Bressie aiming to ‘honour’ 1,300 unmarked graves at St Loman’s

A new project is under way to commemorate the lives of 1,300 people buried in unmarked graves on the grounds of St Loman’s Hospital in Mullingar.

The campaign is led by musician and podcaster Niall 'Bressie' Breslin, who is hoping for backing from the families of those buried and local politicians to install a memorial wall and garden at the former psychiatric facility.

Burials took place at St Loman’s Hospital between 1907 and 1970, where crosses with numbers identified individual graves, as opposed to people’s names.

The crosses deteriorated over the years and the last 300 were removed in the early 2010s – since then the site has become overgrown and is unrecognisable as a graveyard.

Bressie, who is working on a PHD with Trinity College Dublin about the Irish psychiatric system, said he always had an interest in St Loman’s, having grown up in Mullingar.

“A lot of people died there and it’s been a big part of my research and focus,” he told the Westmeath Examiner.

“People who died in those psychiatric hospitals didn’t have families who wanted to bury them and I just found it very sad, to be honest.

“They buried them like they buried people in penal situations, they were buried like criminals and given numbers, they weren’t buried with names.”

Building a memorial wall and garden is not just for those who are buried - “It’s for their families too,” according to Bressie.

“We thought there would be no better way to mark the symbolism of it all by actually creating a memorial and remembrance garden for people to pay respects,” he said.

“A lot of people have family members there who might still be reluctant to talk about it and that’s something my work has focused on all my life.

“These people were failed; they didn’t fail society, society failed them - and I think people need to understand that.”

Bressie said a place is needed for families to pay respects as “we can’t pretend it didn’t happen”.

“I’ve looked at nearly 28 different asylums around the country and a lot of people who ended up in these places had very little wrong with them,” he said. “It was just the family could have been poor and couldn’t take care of them or they could have been going through a difficult period of time and ended up in one of these places.

“It was just the way things were back then, but, sadly, all it is now is a big field [at St Loman’s].”

Bressie said Ireland had the highest level of people in psychiatric institutions in the world by 1950.

“We just kept putting people in there and we just haven’t told that story yet,” he said.

“We haven’t done anything wrong; this is just what we did and it’s not a blame game.

“This is just a story we have to acknowledge, much like the Magdalene Laundries, much like everything else that happened, and we have to acknowledge it.”

Joining forces with Bressie for the project is Julianne Clarke, the great-granddaughter of a woman buried at St Loman’s. Together they have organised an event at 3pm in the Annebrook House Hotel on February 18 where anyone can come and show support for the proposed memorial.

“To me, it’s the right thing to do and it’s a nice thing to do,” said Bressie.

“It’s a symbol and I’d like Mullingar to be one of the first to say ‘You know what? We’re going to honour the people who died in this hospital.’”

A wooden memorial sculpture, dedicated to the memory of the thousands of patients and staff that passed through at St Loman's Hospital over its 160-year history, was unveiled at the facility in 2022.

It was made by local sculptor Richie Kavanagh and funded through the proceeds of the book, 'A History of St Loman's In Changing Times,' which was co-authored by six former staff members.