Other Publication Details
Mandatory Fields
Exhibition
Niamh NicGhabhann
2015
May
World Within Walls: Discovering the journey from Cavan-Monaghan Asylum to Community Services.
Curator
Published
0
()
Optional Fields
exhibition mental health pyschiatric history curating
Exhibition curated by Niamh NicGhabhann for Monaghan County Museum and the Health Service Executive.
This exhibition formed an important part of the larger World Within Walls project, which also involved the publication of a scholarly book, a community outreach project (including a Heritage Week tour of the site at St. Davnet's, Monaghan, for over 200 people in 2014), a range of community art and heritage talks at Monaghan County Museum, an oral history project, and the development of a website.
This exhibition, launched by Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys, is the first large-scale exhibition to consider the histories and memories of Ireland's psychiatric system.
 
The research involved in developing the exhibition included working with paper archives on site, surveying and exploring the site, conducting oral history interviews, selecting and preparing items from the hospital site for the exhibition, developing a curatorial approach that was in line with ethical best practice around the display of psychiatric history and heritage, the development and design of information panels and listening posts for oral history testimonies, the development of the exhibition catalogue and the physical installation of the exhibition on site. This exhibition represents a major public output as part of this research project, commissioned by the HSE.
 
As part of this project, an archive of oral history testimonies, managed by Fiona Byrne, has been deposited in the Digital Repository of Ireland. A description of this archive can be found here:
https://repository.dri.ie/catalog/5999vb192
Some aspects of the exhibition, including clips of the oral history project, can be viewed here:
http://stdavnets.wix.com/worldwithinwalls
Citations of this work, and the impact and prestige indicators for this project is outlined above, in B, No. 3.
Visitor numbers for the exhibition provided by Monaghan County Museum - 13,192 visitors (May 2015-February 2016).
Monaghan County Museum
Grant Details
Funding provided by the Health Service Executive