs...

was an inpatient in St. Patrick's for a year in 1919.

External links

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