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Bird's Nest Soup
In Birds Nest Soup Hanna Greally recounts with vivid detail the terrible suffering she endured in a psychiatric hospital in the Irish Midlands in the 1940s and 50s. "Mentally well, but unclaimed" sums up her horrendous situation for the best part of twenty years. What she anticipated as a short rest in the `Big House' was repeatedly prolonged as it became clear that after her mother's unexpected death none of her relatives had any intention of applying for her release. She survived this Kafka-esque situation emotionally and physically whole, and when a more enlightened system was introduced, she regained her freedom through a rehabilitation institute in 1962.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 29, 2023
"It was a dustbin for people who were slightly different"
St. Loman's Hospital (formerly the Mullingar District Lunatic Asylum, serving Longford, Meath and Westmeath) is situated on the Delvin Road in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. A mental hospital, an asylum - "The Big House".
This book is the story of Hanna (Johanna) Greally, a young Athlone woman who was signed in to St. Loman's at the age of 19 by her mother "for a rest" after a supposed mental breakdown. Hanna had returned home to her mother after working in the UK as a nurse. She ended up spending 20 years of her life in Loman's - this is her account of her time there.
This book is outrageously sad. Ireland has many positive things going for it - but our history of how we treat those with mental health issues is appalling. This isn't a million years ago - this was just in the 1950s. My Mum was a child. People were thrown into institutions for reasons that would cause uproar today - poverty, abuse, homelessness, addiction, family disputes. Women were thrown in and locked away for "bringing shame" on the family when they were raped. The abused, the depressed, the argumentative, the unwanted, the unloved, the sad, the quiet, the 'slow', the 'odd' - all locked away in dark, dank places and subjected to 'therapies' like ECT, Insulin Coma, Lobotomy, Sedation, Seclusion, Confinement. Thrown away, hidden, forgotten. When Hanna Greally was signed in circa 1946, she was one of 3,000 patients in Loman's. One of over 20,000 in Ireland at the time.
"I could never believe I had struggled through all my childhood of illnesses, measles, chickenpox, that I had studied to pass the matriculation in eight subjects, to be told obliquely that I was ineffectual, to become a byword, or even worse, to be remembered as a sort of female village idiot."
With the building above now due to be sold by the HSE only time will tell what the future holds - but there are many accounts of its past history. A miserable place full of sadness and despair, it's a place where humanity was stripped, hope was lost, spirits were broken, people were forgotten. 1,304 bodies are reportedly buried in the grounds of the hospital - the last one in 1970. As of 2011 they are unmarked, with numbered crosses being stored in an outbuilding.
This is a report from 2007. NINE years ago.
St Loman's, Mullingar:
Inspector's comments:
"Apart from the admission units, the conditions in areas of St Loman's Hospital remained very poor with damp, peeling paint, tiles lifting on floors, poor sanitary facilities, curtains falling down and drab and institutional-style furnishings and decor. A significantly large number of these areas were dirty, including sluice rooms and bathrooms and toilets. In short, the conditions that people with enduring mental illness have to live in permanently in St Loman's Hospital were deplorable....every effort must be made to close the hospital immediately."
Currently, all patients have been moved to other buildings and the 95% vacant building is now used for administration only. Elderly patients who have spent the bulk of their lives in St. Lomans have been moved to other units in Mullingar.
Hanna Greally was not one of the forgotten - she had a remarkable spirit. She fought to keep her identity, her humanity - she fought for her freedom, her liberation. She got out - and prompted a long overdue discussion in Ireland in the 1970s with the publication of this book.
A fascinating, very human account of a shameful period in Irish history. Personally I'd leave the forewords until you've read Hanna's account first.
Added information about St. Loman's Hospital from The Westmeath Examiner newspaper, the Mary Raftery documentary "Behind The Walls", the RTE Documentary on One Remembering Hanna Greally, available here, and local sources. Photograph of St. Loman's by Noel Fagan, Photograph of Hanna from Ars Medica.
St. Loman's Hospital (formerly the Mullingar District Lunatic Asylum, serving Longford, Meath and Westmeath) is situated on the Delvin Road in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. A mental hospital, an asylum - "The Big House".
This book is the story of Hanna (Johanna) Greally, a young Athlone woman who was signed in to St. Loman's at the age of 19 by her mother "for a rest" after a supposed mental breakdown. Hanna had returned home to her mother after working in the UK as a nurse. She ended up spending 20 years of her life in Loman's - this is her account of her time there.
This book is outrageously sad. Ireland has many positive things going for it - but our history of how we treat those with mental health issues is appalling. This isn't a million years ago - this was just in the 1950s. My Mum was a child. People were thrown into institutions for reasons that would cause uproar today - poverty, abuse, homelessness, addiction, family disputes. Women were thrown in and locked away for "bringing shame" on the family when they were raped. The abused, the depressed, the argumentative, the unwanted, the unloved, the sad, the quiet, the 'slow', the 'odd' - all locked away in dark, dank places and subjected to 'therapies' like ECT, Insulin Coma, Lobotomy, Sedation, Seclusion, Confinement. Thrown away, hidden, forgotten. When Hanna Greally was signed in circa 1946, she was one of 3,000 patients in Loman's. One of over 20,000 in Ireland at the time.
"I could never believe I had struggled through all my childhood of illnesses, measles, chickenpox, that I had studied to pass the matriculation in eight subjects, to be told obliquely that I was ineffectual, to become a byword, or even worse, to be remembered as a sort of female village idiot."
With the building above now due to be sold by the HSE only time will tell what the future holds - but there are many accounts of its past history. A miserable place full of sadness and despair, it's a place where humanity was stripped, hope was lost, spirits were broken, people were forgotten. 1,304 bodies are reportedly buried in the grounds of the hospital - the last one in 1970. As of 2011 they are unmarked, with numbered crosses being stored in an outbuilding.
This is a report from 2007. NINE years ago.
St Loman's, Mullingar:
Inspector's comments:
"Apart from the admission units, the conditions in areas of St Loman's Hospital remained very poor with damp, peeling paint, tiles lifting on floors, poor sanitary facilities, curtains falling down and drab and institutional-style furnishings and decor. A significantly large number of these areas were dirty, including sluice rooms and bathrooms and toilets. In short, the conditions that people with enduring mental illness have to live in permanently in St Loman's Hospital were deplorable....every effort must be made to close the hospital immediately."
Currently, all patients have been moved to other buildings and the 95% vacant building is now used for administration only. Elderly patients who have spent the bulk of their lives in St. Lomans have been moved to other units in Mullingar.
Hanna Greally was not one of the forgotten - she had a remarkable spirit. She fought to keep her identity, her humanity - she fought for her freedom, her liberation. She got out - and prompted a long overdue discussion in Ireland in the 1970s with the publication of this book.
A fascinating, very human account of a shameful period in Irish history. Personally I'd leave the forewords until you've read Hanna's account first.
Added information about St. Loman's Hospital from The Westmeath Examiner newspaper, the Mary Raftery documentary "Behind The Walls", the RTE Documentary on One Remembering Hanna Greally, available here, and local sources. Photograph of St. Loman's by Noel Fagan, Photograph of Hanna from Ars Medica.
April 20, 2011
In Birds Nest Soup Hanna Greally recounts the terrible suffering she endured in a psychiatric hospital in the Irish Midlands in the 1940s and 50s.I found it a slow and quite repetitive read, although I had to bear in mind this is a true story and therefore 20 years in a psychiatric hospital life would be a slow pace for a patient who knows they should not be there.
May 23, 2015
Book Review
Bird’s Nest Soup by Hanna Greally
Attic Press – ISBN – 978-1-85594-210-3 - £7.99 – 138 pages
‘Bird’s Nest Soup’ is the real life memoir of Hanna Greally, who spent the best part of the 1940’s and 1950’s in a psychiatric Hospital in the Irish Midlands.
She is taken there by her Mother, for a short rest, which ends up, through no fault of her own, being for a lot longer. She is soon seen as being ‘Mentally well, but unclaimed’. She hopes that her Mother will claim, and take her back to the life that she knew before, but this is soon endangered by her Mother’s pressing need, through economic necessity to let Hanna’s room to lodgers, and then by her Mother’s untimely death. Her Brother and Aunts have no intention of claiming her either, despite her best efforts, both through her own letters, and the letters that her Doctor’s write saying she is well enough to be let go.
The stigma of ‘The Big House’ is one of the reasons for their reluctance, but it is also the fact that their lives have moved on, while Hanna’s has been seen to be stagnate in the time that she has spent away.
She talks about the social aspects of life in St Loman’s Psychiatric Hospital, the dances that they have, the work she does in the Laundry, and in sewing, a possible romance with another patient which leads nowhere. She talks of the nurses who see the patients as a nuisance, and of their unpleasant and sadistic nature, but she also talks of the kinder nurses, the Doctor who looks into her release, and of the strong relationship she forms with Rosie, an older patient who is so used to life in the hospital, that she does not want to leave.
The narrative of the book could have so easily succumbed to melodrama, but what is truly heartbreaking about the book is Greally’s matter of factness. When she starts referring to time in terms of ‘Another three years passed’ the horror of her predicament hits home.
This is the third release for this important text, with forewords and afterwords to the 1971 and 1987 editions helping to put the book in some form of historical context. Although the text ends on a note of optimism, the epilogues relate that Greally went onto live a full and long life after her ordeal, and the book is a fitting testament to her character, and the strength of the human spirit.
Bird’s Nest Soup by Hanna Greally
Attic Press – ISBN – 978-1-85594-210-3 - £7.99 – 138 pages
‘Bird’s Nest Soup’ is the real life memoir of Hanna Greally, who spent the best part of the 1940’s and 1950’s in a psychiatric Hospital in the Irish Midlands.
She is taken there by her Mother, for a short rest, which ends up, through no fault of her own, being for a lot longer. She is soon seen as being ‘Mentally well, but unclaimed’. She hopes that her Mother will claim, and take her back to the life that she knew before, but this is soon endangered by her Mother’s pressing need, through economic necessity to let Hanna’s room to lodgers, and then by her Mother’s untimely death. Her Brother and Aunts have no intention of claiming her either, despite her best efforts, both through her own letters, and the letters that her Doctor’s write saying she is well enough to be let go.
The stigma of ‘The Big House’ is one of the reasons for their reluctance, but it is also the fact that their lives have moved on, while Hanna’s has been seen to be stagnate in the time that she has spent away.
She talks about the social aspects of life in St Loman’s Psychiatric Hospital, the dances that they have, the work she does in the Laundry, and in sewing, a possible romance with another patient which leads nowhere. She talks of the nurses who see the patients as a nuisance, and of their unpleasant and sadistic nature, but she also talks of the kinder nurses, the Doctor who looks into her release, and of the strong relationship she forms with Rosie, an older patient who is so used to life in the hospital, that she does not want to leave.
The narrative of the book could have so easily succumbed to melodrama, but what is truly heartbreaking about the book is Greally’s matter of factness. When she starts referring to time in terms of ‘Another three years passed’ the horror of her predicament hits home.
This is the third release for this important text, with forewords and afterwords to the 1971 and 1987 editions helping to put the book in some form of historical context. Although the text ends on a note of optimism, the epilogues relate that Greally went onto live a full and long life after her ordeal, and the book is a fitting testament to her character, and the strength of the human spirit.
October 26, 2014
This is a very interesting book for anyone like me who has worked within the mental health services in Ireland. It is the memoirs of a lady who spent years in Mullingar Psychiatric Hospital in the 50's and 60's after she want in for a "rest". Basically no one in her family was willing to sign her back out so she was left with no legal way to get out until a change in the law made it possible. While it is a part of our history that is thankfully gone it is worth remembering it. Ireland has a very sad history when it comes to the treatment of those with mental health problems.
August 26, 2016
A small glimpse into a psychiatric hospital in Ireland during the 1940-1950s. Patients had no individual rights especially women who, had already any legal options in society. Heartbreaking story of a woman forgotten and ignored by her family even, when she was medically cleared to leave the facility. This story is another reminder of what women around the world endured with no voice and the everyday routines women at some point take for granted.
February 20, 2013
Read this twenty years ago as a young college student and found this book (alongside 'ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST' a silent scream back into a past where silence was smothering. SHAME. SCRUPLES. ORDER. PROPER. COMPLIANCE.
The essence of the last line remains etched in my memory.
It's madness alright But whose?
The essence of the last line remains etched in my memory.
It's madness alright But whose?
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August 12, 2019An iconic book by an iconic Roscommon woman....read it and weep...
December 15, 2021
Amazing strong inspiration
October 20, 2023
loved. she has such an interesting way of writing, i found it very captivating. such a sad, infuriating story
September 13, 2024
Jarringly clinical .. a brevity upsetting in all it doesn’t say!
September 4, 2011
Deep, fantastic tho.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews