Moon Mausoleum
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
What former asylum doesn’t have a haunted reputation? The Cork District Mental Hospital has gone under many names, but with the same hauntingly horrible reputation where the living conditions, treatments and life of the patients still linger as a dark shadow over the place.
What former asylum doesn’t have a haunted reputation? The Cork District Mental Hospital has gone under many names, but with the same hauntingly horrible reputation where the living conditions, treatments and life of the patients still linger as a dark shadow over the place.
In the heart of County Cork, Ireland, stands a place that has long stirred both curiosity and fear—a site where the echoes of the past reverberate with chilling tales and lingering apparitions. Cork District Mental Hospital, also known by various names like Our Lady’s Hospital, Eglinton Lunatic Asylum, St. Kevin’s Hospital as well as the Irish name, Ospidéal Mhuire has cemented its status as a place where the line between the living and the spectral blurs into the realm of the unexplained.
Cork District Mental Hospital, with its tangled history and evolving identity, has become synonymous with the supernatural and is reportedly haunted according to those that visit the ominous looking building overlooking the river Lee.
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In the days when it was known as Eglinton Lunatic Asylum, it served as a place of refuge for those grappling with the unfathomable complexities of the human mind. The halls of the asylum bore witness to countless stories of suffering and despair, as patients sought solace within its walls. As the institution evolved, so did the ghostly legends that became intertwined with its history.
It wasn’t just a place of healing though, as the asylum grappled with the same thing a lot of other institutions did, overcrowding being a main factor. Reports done by the inspector of mental hospitals said it was a vermin-infested and dark place, the rooms were dirty and some of the patients were incarcerated after being guilty of nothing and had no reason for being locked up there.
In the 1930s they reported there were no soap or towels for the patients, and no curtains covering the windows that were covered by plywood instead. There weren’t even toilet seats and the bathroom was dirty.
Read More: Check out Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital and Poveglia Island — The Most Haunted Place in the World as well.
The patients had to spend their own money and buy washing machines the female patients in one ward could use. In 1937, the Cork Examiner described it as a chapter of horrors and a total disgrace in terms of taking care of patients.
Deinstitutionalization heralded the closure of the asylum, marking the end of an era in psychiatric care when it closed its doors in 1992. Some long term blocks remained open until 2009. Even then the conditions were said to have been horrible for the day’s standard.
The once-imposing structure was transformed into a residential area, its walls no longer holding the tormented souls of its former residents. However, tales of the supernatural lingered on, etching themselves into the collective memory of County Cork.
Even today, as modernity has taken root in the former asylum’s grounds, whispers of apparitions, disturbing sounds, and ungodly atmospheres persist. The stories of those who once sought refuge within these walls refuse to fade away, leaving behind an undeniable aura of unease.
When a devastating fire destroyed much of the building in 2017, people remembered just how dark the story of the old building comes with. The boundaries between the past and the present blur as they traverse its now-residential streets, allowing the spectral echoes of the institution’s past to wash over them.
People have on several platforms shared their stories about the strange things they encountered when they used to work there, or visited after it was closed. Some things, sounds and sights were just unexplainable and many believe it to be haunted.
Cork District Mental Hospital, County Cork’s haunting relic, continues to captivate and terrify in equal measure. It stands as a place where history and the supernatural coexist, where the ghosts of the past refuse to rest, and where the unexplained continues to send shivers down the spine of those who dare to explore its shadowy corridors.
