Jervis Street Hospital ( ga, Ospidéal Shráid Jervis) was a hospital in Jervis Street in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
The hospital was founded by six Dublin surgeons, George Duany, Patrick Kelly, Nathaniel Handson, John Dowdall, Francis Donany and Peter Brenan, at their own expense, as the Charitable Infirmary in Cook Street, Dublin, in 1718. The hospital moved to larger premises on King's Inn's Quay in 1728.
In 1786, when the new Four Courts were about to be erected on the quays, an agreement was reached with the
Earl of Charlemont
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Old Norse, Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "Germanic ch ...
to allow the hospital to move into his former mansion at 14 Jervis Street, which happened in October 1796. Some time afterwards alterations were made in the house to convert it for hospital purposes. The hospital occupied a central place in the most populous part of the city, being close to the markets, railway termini, goods stores and shipping.Collin, Chapter V
In 1854 the nursing and internal management were placed under the control of the Sisters of Mercy. The hospital was rebuilt and enlarged to a design by Charles Geoghegan in the 1880s.
The hospital staged Araby, an oriental fête, in 1894, to raise much-needed funds. The name, Araby, would live as
the title
The Title are a British four-piece indie band based in Stoke-on-Trent, England, and signed with Sons Ltd.Dubliners by
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
.
In 1931, Langford House on nearby Mary Street was demolished and replaced with a nurses school associated with the hospital.
After services were transferred to the Beaumont Hospital, the Jervis Street Hospital closed in November 1987. The site of the hospital was redeveloped in the early 1990s to create the Jervis Shopping Centre with only the facade of the original hospital remaining.
Notable people
* Robert Adams (1791-1875), elected surgeon in the 1820s.
* Dominic Corrigan (1802-1880), qualified as an MD in Edinburgh, and then appointed physician to the hospital, which had only six medical beds at the time. He was later elected Liberal MP for Dublin and was five times president of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland.
*John King Forest (1804-1882), appointed surgeon to the hospital and also to the Theatre Royal, Dublin.
*Stephen Myles MacSwiney, M.D. (died 1890), elected Fellow of the College of Physicians and member of the
Royal Irish Academy
The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...
. His first professional appointment was Resident Medical Officer at St. Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. He was afterwards a physician to Jervis Street Hospital. He filled with marked ability a chair of Medical jurisprudence and contributed papers to the
Dublin Journal of Medical Science
The ''Irish Journal of Medical Science'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed medical journal that was established in 1832 by Robert Kane as the ''Dublin Journal of Medical & Chemical Science''. Besides Kane, it had distinguished editors like Robert James ...
, the Irish Hospital Gazette, and the
Medical Press and Circular
''Medical Press and Circular'' was a medical publication from Dublin, Ireland. It was established in 1866 with the merger of the ''Dublin Medical Press'' and the ''Medical Circular''. Its masthead featured a Latin language version of the Cicero mo ...
.Fitzpatrick, 1900, Chapter XVII
* Austin Meldon (1844-1904), senior surgeon at the hospital for many years.
* Sir William Thompson (1861 - 1926), a physician in the hospital in the early part of the 20th century. He served as Registrar General for Ireland from 1909 to 1926.
* Anne Young, founder of the first Irish school of general nursing.