In the second extract from his biography on the life and times of the late great Dr Eamonn O’Sullivan, award-winning sports presenter Weeshie Fogarty reflects on how the esteemed man of medicine set new standards in terms of care in the then 1,000-patient St Finan’s Hospital and inspired the building of Fitzgerald Stadium
From growing garden produce to building a stadium
WHILE Dr Eamonn O’Sullivan devoted a major portion of his life to the development of sport and sporting facilities in Kerry, he also made a major contribution to the development of psychiatry at St Finan’s Hospital, Killarney during his 37 years of service there.
It must be stressed that following his arrival in 1925, the range of available treatments to the mentally ill was very restricted and during that era Electric Convulsive Therapy (ECT) was widely used for most psychiatric illnesses.
There was also much emphasis on the promotion of occupational therapy to activate long-stay residents of the hospital. While many patients made a partial or full recovery from their illness, only a small percentage returned home with the result that many became institutionalised within the walls of the vast hospital.
Eamonn soon got to work to redress this undesirable situation and he became utterly convinced of the need for a programme of rehabilitation for the patients. During this time the population of the hospital was marginally short of the one thousand mark.
Following the decline in the rate of infectious diseases and the opening of a new extension for the treatment of tuberculosis in 1938, the unit which had been previously been used for this purpose was soon converted into an occupational therapy unit where various crafts were cultivated by staff members skilled in this area.
The hospital farm and gardens were better developed and farm and garden produce were used for hospital consumption. Eamonn had a basement area developed for the production of concert blocks and, over the next 25 years, occupational therapy became very much the norm.
Products from the hospital workshop were sent to retailers as far away as Cork city. Rolls of diamond wire were sold to sporting organisations and household equipment such as mats and baskets were in much demand. It is fair to say that many a Kerry footballer spend much of their baby years sleeping in one of the beautiful hand-made hospital wicker baskets. These were in huge demand right up to the early eighties.
A modern printing press was installed to cater for all the printing and office requirements of St Finan’s Hospital and then, of course, another major occupational therapy outlet for the patients was the building of Fitzgerald Stadium.
Following the untimely death of Dick Fitzgerald in 1930, a committee of the Dr Crokes GAA club was set up under the ever-guiding hands of Dr Eamonn, Eugene O’Sullivan, John Clifford and others. They set about developing the new stadium in Fitzgerald’s memory and the long-stay patients in the hospital played a major role in the work.
It must be pointed out that these patients would otherwise have spent their days locked in a ward, deprived of the freedom that the work afforded them. Now they were able to spend their days happy in the knowledge that they were needed and appreciated by others.
Eamonn always argued that a Kerryman had a great natural bond with football and the land, therefore working on the stadium project was what could be loosely described as natural occupational therapy.
On October 21st 2001, 65 years after the official opening of the stadium, the contribution made by staff and residents of St Finan’s Hospital was rather belatedly acknowledged. Past and present staff members, together with members of the stadium committee, Dr Crokes Club, and a large attendance from around the county attended a special Mass in the hospital and later the unveiling of a limestone plaque on the wall of the press box in the stadium. It bore the inscription: “Erected in Appreciation of the Contribution of Staff and Patients of St Finan’s Hospital to the Development of Fitzgerald’s Stadium 1930-1936”.
Glowing tributes were paid to all involved in this historic development during that period of deep economic depression and all the various speakers referred to Eamonn’s massive contribution.
This plaque was the direct result of the great foresight and work of former community nurse John Kelly. Eamonn and those patients he had devoted his life to were, at last, being properly remembered and commemorated.
* Key extracts from Dr Eamonn O’Sullivan: A Man Before His Time, by Weeshie Fogarty, will be published by KillarneyToday.com every weekend for the foreseeable future
