Grangegorman Development Agency - St. Brendan's Hospital, Grangegorman

St. Brendan's Hospital, Grangegorman

Officially opened in 1815, although it received its first patients in 1814, the Richmond Lunatic Asylum was initially created as a national institution for the reception of recoverable lunatics. On the 30 July 1830 the asylum was incorporated into the national system of district asylums and was renamed the Richmond Lunatic District Asylum. Under the district asylum system it received patients resident in the city and county of Dublin and the counties of Louth, Meath, Wicklow and the town of Drogheda. On 19 May 1921 its name was changed to the Grangegorman Mental Hospital. On 17 April 1958 its name was changed to St. Brendan's Hospital, which it retains to this day.

In the mid-twentieth century, Grangegorman Mental Hospital had patient population of approximately 2,000 people. Its branch hospital, St. Ita's, Portrane, would have housed a similar number of patients. Although the original building of the Richmond Lunatic Asylum has now been largely destroyed, St. Brendan's Hospital continues as a psychiatric hospital and currently has five wards with a total of eighty-two psychiatric beds. It forms part of the HSE Dublin North West Mental Health Service and its catchment area is north-west Dublin.