The site selected for the facility, which covered 460 acres (1.9 km2), was the demesne surrounding Portrane House, the former home of the Evans family.

[2] The facility, which was ultimately designed by Ashlin in the Gothic Revival style, opened as the Portrane Asylum in 1903.

[1] Irish republican Michael Staines was chairman of the hospital board and on one occasion spent the night there while on the run in 1920.

[6][7] Nearly 500,000 viewers watched an episode of the RTÉ documentary The Asylum which featured St Ita's Hospital in 2005.

[8] In June 2010, the Mental Health Commission instructed the hospital to stop the admission of acute patients on account of the "entirely unacceptable and inhumane conditions" by 28 February 2011.