Carlow Town Hospitals in the 1830s

The district lunatic asylum for the counties of Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, and Kildare, and the county of the city of Kilkenny, is situated in this town, and was built in 1831, at an expense, including the cost of erection and purchase of land and furniture, of £22,552. 10. 4.: it is under excellent regulation, is calculated to accommodate 104 lunatics, and attached to it are 15 ¼ acres of land; the number of inmates in the summer of 1836 was 99. The county infirmary is supported by grand jury presentments and local subscriptions, aided by a parliamentary grant; a fever hospital, opened for the reception of patients in 1829, is supported by grand jury presentments alone; a dispensary is maintained in the usual way, and a Magdalene asylum is supported wholly by subscriptions. The remains of the old castle consist only of one side of the quadrangle, at each end of which is one of the massive round towers that flanked its angles; the remainder having been undermined in an injudicious attempt to convert it into a private lunatic asylum, fell down in 1814; the length of the side from tower to tower is 105 feet. The walls are of very great thickness, and shew that it must have been a fortress of much strength; and from the loftiness of its elevation and the commanding position which it occupies, it has a striking appearance of majestic grandeur. Near Oak Park was a small Franciscan friary, founded by the Cooke family, formerly proprietors of that estate. Browne Hill and Viewmount both occupy the site of an ancient religious establishment, called St. Kieran's abbey; and in the vicinity are the remains of a cromlech, of which the table stone is 23 feet in length, 19 in breadth, and at the upper end nearly 4 ½ feet thick; it is supported at. the east end on three upright stones, 15 feet 8 inches high, and at a distance is another upright stone standing by itself. Carlow gives the inferior title of Viscount to the family of Dawson, Earls of Portarlington.