Abstract

The imposing multi-bay faces and high walls of lunatic asylum buildings are familiar architectural features in major towns and cities across the British Isles. Less familiar are the chapels attached to the main buildings or standing apart amongst the extensive grounds. Lunatic asylum chapels and the practice of religion in these institutions was a divisive topic amongst asylum reformers, didactic authors and architects throughout the nineteenth century. This paper will examine the material remains of lunatic asylum chapels using Irish examples as case studies. The paper will contribute to scholarship on broader lunatic asylum architecture, and offers a deeper insight into the place and practice of religion in asylums. Religious provision and practice can only be minimally deduced from the historical record, and is largely overtaken in the critical literature by broader debates on the treatment of mental illness.