| Description | This collection contains the papers of the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital from its opening in 1861 to the present day. Due to the previous destruction of many of the former records, there are significant gaps in the chronology of much of the archival material. The material is extremely wide-ranging and highlights the foundation and day-to-day running of the hospital. It includes mainly administrative, financial, nursing records, and hospital project development papers created by the hospital, but also some patient records, clinical education records, and material relating to the hospitals’ culture. There is also a collection of photographs, as well as a collection of ephemera, medical equipment, and various objects and signage relating to the Maters’ history.
The arrangement is somewhat complex due firstly to the overall volume and type of records and secondly due to the hospital’s administrative structure and its reorganization over time. It is important to stress that this is only a partial descriptive list and does not currently contain the entirety of the collection.
One of largest sections in the collection relate to the Mater’s administration; it currently contains annual reports; the minute books of the Mater’s Medical Board; select minute books of the various Sub-Committees of the Executive Committee; material relating to the hospital constitution and various related hospitals annual reports. The ‘Financial Papers’ contain a series of general financial account books, mainly debit and credit general ledgers including the receipts and Expenditure of Medical Board; cash books, and annual accounts.
The collection also contains material on patients’ records; these include patient admission and discharge registers, operating theatre registers, and a small selection of various other patient records including an autopsy register, an early gynaecological patient register and a volume of [?Dr Thomas Hayden’s] case notes/patient notebook. Due to the sensitive personal information contained within some of these records, special permission needs to be obtained to view records under 100 years old. For full details of access rules see the MMUHA Access Policy.
The ‘Nursing’ series contains administrative records which include registers of probationer nurses from the opening of the original School of Nursing in 1891 until 1960, although due to some of these containing personal information, only registers dating up to 1920 are available for general research (again, for full details of access rules see the MMUHA Access Policy); material on the College of Nursing which includes nursing certificates and badges; records relating to College of Nursing commemorative events; the Mater Nurses Home and some Bord Altranais material such as reports and newsletters.
The ‘Education’ series includes pupil registers from the opening of the Mater in 1861 to the mid twentieth century, and student and clinical teaching staff attendance books from 1886 until the 1950’s. Only pupil registers dating up to 1920 are available for general research; for full details of access rules see the MMUHA Access Policy.
There is also a large series on ‘Hospital Premises and Project Development’ currently containing information on the construction of the Mater Hospital during the late 1850’s-1860’s; the 1937 Chapel build; and the re-development of the Eccles Street Mater Hospital properties.
The ‘Hospital Culture & Ephemera’ series contains material relating to the social and cultural life of the Mater hospital; namely material published by the Mater including various published books on the history of the hospital; and a set of newsletters produced by the hospital staff and management containing news and social events from 1966-2014.
The ‘Audio-Visual’ series currently contains black and white and colour photographs of the Mater campus as well as the Mater Rugby Football Club.
Finally, the ‘Objects’ series contains a small selection of medical equipment including the Edward T Freeman collection, and the ‘Commemorative Objects/Glassware’ subseries currently containing presentation glassware presented to mark special Hospital events or as retirement gifts.
Partial records of the Mater Private Nursing Home, currently the Mater Private Hospital, are also contained in the MMUH archive. These consist primarily of financial records, namely general Private Hospital financial accounts dating from 1959-1978; patient account ledgers dated 1956-1975; salary records dated 1959-1979; and patient admission registers 1925-1959 and 1973-1986. |
| History | The Mater Misericordiae Hospital, currently named Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, was originally founded in 1852 on the wishes of Catherine McAuley (1778-1841), foundress of the Catholic religious order for women the Sisters of Mercy. The idea of building a Catholic hospital in Dublin city devoted to caring for the sick poor, the majority of which were Roman Catholic, and who lived in terrible conditions with on-going ill health was extremely important to her, as was her anxiety that the Sisters should have a hospital of their own to minster from that would accept all patients, regardless of faith or social class. Though Catherine died over 10 years before the Mater became a reality, the Sisters of Mercy carried on her wishes and by 1851 had raised enough funds to purchase a plot of land on the north side of the city for the hospital. The lands were part of the famous Gardiner Estate, and a plot known as ‘the Royal Circus’ situated between the north side of Eccles Street and the south side of the North Circular Road was purchased. Shortly after, the triangular-shaped piece of land (now a small park called the Four Masters Park) opposite the Hospital was purchased to ensure that the wards would be provided with unobstructed fresh air. In 1852 the Sisters contracted the Dublin architect John Bourke to design the hospital. The original building was constructed in sections to allow for fundraising in between works. The Eccles street frontage was built first at a cost of £27,000, of which the Sisters of Mercy contributed £10,000 from their own resources.
The Sisters were supported by the then Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Paul Cullen (1803-1878), who agreed with the need of such an institution for Catholics. The official opening of the Mater took place on the 25th September 1861 with Cardinal Cullen performing the opening ceremony. The initial staff of the Hospital consisted of two Physicians, five Surgeons, nine Sisters of Mercy and nine untrained ward helpers/domestic servants. Forty patients were admitted when it opened. It was hoped that when all sections of the Hospital were built it would hold in excess of 400 patients; today the Hospital accommodates in excess of 600 patients.
The Mater would also become the first teaching hospital associated with Cardinal John Henry Newman’s Catholic University of Ireland (now University College Dublin), of which was attached its School of Medicine in Cecilia Street, Dublin. All the members of the Mater’s first Medical Board were teaching staff of the university – Surgeon Andrew Ellis; Surgeon Richard P O’Reilly; Surgeon Michael H Stapleton; Physician Thomas Hayden; Physician John Hughes; Surgeon Alexander McDonnell; and Physician (later Sir) Francis Cruise. They set out a programme for the education and training of medical students at the Mater and immediately set standards of excellence which made it a much respected Hospital to be associated with. Other early staff members of note were Physician Sir Christopher Nixon; Surgeon Charles Coppinger; Surgeon Patrick Hayes; and Physician Thomas More Madden, the first specialist appointed to the hospital as Obstetric Physician in 1878.
In 1868 building commenced on the East wing which was opened in 1872. In 1884 the building of the West wing began, and was opened in 1886. The building of the North wing (the current Hospital chapel) was put on hold because it was feared that it would block the flow of air to the wards and thus interfere with patient care. By 1935 the space being occupied in the West wing by the Hospital chapel was badly needed and so the Sisters built the current chapel, which was opened in 1937. The former chapel space in the West wing was then converted into four large medical and surgical wards for men and women. The top floor of this wing housed the surgical wards beside the theatres, and in the 1970’s these wards became the Mater’s first purpose-built intensive care unit. Following recent renovation this floor is now The Pillar Centre for Transformative Healthcare, a unique, interdisciplinary educational space within a hospital setting.
Up to 1891 the nursing care at the Mater was provided by the Sisters of Mercy, helped by wards maids whom they felt showed promise and trained in basic nursing skills to help alongside them. The Sisters were not paid for the work they did, neither were the consultant medical and surgical staff. The staff received a salary for the lectures they delivered to the medical students. This money came from the fees paid by the students for their education in the Hospital. In November 1891 a dedicated training school for nurses was opened at No. 32 Eccles Street. The first class of 16 women would be resident (or live) in the school, pay a fee to attend training and pay for their own uniform. They undertook a three year training programme, completed an oral and written examination set by the Hospital and after which they would be awarded a certificate. To complete their experience they were expected to work for a further year in the Hospital after certification. A lay Matron was employed to look after the education and training of the student nurses, Mary McGivney (c1865-1932) from Collon, County Louth who had trained in the Royal London Hospital. She served in the Mater until her retirement in 1920. Under her, the School of Nursing grew and became well known for the high standard of nurse it produced. Ever increasing numbers expanded the school into No’s 35 and 36 Eccles Street until the building of a new nurse’s residence in 1920, currently called Rosary House. Two extensions were made to this within 6 years and eventually overcrowding required the building of a brand new nurse’s residence and College of Nursing on the North Circular Road. The college was opened in 1954 by President Sean T O’Kelly, President of Ireland. This building was subsequently demolished in 2003 and a new Centre for Nurse Education (C.N.E.) was built on Nelson Street, Dublin and opened in 2006.
The Mater Private Hospital, originally named the Mater Private Nursing Home, was established during the early 1890’s for those who could afford to pay for, and preferred, private care, but also as a source of much-needed income for the main hospital. Originally housed in Numbers 36 and 37 Eccles Street, by 1917 the Mater annual report lists that No’s 33-38 Eccles Street contained ‘the Private Nursing Home’. Number 38 was maintained as a separate establishment, mentioned in the Thom’s Street Directory for Dublin as ‘St Mary’s Private Hospital’, for use by religious sisters only, until c1970’s. Up until the early 1900’s each building operated as a separate nursing home; it wasn’t until electricity was installed in the Mater c1906 that inter-connecting corridors were built to join all the buildings together, and lifts were installed on all floors. For many years after the connecting corridors were put in place the houses continued to operate independently, with separate kitchens, staff and administration. All of the staff, except the porters, were resident in the home itself or in the nurses’ home nearby. In the early 1970’s the Private Nursing Home was running into debt, so in 1972 it was decided to change the name to the ‘Mater Private Hospital’ which would be then run as an independent unit, separate from the main public hospital. Construction on a new Private Hospital began in March 1985 on the eastern end of Eccles Street at the corner of Dorset Street and opened for patients in May 1986. In October 2000 the Sisters of Mercy announced they would be stepping back from the running and ownership of the Mater Private. The original Mater Private Hospital buildings were renovated during the 1990’s and currently house the Breast Check Unit (Number 36), the Breast Health Unit (Number 38) and the Diabetic Day Centre (Number 30).
Once the hospital became known for its specialist services it became a centre for the referral of patients from all over the country and with the aid of the Hospital Sweepstake grants, further developments took place at the Mater. In the 1950’s and ‘60’s these were mainly in physiotherapy and cardiac surgery, followed shortly after by pathology, pulmonary services, and general surgery. The 1970’s also saw a change in the administrative structure of the Mater, which was enacted following the publication of the Health Act 1970. Having had the Sisters of Mercy and a Sister Superior managing the Mater, along with the Medical Board, since it opened in 1861, a new Board of Management was formed which consisted of medical staff, Sisters of mercy, senior clerical staff, and the Archbishop of Dublin. This Board was supported by an Executive Council and its numerous Sub-Committees, until a further rearrangement saw the formation of a Board of Governors, a Board of Directors, a Chief Operating Officer and management team working alongside the Medical Executive that all serve the Mater today.
The Hospital has also been at the forefront of numerous events in Irish history, from treating the cholera and smallpox epidemics of the 1860’s to caring for casualties from the 1913 Lockout, the Easter Rising in 1916 and the Civil War during the 1920’s, to the tragedies of the Parnell and Talbot Street bombings in 1974 and the Stardust fire in Artane, Dublin in 1981. The construction of the McGivney Wing (formerly called ‘Phase 1a’) which opened in 1989 and the more recent Whitty Wing in 2012 has enabled the Mater to expand its services and has allowed the continued delivery of specialist care and academic excellence which it has become known for.
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| Custodial History | The main body of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital Archive and additional records from the Mater Private Nursing Home/Hospital consists of material originally sourced and collected by Sister Eugene Nolan RSM during the 1980s-1990s. The records were distributed throughout the Hospital campus in various buildings, including the individual houses on Eccles Street. The majority of Hospital records (i.e. registers and ledgers from various departments relating to various administrative, financial and clinical functions) were destroyed during the 1970’s, with others having been removed from the campus. The archive is housed onsite in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital. |