Countless patients who died in psychiatric hospitals are buried in unmarked graves in private burial grounds or special plots in local cemeteries.
In many cases the names of those interred are unknown because records have been lost or are not readily available. A Wexford woman who provided a memorial this month at a cemetery attached to St Senan's Hospital in Enniscorthy has called on other psychiatric hospitals to commemorate the dead.
Ms Patricia Quinn discovered her great-aunt, Rose Quinn, was one of an unknown number of patients who were interred in the cemetery between 1868 and the 1940s. Rose Quinn was committed in 1907 to the Wexford district lunatic asylum, as St Senan's was then known, after refusing to live with the man she was forced to marry, and died of TB within three months.
The practice of burying patients abandoned to asylums by their families in unmarked graves in private cemeteries or dedicated plots was widespread, The Irish Times has established. Some psychiatric hospitals hold annual commemorative services and have erected memorials to the dead, but in many cases their names are unknown.
A spokeswoman for the Western Health Board said it would be possible, by examining the records, to say how many patients had been buried, but "it would prove impossible . . . to identify each and every person interred".
A North Eastern Health Board spokeswoman said there was a private cemetery at St Davnet's hospital in Monaghan, used from the 1920s to 1972. It was well-maintained and there was a plaque commemorating the dead, but graves were unmarked and, from an initial search, there did not appear to be a burial record.
The other psychiatric hospital in the region, St Brigid's in Ardee, also had a private cemetery with a single headstone. It was in use from 1933 until 1985. St Ita's Hospital in Portrane, Co Dublin, has a cemetery dating back to 1896. It was closed in the 1980s. A spokeswoman said the graves were not individually marked and a map indicating the locations where individuals were buried was destroyed in a fire.
However the hospital had records of the names of those buried there which were used whenever relatives of these people sought information. There was a central crucifix in the cemetery, recording the fact that former patients were buried there, and an annual blessing ceremony was held.
A Southern Health Board spokeswoman said a former psychiatric hospital, St Raphael's in Youghal, was the only one in the region to have had a private cemetery. Records had been kept since 1966 and while graves were unmarked, the names and locations of those buried there from that time were known.
Other health boards and hospitals were continuing to examine their records in response to queries from The Irish Times. St Senan's Hospital has been conducting an extensive search through its records since late last year and has so far identified the names of about 12 of the patients buried in its cemetery.
Ms Quinn, the hospital says, is the only person to have come forward seeking information about a relative. It has invited other people looking for similar information to contact it.
