Richard Gunn's Abject End

 

Killarney District Lunatic Asylum

     Since I've been having such good luck wrapping up loose ends in my Gunn family line, I thought I may as well give my great-great-grandmother's brother Richard Gunn another shot.  I only learned of Richard's existence when I found his 1857 baptism record.  It mangled his name, but the address of Ballygologue in County Kerry was correct, and his parent's names were right for the most part.

     I couldn't find Richard in the 1901 or 1911 censuses, nor in civil registration records.  His was not a common name, so I went for broke and did an all Ireland search of registrations, all events, all locations, and all years.  Amazingly, there were only five registrations under the name of Richard Gunn!  I don't know how that could be possible, but I tried the search several times and there are only five.*  Factoring in his age, there was only one death registration, but it occurred in Killarney, County Kerry in 1885.  I thought it unlikely to be him, he must have died in infancy in Ballygologue before registration was mandated, but I clicked on it anyway and was in for an unpleasant surprise.

Richard Gunn Ballygologue, death at Killarney District Lunatic Asylum, pulmonary phthsis one year

     Richard died of tuberculosis in an insane asylum? I was not expecting that one. This suggested all sorts of questions and called for more research.  It appeared possible he had been a patient for at least a year since the onset of his illness was known to the institution, but that's conjecture.  I wondered of course, how he ended up in that place and what his diagnosis was, but I understand those records, archived in the Kerry Library in Tralee, are sealed.

      I also wondered how hard it was to be admitted to an asylum in Ireland in the late 1800's, the answer seemed to be--not very. The list of causes below is from the Killarney asylum.

     During the period of Richard's stay, there were two forms in use for admissions, one for dangerous and criminal lunatics which required the signatures of two magistrates sitting together, and another called Form E. That form, shown below, required a declaration by friends or relatives, a certificate from a magistrate and clergyman or poor law guardian, along with a medical certificate.

     Another question was, what was the asylum like? Being locked away with mentally ill persons, some of them violent, so far from home would be unpleasant under any circumstances.  Ballydribbeen, where the asylum was located, was almost 40 miles from Richard's home.  In 1885 that would have meant visits from his friends and family were probably infrequent at best.  It surprised me there wasn't a closer option for treatment.  After doing a little reading about the Killarney asylum however, I learned that as a district asylum, it was responsible for the mental healthcare of the entire county.  Like most of the population, Richard had no resources for private care so the district asylum was his only option. But what of Richard's day-to-day living conditions?  One report referred to a chronic problem with wet walls, while another spoke of overcrowding, gloomy rooms, and inadequate ventilation. With those surroundings, it's hardly surprising respiratory illnesses and phthisis (TB), were frequent causes of death, or that they spread rapidly.  What a dreadful place for a suffering, twenty-five year old to spend his last days.

*  One of the five Listowel registrations was of the birth of a formerly unknown Richard Gunn in 1865; his father Francis Gunn could well be a brother of my Richard's father John Gunn, who named a son Francis.