The Lunatic Asylum
Over the years, the basement cell area of the Courthouse has been put to many uses including a lunatic asylum. Strangely enough, its origins as an institution for 'imbeciles' and 'idiots' is connected to the American War of Independence (1775-1783). After the colony broke away from British rule it refused to take any more convict labour. This caused a 'confinement crisis' in Britain and Ireland and led to a massive gaol-building programme to cope with the number of prisoners who had been sentenced to transportation but had nowhere to go. When they began building the New Gaol next to the Courthouse in Lifford Diamond in 1793, it took the pressure off the small County Gaol which was then used as an asylum until the 1840's.
Containing up to 33 inmates at times, conditions in the early years of the 19th century were miserable, to say the least. In 1822, for instance, Dr Reid, a distinguished London physician, visited Ireland and subsequently published the result of his observations in a volume entitled Travels in Ireland. The following extract is based on his findings after his visit to the basement cells of the lunatic asylum in Lifford Courthouse:
"A place I shall always think on with horror. From its situation being partly underground, it is dark, unhealthy and everyway wretched. Although not quite unaccustomed to scenes of misery, the objects I beheld were quite appalling; the stench that issued from the dungeon walls of which are so prodigiously thick as to give a notion that the place was originally made bombproof, was so loathsome that, to use a vulgar but expressive phrase, 'it would knock down a horse'".
When Dr.Reid visited the Asylum at Lifford, Mary Kelly had already spent four years there. Described as an 'Incurable Maniac', she was to remain for another twenty-two years.
Extract from "The Court Will Rise - A short history of the Old Courthouse, Lifford, Co. Donegal" by Billy Patton.