Her name was Julia - Grave Number 339

by Kathleen A.Crinion

In 1897, a thirty-two-year-old mother of five is committed to a mental asylum. With her fate sealed behind stone walls, her children were cast into the bleak world of the workhouse. The cruelty of these choices belonged to her husband alone. but this was just the beginning. Stranger than fiction and shrouded in mystery, this true account lays bare the hidden truths of a society governed by stigma, secrecy, and institutional control. At its heart is one woman, whose life was irreversibly shaped by choices she did not make and consequences she could not escape. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing Ireland, this book is both a tribute to the strength and resilience of those history tried to forget, and a bold challenge to a world that silenced all who dared to be different. Poignant and deeply human, it speaks for the silenced and brings long-overdue dignity to lives once hidden in the shadows.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

182 pages, Paperback

Published June 30, 2025

Reviews

[Dem · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a remarkable but heartbreaking true account of a young mother institutionalised by her husband to live out her life in a mental Asylum in the 1890 in Ireland.

Rarely does a book bring me to the brink of tears but this one broke my heart Her name was Julia is a story that has affected me and will stay with me for a very long time.
I happened to be in a bookshop and had chosen a few books to buy and this book was sitting on the counter and I was browsing it as I was waiting to pay and just added it to my pile at the last moment and what a lucky find for me.

Julia was a 32 year old woman, a wife and a mother of 5 young children who was wrongfully committed by her husband to a Mental Asylum in 1897. She remained there, without ever having received a single visitor until her death. She was buried in the Asylum graveyard with just a maker number 339. Her children were sent to the workhouse. After years of research the author and her family have painstakingly pieced together her heartbreaking story and given Julia a voice that was silenced by church and state.

As a woman I am so saddened at how our mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers were treated in Ireland by church and state. Women who worked tirelessly at home but never had a say or a voice in their own homes or outside of it and yet they were the country’s backbone.

Her name was Julia is a short book but extremely well written and researched and I can highly recommend it to readers. The author has included numerous photographs and links to a podcast which readers will find fascinating.

If I can recommend one book this year to add to your TBR list then Her name was Julia - Grave Number 339 will not disappoint.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julia Caffrey was born in June 1863. At the age of thirty-two, Julia was taken to St. Loman’s, a mental health facility in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Her husband Christopher Leonard the man who vowed to love her a lifetime was the one responsible for sending Julia away to a “Lunatic asylum” as it was known at that time. Her mental disease was called ’melancholia,’ a feeling of deep sadness * dated severe depression. Her husband sent their five children away to the workhouse.

Julia was a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother. She spent twenty-two years confined to St Loman’s a place she never chose to be and in all those years she never had a single visitor. And it was the place she died and was buried at the asylum's graveyard with a marker number 339.
A heartbreaking true story of a woman whose life was taken away from her which should never have happened, but happened to many back in the day. This is a remarkable story and one that will bring you to tears, but it is a story that needed to be told and I’m so glad it was. Highly recommended.