Untitled - UQ eSpace

First
2014
Sunbeam House Trust
Killarney Roacir
Co. Wicklow
Road
Back cover: The
PB Print Solution, Dublin,
!SBN
Martin McNamara, Sean
of
Foreword
Preface
Some sweet country home
delicate
Sunbeam House,
the times: from tuberculosis
child
Part 2
5
House and intellectual
in
nest: Schools
stable:
Vocational
and
Introduction to
3
services, 1976-1980
103
1981-2013
strategy
Ethos, mission
Notes
vision: Sunbeam
Services, present and future
Acknowledgements
Foreword
The book was made possible through a grant provided jointly by the Trustees of
Sunbeam House Trust and the Board of Directors of Sunbeam House Services. The
authors are grateful for the support the project received from these bodies. We
acknowledge, in particulm~ the vision and foresight of John Giles in commissioning
the book and, in so doing, ensuring that the history and achievements of Sunbeam
House Services and its antecedentorganisations are recorded. Mr Giles's support,
guidance and advice in the course of researching the book proved invaluable. We
are also grateful to George Knaggs, John Hannigan and Donal O'Brien for providing
critical con<ments on the penultimate draft of the book manuscript
The title of this book is Equal Citizens. This title has a lot to say about the book's
contents, insofar as it is about the history and development of a project that arose out
of a Victorian shipping tragedy on a Swiss lake in the late nineteenth century involving
a Victorian lady, a project which is continuing up to the present day. Out of the disaster
came the inspiration to care for people whom Victorian society hardly recognised and
to whom they offered no status as citizen. This same idea informs the work of the
organisation right up to the present time, when the people for whom it now cares are
considered 'equal citizens'.
The narrative of the later chapters of this book is informed by oral testimonies
provided by current and former clients of Sunbeam House. Vve very much appreciate
their generosity in sharing with us their experiences of growing up in Sunbeam
House. We also gratefully acknowledge the contribution of current and retired staff
and members of the Board of Directors and the Management Team, who participated
in individual interviews and/ or in a focus group discussion. We extend a particular
note of gratitw.le to Canon Robert Jennings for providing the oral testimony on which
part of Chapter 6 is based.
Much of the book is based on documentary materials available in the archives of
Sunbeam House
and we acknowledge with thanks the support provided
Ruth Eagar and Delwen Giles in accessing them. Assistance with the preparation
images for the book was provided by Audrey Drohan, UCD Library, and Brian
Manning, Sunbeam House Services. Ruth Eagar was also instrumental in selecting
images and assisting with important project management arrangements in advance
of publication and her assistance and support is gratefully appreciated. The authors
also gratefully acknowledge Daniela Rohde who undertook proof reading of the
manuscript
The book was informed
a published history of Sunbeam House Services, entitled
Sunbeam House Bray and written by Francis Loughrey (with additional chapters by
Maria Luddy and John Giles); the authors acknowledge the importance of this earlier
work when researching and writing the book
So what value did the Trustees of Sunbeam House Trust and the Directors of Sunbeam
House Services see in commissioning this book? Firstly, they believed that the story is
worth teliing. lt is worth telling because those Victorians who originally founded an
organisation to care for 'crippled children' led by example and those that followed in
building the organisation that became Sunbeam House provided an exemplar to society
of what should be done to care for those among its citizens who are disadvantaged
physically or intellectually Secondly, they believed that the story of Sunbeam House is
the story of an organisation in context, an organisation that, at once, could respond to
wider societal changes, be proactive in anticipating changes, and lead changes when
leadership was needed.
As society has developed over the last hundred and forty years, much has improved
for the ordinary citizen, but
reason of disability, many citizens find themselves
'un-equal' citizens in this process of improvement This story is about people and an
organisation that contributed, in a small part, to making those who were once "unequal", become Equal Citizens.
This book is not merely an account of a few dedicated people's project to improve
the Jot of society's disadvantaged people, but how that motivation fitted into the
emergence within society of policies to serve the needs of it disadvantaged Citizens.
The book is written by people who themselves are part of the development and
delivery of social and health care in our country, and who want to show from past
experience and present practice just what can be done to change the quality of life of
young and older people and their families.
ARGiles
Co. Wicklow
May 2014
Fore,word
on Lake Zurich on 29 August 1872 and her narrow
accident led a
young woman,
life to the alleviation of human suffering,
the way of work and the end for which
""""nro•rn funding from a wide cross section of
Children in Bray,
Sunbeam House Services is one of the
Ireland, As the
of intellectual disabilitv services for
residential, educational, uallHiH);,
support services
over 350 adults with
Sunbeam House Services reflects the
with an intellectual
and often innovative services and
service
in the field of intellectual
founded in 1874 as the Home
Lucinda Sullivan who, at the
Adelaide
Described as a
of how the
rickets, tuberculosis
VVhen exposure to
and fresh air became
and diseases like rickets in the inter-war years,
a
sunlight
for
and became Sunbeam House, However, with the
decline in tuberculosis and diseases associated vvith poor nutrition in the 1950s,
Sunbeam House once
to
of childhood diseases and
its function to become a children's
home and a welfare home for
children,
Sunbeam House remained an
With the !rish state's historic reliance on
need to
disabled and, in the case of Su.nheam House,
at that time.
When it became "r"''"'"'n to the authorities at Sunbeam House in the mid-19'70s that
there were few
for
school
service, This necessitated a
established an
of the traditional
Sunbeam House,
business model. Over the next four decades, this professional
develop a range of direct and support services
and, in the process, contributed to the development of a
picture in which the majority of people with an intellectual
into their cmnmunity.
home in Bray, County Wicklow, established for crippled
a major public business enterprise providing a countyservice? This book endeavours to tell this story. The book
of an organisation in context, a care home providing
in response to changing patterns of childhood illness
organisation in the Protestant philanthropic tradition and,
organisation. The book shows how the organisation
shifting external circumstances, changing its core function
·
and ethos. It offers a case study of the evolving
state and the small voluntary organisations on which it
health and welfare services. lt shows how a voluntary
and in consort with the state, endeavoured to meet
virtue of their disabilities, fell outside mainstream services
The book also shows how a professional business model
in a service organisation while remaining true to
which was founded by a sense of Christian duty, the
essential ethos of voluntarism and public service.
ters and is structured in three parts. Part 1 (chapters
the period 1874 to 1958, when Sunbeam House cared for
with tuberculosis and, later, convalescent and orphaned
examines the historical development of Sunbeam House
disability services after the late 1950s up to the early
(chapters 10-11) examines the development of Sunbeam
with a particular focus on its emerging governance
as it moved from being a small voluntary home to a
The two chapters in Part 3 also examine the ways
trctteg1c:al!ly positioned itself as both a responsive and. a
face of local needs and emerging challenges in the wider
sources contained in the archives of Sunbeam House
of staff and service users, the book is thoroughly
a chronological narrative of key developments in the
on the history of the wider disability discourses and
welfare and disability policies in Ireland., the narrative
House responded to these wider developments and,
to the development of policy and practice in disability
About the authors
Dr Gerard Fealy
Gerard Fealy is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Irmovation
at the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems. He is a UCD graduate
with a bachelor's degree in nursing, a master's degree in education and a PhD in
education. Completed in 2003, his doctoral thesis examined the history of nurse
training in Ireland. Dr Fealy is founding Director of the UCD Irish Centre for Nursing
and Midwifery History and is the author of several scholarly articles and historical
monographs, including A History ofApprenticeship Nurse Training in Ireland (Routledge
2006) and The
Hospital School of Nursing, 1859-2009 (Columba Press 2009). He
teaches the social history of Irish healthcare.
Dr Martin McNamara
Martin McNamara is Dean of Nursing at UCD and Head of the UCD School of Nursing,
Midwifery and Health Systems. A registered psychiatric and general nurse, he holds a
bachelor's degree in health sciences and master's degrees in social science, education
and nursing. In 2007 he obtained a Doctor of Education (EdD) degree from the Open
University. Dr McNamara is a writer and commentator on professional nursing, with
a particular interest in academic identity, disciplinary development and the history of
the profession. He is a co-founder of the UCD Irish Centre for Nursing and Midwifery
and identity.
has published several scholarly articles on aspects of nursing history and
History
professional
Dr Sean Lucey
Sean Lucey is a historian of healthcare and welfare with expertise in the history of
medical and poor relief and hospital provision. He obtained a PhD from NUl Maynooth
for work on the land movement in late nineteenth-century and he previously held
research fellowships at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford Brookes University. He is
currently a Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast, writing a monograph on
poverty and public health in Belfast and its environs during the period 1898-1973.
Dr Lucey has published several scholarly articles and books, including Land,
Politics and
Violence in Late Nineteenth Centun; Ireland (UCD Press, 2011), Jhe
Irish National League in Dingle, County Kerry, 1882-92 (Four Courts Press, 2003) and From
Poor Law to Free
State: Poverty,
Manchester
University
Press). Poor mzd Medical Relief in Ireland, 1910- 39 (Forthcoming:

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