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Digital Audiobook
Asylum by Brendan Kelly

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Asylum

Author
Brendan Kelly
Narrator
Brendan Kelly
Publisher
Royal Irish Academy
Publish Date
26 February 2026
Run Time
5 hours
Format
Audiobook
Genre
Social and cultural history
$13.95

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What to expect

In 1814, the Richmond Lunatic Asylum at Grangegorman in Dublin started an extraordinary programme of asylum building across Ireland, aimed at alleviating the suffering of people with mental illness who were homeless, in prison, or confined in appalling circumstances. By the mid-twentieth century, Ireland had proportionately more people in 'mental hospitals' than any other country in the world. On a given night, the number of people in Ireland's psychiatric hospitals was more than double those in all our other institutions put together: prisons, laundries, mother and baby homes, industrial schools, orphanages. What was the life of a patient in an asylum really like?

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Details
Author
Brendan Kelly
Narrator
Brendan Kelly
Duration
5 hours
Release Date
26 February 2026
ISBN
9781802050509
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Royal Irish Academy
Genre
Social and cultural history

Synopsis

In 1814, the Richmond Lunatic Asylum at Grangegorman in Dublin started an extraordinary programme of asylum building across Ireland, aimed at alleviating the suffering of people with mental illness who were homeless, in prison, or confined in appalling circumstances. By the mid-twentieth century, Ireland had proportionately more people in 'mental hospitals' than any other country in the world. On a given night, the number of people in Ireland's psychiatric hospitals was more than double those in all our other institutions put together: prisons, laundries, mother and baby homes, industrial schools, orphanages. What was the life of a patient in an asylum really like?

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