Lucan a Sanatorium.

III. - Lucan, A Sanatorium.

One of the chief attractions of Lucan is its Spa.” The Old Spa is right opposite the Catholic Church. In the last century it was famous. Though the Well is there in all its primal purity, it has been abandoned for the more fashionable and modern spring near the New Hotel. The Hotel, fitted with all the up-to-date appointments, is the “beau ideal” of a health resort. The old Hotel is now a restaurant. It was formerly a boarding school for the sons of Protestant clergymen, and was then instinctively transformed into a lunatic asylum. The new hydropathic establishment and Hotel is pretty and imposing. It was designed by Mr. W. M. Mitchell, R. H. A. One of the first, if not the first, to conceive the idea of a new Hydropathic, was the late Mr. James Nelson, of Cooldrinagh. He was the largest shareholder, and, for a time, the Director of the Company. It has comfortable baths, and a large spacious ground in which golf, tennis, and other games are constantly played by the visitors and their friends. But the sulphurous spring is its great attraction The spring contains sulphur in the form of sulphuretted oxygen gas. For a long period prior to the construction of the new hotel, that eminent specialist, Dr. G. L. B. Stoney, of Lucan, worked most zealously in keeping before the minds of the public the chemical composition and analysis of the water and its therapeutic value. But for his unflagging exertions the spring now used might have died the death of the old one that rests “unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. The spring was discovered in 1758. Another well, nearly seven feet long, two feet broad, and 15 inches deep. Dr. Rutty said that in his time it contained 82 gallons, and when emptied fills itself again in an hour.

The alternative action of the waters has been wonderfully beneficial to many invalids whose maladies resisted the most skilful medical treatment.

Some of the most eminent gentlemen in the medical profession have committed themselves, after an exhaustive examination and analysis of the water’s, to pronouncements of a highly favourable and commendatory character.

The late Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick, in his biography of the great J. K. L., Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, published the following, written in one of his letters in 1835:- “If you do not visit Harrogate go to Lucan; the Spa there is also sulphurous, but Johnstown is a chalybeate, like Cheltenham or Leamington, the town and country about abominable, whilst Lucan is very agreeable. If the Irish people would give more patronage to home institutions they would be truer patriots, wiser economists, and would not die so soon.”

We cannot close without referring to one who is now no more, but who spent some of his last days in the Lucan he loved so well. The Most Reverend Dr. Duggan, the Venerable Bishop of Clonfert, in the closing years of his life made Lucan his home. He used facetiously call himself the “Bishop of Lucan.” Most saintly, gentle, kind, and generous to the poor, he was a delightful conversationalist, and by his winning manner, his venerable and dignified bearing, his profound learning, and, above all by his most fervent piety, he endeared himself to all who knew him, and will be for all time remembered by the people of Lucan.

Shortly before his death he was in the writer’s room. He was gazing on a painting of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Do you know,’ said the Bishop, “there are three wishes which I hope will be yet realized. The first is that I will die on the Feast of the Assumption; the second is that I will die in a Dublin hospital; the third is that I will be buried in Glasnevin near the grave of Cardinal M’Cabe.” In the City of Dublin, just having made his will, he was struck with apoplexy - carried to Jervis-street Hospital on the Eve of the Feast of the Assumption - on the Feastday, the 15th August, he died, and his venerated body was laid in a grave quite close to the resting place of Cardinal M’Cabe in Glasnevin Cemetery.

By an Act of 1771 Mr. Vesey having agreed that the road from the new bridge over the Liffey should be carried without any expense to the County through his estate, in a certain line whereby said road would be considerably shortened, it was enacted that as soon as the said new road should be finished, it should be lawful for Mr. Vesey to stop and enclose that part of the old road which is to the west of the River Griffen.

At the time of the Union there were in Lucan eight wheels for iron work, one grist mill, one corn mill, and one paper mill.

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