Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture, is set in Sligo, Ireland as are all of his novels. He writes about the places he knows and incorporates the stories he heard as a child from his mother. In an interview the author describes how this book is fiction but the concept is based on his great aunt who lived in an asylum much of her life. According to Sebastian Barry, people were not only placed in asylums for medical reasons, but also for moral reasons, such as having a child out of wedlock.

What were these asylums like? A website that documents the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in photographs describes the history of an asylum in Menston, Yorkshire, England. One inmate from this asylum was committed for having "milk fever."

St. Columbus Lunatic Asylum is the asylum in The Secret Scripture and the building itself, like the asylum in Yorkshire, is a beautiful and impressive structure reminicent of a palace. In modern days it has been turned into a luxury hotel, The Clarion Hotel Sligo.

Sebastian Barry reads from the Secret Scripture : Roseanne's testimony of herself

Finally, a fun review of Sebastian Barry from Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa :