23 May 2023 , 14:35
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Disturbing photos show the inside of a psychiatric hospital abandoned a decade ago and left to rot after housing mentally ill patients for nearly two centuries.
St Brigid's Psychiatric Hospital was one of 22 built across Ireland between 1818 and 1870.
Established in 1833 and designed by William Murray, the £27,000 building was built in an X shape layout and known as the Connacht Asylum at the time.
It was designed to hold as many as 840 patients but by 1900 it had spiralled to 1,165 and it was expanded over the decades to meet the huge demand for space.
A wheelchair sits unused in a corridor with peeling paintwork (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)
Sunlight pours into an empty corridor, saved for an old gurney (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)Over its 180 years it housed thousands of patients and at one time had a reputation for cruelty as patients were threatened with harsh treatment and time in straitjackets.
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It was finally closed in 2013 when it was deinstitutionalised.
The site has been left to rot for more than a decade and was recently visited by freelance photographer Jordan L, 24.
Her photos from inside the creepy building show the detritus still in place since its last day in 2013.
A number of hospital beds stand empty in an old ward (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)One showed an abandoned wheelchair left alone in the middle of a hallway, which would have been used to transport some of the mentally ill patients in the hospital around its grounds.
Another showed a hospital gurney in a brightly lit corridor next to a sign warning people of a long dried out slippery floor.
A cross was left hanging on one of the walls (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)
A long empty corridor in the closed hospital (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)In a shutdown ward a number of beds have been pushed together on tiled flooring, with medical equipment left nearby and plants have sprouted throughout, covering its walls.
Creepily, downstairs in the basement was a coffin which was, thankfully, empty.
Cleaning machines in the basement (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)Jordan took the creepy photos during her six-hour explore of the extensive hospital grounds.
She said: "It was a strange experience.
"It was a mixture of awe at the sheer scale and size of everything but also sadness knowing the dark history and the treatment of people inside what was effectively a prison.
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"The creepiest part was definitely the basement of the hospital where they had all the medicine rooms and the boiler room etc.
A bathroom in the abandoned building (mediadrumimages/Lost.Ireland)"There was an old coffin down there which was thankfully empty but made for a creepy explore.
"My favourite part was definitely the overgrowth. I love seeing how nature takes back the places we leave behind and witnessing all the plants make this asylum their home was fascinating."