The idea to develop a Day Care Centre for older people in Castleisland first arose from the St Vincent de Paul organisation in the area. In March 1995 a public meeting was held for the purposes of setting up a voluntary community group that would follow through on the vision of setting up a Day Care Centre in Castleisland. A group of people, representatives of Castleisland , Brosna, Knocknagoshel, Cordal, Currow/Currans and Scartaglin and part of Ballymacelligott had been working for seven years with the one objective, which was to ensure that the area would be serviced by a purpose-built Day Care Centre to serve the needs of the older people in the area.
The group entered into negotiations with the H.S.E. with regard to the provision of a Day Care Centre in the area. The H.S.E. were very supportive of this initiative but were unable to provide capital funding at that time. It was agreed that such funding as well as the ongoing revenue expenditure that would be required would be sought from the Department of Health and Children

Further discussions between the group continued and through this, negotiations were entered into with the Presentation Sisters in relation to obtaining a site to build the centre upon. The Presentation Convent Sisters donated the current site, on which the Day Care Centre stands, free of charge to the committee and were it not for their generosity it is unlikely that the centre would be here today.At an early stage of the proposed development, Mental Health Services of the H.S.E. approached the group about the inclusion of services for Mental Health to be part of the overall development. The group accepted this proposal and both services became part of the one development.

Castleisland Day Care and Shanowen Place were officially opened in March 2002 by the then Minister for Health and Children Micheál Martin.Since it’s opening in 2002 the success of the day centre was well and deservedly acknowledged. Such success demanded expansion and a need for physiotherapy services was identified. A locally based physiotherapy service from the day care centre was established in 2004. This was limited by space restrictions and in order to develop a physiotherapy department was required.

Building contractor Maurice McAuliffe was contracted for the work and a purpose built physiotherapy unit was officially opened in March 2008 by explorer, Mr Pat Falvey During the opening, Pat Falvey commended the local voluntary effort which brought about the unit by saying “ If any society has a core, a basic building block, then ours is our people”. Mr Falvey added that “In the opening of this new unit another summit has been achieved”.