Item of the Month - Health and Relaxation in a bygone age
This month's item of the month comes from the papers of John Fleetwood (1916-2007) a Dublin GP, Fellow of the College and medical historian. In the 1950s and 1960s Fleetwood undertook some research into Irish spas and springs, amongst his research papers are some wonderfully evocative brochures of health and relaxation in a previous era.
These two brochures from the late 1950s/early 1960s show Austria and the USSR promoting themselves as spa destinations of choice, lavishly laying out the best their respective countries have to offer.
In the USSR brochure the Communist message is clearly seen; factory and office works are shown relaxing in the former palaces of the Tsar, and the booklet shows that even Georgia's radioactive springs have benefited from the advent of Communism.
From an Irish perspective the most interesting item is a publicity brochure for the National Spa and Hydro at Lucan, near Dublin.
The iron water spring at Lucan had been known about since the 1750s. In 1757 in his Natural History of County Dublin John Rutty recorded over 50 cases of various disease which had benefited from treatment there. The first hotel at Lucan spa was built in 1795, incorporating an earlier ballroom; it became a fashionable meeting place throughout much of the eighteenth century.
In 1895 Edgar Flynn stated that 'the principle mineral water springs in Ireland [including Lucan] … still possess their good and active properties and only require development to be restored to their former good favour'.
The arrival of the tram line to Lucan in 1891 revived the flagging fortunes of Lucan Spa, and a new hotel was built, with accommodation for 100 guests, a separate wing for invalids in which hot and cold sulphur baths were provided.
The publicity brochure waxes lyrical about the atmosphere and pace of life at Lucan 'you cannot know the loveliness, the sweet content of life in Ireland if you have never stayed at Lucan', the location too comes in for much praise
'even if your best friend told you, you would hardly believe it. And yet it's true. For there's hardly a lovelier spot this side of the Fairyland than Lucan … where well-wooded park-lands slope down from the foothills of the Wicklow mountains to where the Liffey, foaming over the rocky cataract and grassy weir of Leixslip settles into the last stretch of her long journey to the Irish Sea, where Nature's Healing Sulphur Springs well up from Mother Earth'.
Added to all this natural beauty is a golf links, pump room, arcade, ballroom and polo grounds.
And if all that rest and relaxation is too much for you, how about a cruise on the Shannon?
This publicity flyer, complete with Guinness's advertising jingle, was also amongst Dr Fleetwood's papers, who when not practicing as a doctor or researching medical history, was also a keen sailor.
IMAGES:
* All images taken from the uncatalouged John Fleetwood Collection in the RCPI Archive, except the postcard of the Lucan Spa Hotel
REFERENCES:
* John Fleetwood's research notes and articles on the spas of Ireland, part of the John Fleetwood Collection in the RCPI Archive.