Visit to Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing St James Hospital, Dublin 8 on 10.30 am on Thu 15th May 2025
The Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA) at St James’s Hospital, Dublin, is a unique innovative facility dedicated to integrated clinical care, research, education, industry collaboration, on successful ageing. In 1980, consultant geriatrician Prof Davis Coakley (a candidate for Provost in 1999) and Prof Jim Malone proposed establishing a centre for research on ageing from which MISA emerged. It provides services including diagnostic clinics, rapid access care, inpatient acute assessment, rehabilitation, and continuing care. It serves as both a local resource and a national centre. The clinical services include the Falls and Syncope Unit, the Memory Clinic, Bone Health Clinic, and Stroke Service. The Memory Clinic offers multidisciplinary support for cognitive disorders, including dementia.
The institute was the result of decades of planning by the late Prof Davis Coakley, Prof J Bernard Walsh (who will lead the tour) and many others, including the current Director, Prof Rose Anne Kenny (speaker at this year’s TRA AGM). It was supported by major funders like Atlantic Philanthropies, the Department of Health, and the HSE. MISA was officially opened in 2016 by President Michael D. Higgins. The seven-storey building spans over 15,000m², includes research labs, consultation spaces, conference rooms, a striking art collection, 100+ beds, and won the Royal Institute of the Architects Healthcare Building of the Year award (2017).
MISA also fosters creativity and wellbeing through its Creative Life Centre, promoting arts and cultural engagement for older adults. It delivers extensive education and training programs for healthcare professionals and the public, supporting innovative models of care and research addressing ageing challenges in Ireland and beyond.
The tour will begin at 10.30 leaving the main entrance to the Trinity Centre for Health Sciences at the St James’s campus. You can easily get to this from the St James’s Luas stop. When you get off the Luas (coming from the city) note a redbrick on your right. Walk around this building, keeping it on your right side (about 3 min). You will arrive at the main entrance.
After an introduction to the college facilities at St James, we will walk to the main entrance of the hospital by 11.15 and from there will move on to MISA by 11.30. Prof Walsh will lead our tour of the facility. On the way to MISA we will note the dominant presence of the new Children’s Hospital building at the Rialto end of the site.
Cafe’s, toilets, and rest facilities are available along the route. Official carparks and some ground parking is available. Both are heavily used. Tolerance for illegal parking is low.