One of Galway's leading gardeners is happy to confirm a transformation in attitudes towards the mentally ill, writes Michelle McDonagh
When Lorna McMahon became involved in the foundation of the Galway Mental Health Association (GMHA) in the early 1980s, there were no psychiatric facilities in the community. No day centres, hostels or group homes existed - nothing, apart from the psychiatric unit at University College Hospital, Galway (UCHG).
So when the professor of psychiatry at the unit, Dr Tom Fahy, concluded that the only way to raise funds for the service was through voluntary efforts, McMahon, who was teaching horticulture therapy to patients at the unit, was roped in to help.
"The psychiatric unit at UCHG opened at a time of the worst health board cuts ever. There were no community facilities at all in Galway," she says. "There was nothing, apart from the unit and no money to pay for anything. You just couldn't raise money for the psychiatric services at that time, there was such a stigma attached."
It was decided to hold an open day in McMahon's beautiful garden at Ard Carraig, Oranswell, Bushypark. But nobody, least of all herself, imagined how the annual event would snowball or that it would still be taking place - the 20th event takes place tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Since 1982, GMHA has acquired eight group houses from Newcastle to Salthill and it has plans to acquire two more this year. The association operates a training hostel and had recently acquired another hostel which will come on stream soon.
The houses are used to accommodate people who might otherwise not be able to provide a viable home for themselves. As McMahon explains, these houses become home to many of the people.
She says attitudes towards mental illness have changed since the foundation of GMHA, albeit very slowly: "Depression is now so acceptable and people realise there is an enormous range of psychiatric conditions from the very mild to the very severe. Before, it was actually a shame here in the west to have somebody in the family who was going through a psychiatric illness."
Although there has been much development in mental health services in Galway, there is, says McMahon, still a long way to go. As well as being the current chairwoman of GMHA, she has been housing officer since the foundation of the organisation.
She highlights the need for a new support day centre in the community and for the provision of the increased security unit at the psychiatric unit at UCHG for which planning was granted, but which never materialised.
However, the biggest shortfall in the services. according to McMahon, is in staffing.
"We have one five-bedroom house ready to be occupied and one coming on stream in October, but unless we get the staff to supervise patients, we can't move anybody in. The health board has not allocated any extra staff.
"They asked us to get the houses and we got them, but they have not provided the staff to allow us to open them."
For her fund-raising event, McMahon opens her house and gardens to people who come to buy plants, tour the gardens and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee afterwards.
When she and her late husband Harry first moved to Oranswell 33 years ago, they bought a one-acre site and a bungalow that was little more than a shell. Over the years, they bought up more pieces of land from "a nice local farmer" and she developed the land into gardens as they acquired it.
Today, the gardens sprawl across four and a half acres and encompass eight pools, a natural stream, a heather and bog area, a sunken Mediterranean garden and a formal herb area.