Steevens Hospital — Unknown Townland

Somerville-Large (1996, 133) recorded the following details about this hospital; 'In 1710 Dr Richard Steevens, President of the College of Physicians, left money in trust to his twin sister Grizel with instructions that after her death the money was to be used to found a hospital. Dr Steevens's Hospital was built during her lifetime on a site in open fields to the west beyond Usher's Island, away from infection. The architect was Thomas Burgh. For breakfast patients were given '3 oz. of bread, a pint of grewel or small beer. For dinner there was 8 oz. of bread, 8 oz. of mutton boyled without bones, a quart of beer or mutton broth and a quart of small beer. According to 'several gentlemen who have been abroad' Steevens's was commodious and kept the cleanest of any hospital of its kind in Europe. Swift's Stella left one thousand pounds, the bulk of her fortune, to the hospital to endow a chaplaincy'. In 1780 the building was described as; 'Mrs. Steevens, becoming possessed of the estate, was desirous of seeing her brother's intention executed; and, soon after his death, purchased the ground at the west end of James's Street where it now stands. In 1720 she began the building on a much more extensive plan, than the original fund would support, but was assisted by several considerable bequests and benefactions, which enabled her to complete two thirds of the building in July 1733 when the Hospital was opened, and wards were furnished for the reception of 40 patients, who were admitted in the year 1734. An Act of Parliament was obtained in 1730, appointing twenty-three Governors, and their successors, to be a body politic and corporate for ever, with power to purchase lands of inheritance to the amount of 2000l. per ann. to have a common seal, to sue and be sued, and to make leases. A third of the Hospital remaining unfinished, the Governors opened a subscription which brought in near 1400l. and as Mrs. Steevens continued to pay 450l, per ann. the building was soon compleated, and is, at present, a spacious square, with an area in the center, and round it is a piazza that leads to the different parts of the building, which is capable of receiving three hundred patients' (Pool & Cash 1780, 72-3). Hospital building described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) as a; 'Detached nineteen-bay two-storey former hospital with dormer attic, dated 1720, opened 1733, comprising four ranges surrounding central courtyard, projecting end-bays to front (east), north and south elevations, shallow pedimented central breakfronts to front and north elevations and shallow central breakfronts to south elevation and end-bays to front, half-basement to front and north elevations. Recent extension to rear (west) elevation. Now in use as offices' (https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50080083/health-service-executive-steevenss-lane-saint-johns-road-west-dublin-8-dublin; NIAH Reg. No. 50080083). See attached drawing of Dr Steevens’ Hospital by T. G. Wilson taken from https://dr-steevens-hospital-a-history.edwardworthlibrary.ie/ See attached elevation of Dr Steevens’ Hospital taken from Pool and Cash 1780 See attached 1728 elevation of Dr Steevens’ Hospital taken from Brooking's Map of Dublin - https://www.dublinportarchive.com/collection/charles-brooking-map-dublin/ Pool, R. & Cash, J. 1780 Views of the Most Remarkable Public Buildings, Monuments and Other Edifices in the City of Dublin. J. Williams. Dublin. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 12 June 2023