1815 – Lower House, Richmond Lunatic Asylum, Dublin

The Lower House is the name given to the former Richmond Asylum which opened to patients in 1814 and served over 2,000 patients at its peak. The building was used throughout much of its life as a Mental Health facility and later served as an administration centre up until the 1980’s at which point it was vacated.

“The Richmond District Lunatic Asylum, which was erected in 1830 into a district asylum for the county and city of Dublin, the counties of Meath, Wicklow, and Louth, and the town of Drogheda, occupies a rectangular area of 420 feet by 372, on the western side of the House of Industry. The building forms a hollow square of three stories: the inmates are arranged in four classes of each sex, each under the charge of a keeper, whose apartment commands a view of the gallery in which the patients are confined: there are separate airing-grounds for every class. The total number of patients on the 1st of Jan., 1836, was 277, of whom 130 were males and 147 females; the expenditure for the same year was £4180. 16.”
A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837

Long a derelict shell. Three of the four of the ranges were demolished in the 1980’s due to the serious degeneration of the building. In 2020 the remaining parts of the building was fully refurbished and now known as TU Dublin, Lower House.