Kilmainham Gaol Museum

This was a jail tour that was truly worth the fee.  The jail itself has been used in films such as In the Name of the Father and The Italian Job. 

 The tour starts in their museum with lots of information regarding how prisoners were housed, the changes made to try to make them more likely to effectuate rehabilitation, info about the prisoners themselves, many of whom were there for stealing bread or potatoes or other food items during the famine years, and many of whom were women and children.  

At this jail they implemented the process of "mug shots" so they could keep records and pictures that would allow them to track repeat offenders.  The benefit for us being that you could see the info and mug shots of people who truly should not have been imprisoned.  

The history of the jail also shows how they moved from placing several prisoners togther in one big room into segregating the prison population into smaller, separate rooms.  The attempt to give each prisoner their own cell was a fairly new and modern idea that would better allow for keeping non-violent criminals protected from the violent population.  Though separate cells were the goal, they often housed 5 persons per cell and only allowed one candle per cell which had to last for 2 weeks.  The jail was made  of porous lime stone so it was cold, it was damp, there was very little light and some had to sleep on straw on the cold,  damp, hard floors.  They also apparently attempted to implement a better diet for prisoners which in turn made it sometimes a (slightly) better alternative to starving during the famine years.

 Thus, the museum points out the ideas of prison reform that were broached, but the place is a cold, dark, forbidding fortress that leaves one a bit shaken during the tour.  

The jail was opened in 1796 and closed in 1924.  It housed political prisoners of the numerous rebellions, the last being the Easter Rising of 1916 which resulted in incarceration for Eamon de Valera.  He was, along with numerous others, sentenced to death but it was later changed to life in prison.  

There were many executions carried out at the prison, initailly by hanging, and later, by firing squad.  One of the youngest to be executed was James Fisher who was only 18 years old.

One leader of the Easter Rising, Joseph Plunkett, married Grace Gifford, another prisoner, the night before his execution.  They were married before a wooden altar in the chapel, which was built by a 17 year old prisoner who was incarcerated for 7  years for removing a wagon wheel.  Grace was also imprisoned, and in her cell she painted a picture which is still  there.  She became an artist and political cartoonist, still suportiing the ideals of Irish freedom for which she and her husband were incarcerated.  

James Connolly was executed while sitting down because  he was unable to stand due to wounds received in the uprising.  He was not housed in the jail, as he was in the hospital where  he would   surely die of his wounds, yet they transported him to the jail for execution there anyway.  Unable to sit up on his own they tied him to his chair for the firing squad.  

This action, along with the 16 executions of the Easter Rising, pushed public opinion towards greater sympathy in the call for freedom from English rule.  

This picture shows  an archway in the jail which says:

Beware of the Risen People

That have harried and held,

Ye that have bullied and bribed