I know the building very well indeed and have visited it on many occasions (not as a patient, I hasten to add!). It is an extremely long building...it was said that it was a mile or so in length and it is simply huge! It reminds me of that poem written, I think by Swift about the donation of a mental hospital in Dublin
He gave what little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And showed, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
Anyway- it is a beautiful building, probably now given over to apartments etc, although I am not entirely sure. Certainly it has not been used as a mental hospital for quite some time. It was beautiful on the outside, but very grim on the inside and a frightening place to visit at times. It can be clearly viewed in all its glory from several vantage places in Cork.