Thursday, October 2, 2008

Field Trip to Kilmainham Gaol

After public executions were banned, this became the hanghouse. Seven men were killed here.

Kilmainham was established as a dungeon and corrective jail in 1796.

The jail was abandoned in 1924 after Eamon de Valera was freed. It's considered the Irish Bastille.

This is some inmate grafitti. It's a quote from "The Rebel" by Patrick Pearse, a famous political prisoner at Kilmainham. In full, it reads "Beware of the Risen People, Ye That Have Harried and Held, Ye That Have Bullied and Bribed."

The East Wing of the jail was built in 1864 and held both men and women, political dissidents and petty thieves. Two seven-year-old boys were jailed for stealing a rabbit from the Dublin Zoo.

Constructed during a period of Victorian prison reform, the East Wing was modeled after the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

It's a tall, open space with high skylights --- the architects concluded that exposing the prisoners to the redemptive "Light of God" could only be a good thing.

The leaders of the 1916 Rising were executed against this wall. The cross marks the place where James Connolly was tied to a chair and shot --- he was so badly injured from the fighting that he could not stand and face the firing squad.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Does blogspot allow you to tag photos with ALT text that will then display when the mouse hovers over one? For this post it is hardly needed, but if you are posting a bunch with little text it could be enlightening.