EXTRAORDINARY BEHAVIOUR OF A LUNATIC

THE KILDARE OBSERVER, MAY 21, 1881

 EXTRAORDINARY BEHAVIOUROF A LUNATIC

Mr James Flanagan, a respectable farmer residing at Gilltown, after a detention of nine or ten months in Carlow Lunatic Asylum, of which he had been an inmate on two pervious occasions, was on Friday discharged by the doctor as cured, and accompanied to his home by his wife who, at his request, had gone there to meet him. It does not appear that there was anything in the poor man’s conduct during that and the succeeding day to cause serious apprehension to his friends, except that he seemed haunted with the dread that if he lived with his family he should communicate to them the malady to which he had himself been subject. Acting, as it subsequently appeared, under this strange fear, he stole from his bed shortly after midnight on Saturday, and got away from the place unobserved, with no clothing but a shirt, stockings and trousers. His relatives, aided by the Kilcullen police, and the neighbours, made unremitting search to discover him, but without seeing or hearing anything of him, and by Tuesday they were settling down into conviction that he had drowned or otherwise destroyed himself, when the news, which fortunately proved true, arrived that he was at a friends house in Newbridge. When found early on Tuesday morning, he had nothing on him but the articles of dress above mentioned, and, though he had tasted nothing from Saturday evening, he did not appear to be in the least exhausted by his exposure and privations. His own account of the matter, stated with perfect coherency, and rendered probable by the circumstances, was very extraordinary. He sid he left home to save his wife and children, and taking the Knockbounce road, he proceeded in the direction of Kildare. After a short pause at French Furze, he turned back to the Curragh Camp, but again changed his mind, and made for “Father Moore’s Well,” at Rathbride, at which he arrived before anyone was yet stirring. Getting into the well, he remained standing in it for some hours. All the time the rain was falling in torrents on his bare-head and half-covered body. He then got out of the well, and lay down to sleep in a cave he found at some distance from it. He afterwards shifted his residence to out-houses, not remaining long in any of them, and it was in one of these he was discovered. He has been conveyed back to the Carlow Asylum.