BELFAST OF YESTERYEAR: Crushing poverty led many to Belfast Lunatic Asylum on the Falls
“…there is hardly a parish of any considerable extent in which there may not be found some unfortunate human creature who, if his il-treatment has made him phrenetic, is chained in the cellar or garret of a Work-house, fastened to the leg of a table, tied to a post in an out-house, or perhaps shut up in an uninhabited ruin; or, if his lunacy be inoffensive, left to ramble, half-naked, half-starved, through the streets and highways, teased by the scoff and jest of all that is vulgar, ignorant or unfeeling.” Such was the plight of insane poor in 18th century Britain and Ireland when men...