Rare Early Victorian Irish Horn & Steel Table Knife; Clonmel Lunatic Asylum

The very scarce early Victorian knife being beautifully horn shafted, probably a table knife, the blade stamped 'Clonmel Asylum' with short cutting edge, the whole surviving from the second quarter of the nineteenth century and County Tipperary, Ireland.

The knife is in very good condition with patination commensurate with age and no damage to report. The handle is beautifully tactile. It is very similar to a knife made by Andrew Reynolds, the son of Frederick Reynolds a table knife cutler, of Sheffield.

The construction of asylums was widespread in Britain following The Lunacy Act of 1845, which resulted primarily from the work of John Connolly and Lord Shaftsbury. This act professionalised the asylum and ensured that each institution was mediated by the local authority. It marked a paradigmatic shift, wherein ‘lunatics’ began to be considered as patients instead of prisoners.

This hospital in question, which was designed by William Murray, opened as the Clonmel Asylum in January 1835. It became Clonmel Mental Hospital in the 1920s and went on to become St. Luke's Hospital in the 1950s. After the introduction of deinstitutionalisation in the late 1980s the hospital went into a period of decline, and, following the publication of a highly critical report in 2009 the hospital closed in December 2012. The original listing for the building in the dictionary of Irish Architects is as follows; CO. TIPPERARY, CLONMEL, WESTERN ROAD, DISTRICT LUNATIC ASYLUM Date: 1832-35 Nature: New '2nd class' lunatic asylum for 60 patients. Opened 16 Jan 1835. Cost: £14,019.

A 1950s health department report painted a grim picture of its conditions: “lines of naked people, floors covered in faeces, food served with pitchforks, and patients deliberately kept in an animal-like state.” When it was eventually shut down following this widespread criticism, the hospital has since earned a reputation as a hotspot for paranormal activity. Reports of apparitions, unsettling sounds, and ghostly encounters are common. The spirits of former residents are said to linger, particularly in the abandoned sections of the building, where untold suffering once occurred.

We cannot find another item having been sold with this stamp and the objects tactile nature and evocative weight makes it a very intriguing find. One wonders who used it…