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The Gaol at Kilmainham provides a welcome insight into Ireland’s struggle for self-rule as well as a comprehensive museum of crime and punishment throughout the ages. Not knowing what to expect, we were treated to an comprehensive hour-long tour of the Gaol by a very well-informed guide. Not only did he draw attention to the building itself, he also drew a verbal picture of the squalour, suffering and glaring injustices of Ireland’s former legal system.

The tour included a potted history of the struggle for self-rule in Eire. Although I had studied “The Troubles” at school, I had forgotten about the early history of the freedom struggle -including the 1916 uprising. Here we got to see where these early independence leaders had been imprisoned, executed and where their wives and supporters had subsequently been incarcerated.

The museum also played host to many objects related to the independence movement -including the Last Letters written by leaders of protests and uprisings. It was heart rending to read the common themes of reassuranceto loved ones that they faced their death without shame, love of family and fear of God. One particular gentleman instructed that his youngest daughter and son should become a nun and a priest respectively. The son duly joined the priesthood and visited the gaol recently as an old man to see the site where his father was held and executed.

Kilmainham also has a unique place amongst Ireland’s jails in that it was the transit station for many thousands of inmates who were due to be deported to Australia on the convict ships. Over-crowding was rife and the guiding aim of one cell per prisoner was dangerously exceeded. Men, women and children shared cells containing up to fifteen people. It was much later, in Victorian times, when more numerous and better lit cells were built.

Kilmainham jail houses one of the most famous staircases in Ireland. Although the gaol has played host to many films, perhaps the best known of these is the scene in which crime boss “Mr Bridger” is applauded by inmates having received news of the successful heist in “The Italian Job”. The jail itself is visible several times during this trailer for “The Italian Job”:

Here is the exercise yard where prisoners used to walk round in circles for about an hour a day. Strict silence was to be maintained and so prisoners would have to look at their feet.

The next picture shows the yard in which death row prisoners were shot. In fact, it was the execution of one such prisoner that turned the tide of republicanism in Ireland. A political prisoner by the name of James Connolly had to be transported by ambulance to Kilmainham for execution. He was so badly injured that had he been left, it was almost certain that he would have died in the coming days. As it was, the regiment that had suffered the most casualties in the fighting, strapped him to a chair and shot him.

These were the words in Patrick Pearce’s last letter:

My dearest Mother:

I have been hoping up to now it would be possible to see you again, but it does not seem possible. Goodbye, dear, dear mother. Through you I say goodbye to ‘Wow Wow’, (a sister), Mary, Brigid, Willie, Miss B. Miceal, Maggine, and everyone at St. Enda’s. I hope and believe Willie and the St. Enda boys will be all safe.

I have written two papers about my financial affairs and one about my books which I want you to get. With them are a few poems which I want added to the poems inMS in my bookcase. You asked me to write a little poem which would seem to be said by you about me. I have written it, and a copy is in Arbour Hill Barracks with other papers.

I just received holy communion. I am happy, except for the great grief of parting from you. This is the death I should have asked for if God had given me the choice of all deaths -to die a soldier’s death for Ireland and for freedom. We have done right. People will say hard things of us now, but later on will praise us. Do not grieve for all this but think of it as a sacrifice which God asked of me and of you.

Good-bye again, dear mother. May God bless you for your great love for me and your great faith and may He remember all you have bravely suffered. I hope soon to see papa, and in a little while we shall all be together again. I have not words to tell you of my love for you and how my heart yearns to you all. I will call to you in my heart at the last moment.

Your son Pat.”

There was an even more moving one -by the prisoner who instructed his son to become a priest -who obviously became quite distressed whilst writing the document and broke down when mentioning his young son.