My name is Caoimhe de Bruijn. For the past 4 years, I have studied Ceramics in Expanding Practice in the Limerick School of Art and Design, TUS. As an emerging artist, I have demonstrated a great passion for Irish social history, especially considering architecture and the ‘hidden histories’ of marginalised groups in Irish society. In my practice, I have a firm belief that art can be a translator for the emotionality in social history, while firmly maintaining the dignity of the people most affected. My last year in the course was spent studying the large-scale psychiatric hospitals of Ireland's past, and translating my research findings into ceramic forms. Combining different ceramic and print techniques, my work aims to convey the environment and culture patients were subjected to in these hospitals. Given the sensitive nature of this topic, the accuracy and ethicality of the information presented in public work needed to be highly considered. The project began in the summer of 2025 when I started asking more questions about 2 of my relatives who spent most of their lives in psychiatric hospitals in Dublin. As part of this foundational research, I conducted interviews with some of the surviving family members who have living memory of these people. In parallel to these interviews, I read extensively on this massive part of Irish social history, and learnt just how pervasive it was in our culture. By the mid-1960s, 0.7% of the Irish population were held in psychiatric hospitals. Ireland remains the country with the highest number of patients in psychiatric hospitals per capita at any one time in world history. These institutions had a profoundly labyrinthine ability for loss and neglect, meaning that many patients spent far too long in inappropriate conditions. The visual information I transferred onto the ceramic forms was gathered through site visits to Irelands largest psychiatric hospital Grangegorman, photo collections and archival floor plans accessed in the National Archives. For my graduate show installation, I created 8 corner builds out of black chunky sculpture clay, the proportions of which are directly referenced from the 4 major buildings in use in Grangegorman during its peak period as a psychiatric hospital. This includes the Richmond Penitentiary, Top House, New Richmond and Richmond Asylum. The reference to architecture in my work is both a personal interest and a conceptual choice. The walls of a psychiatric hospital carved out a self-sufficient ‘otherworld’, this being the primary method of treatment. Cast on these walls is the experience of the thousands of people who passed through or, all too commonly, within these institutions.
