If you want to visit Dublin, Ireland, there are numerous historical sites and famous locations to visit. You’ll enjoy seeing the history from centuries before. Don’t forget to visit the Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. This prison dates from centuries ago. It is now known as the Kilmainham Gaol museum for tourists to visit.
Why the Kilmainham Jail is Famous
The Kilmainham Jail is well-known in history books for its imprisonment and executions of 1916 leaders fighting for independence and human rights in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to the History Ireland magazine. This prison is known as a place of suffering, persecution, and maltreatment in the 1800s.
Britain used the Kilmainham Jail as a way to keep down the revolutionaries in Ireland who sought freedom for their country. Many were executed to scare others into submission.
The prisoners in the prison were left in the cold and dark with only a single candle to provide any heat. The Kilmainham Jail was often overcrowded and unsanitary. Men, women, and children often stayed in the same jail cell. Sometimes children as young as 10 years old were imprisoned due to petty theft.
The prison guards were often cruel and unrelenting in their treatment of prisoners. Throughout Ireland, some reformers sought to improve the sanitation and healthcare provided within prisons.
One of the most interesting aspects of this prison is that it was first built to be the opposite of the typical medieval dungeon-like jails where prisoners were treated poorly and given inferior provisions. To learn more about the early days of the Kilmainham prison, it is important to focus on its history.
The Early History of the Kilmainham Prison
The Irish Place publication reports that the Kilmainham prison was first built to provide better conditions for prisoners. It was built in 1797 and was called the “New Gaol.” The prison was named as such because it replaced an old jail. The old prison was mostly a dungeon located near the new site.
The prior prison was crowded and unhygienic. It held prisoners who lived in malevolent conditions. In the new Kilmainham Jail, prisoners were put in two adjoining wings. Nonetheless, cells were heated only by candlelight, and chamber pots were used as toilets.
In the mid-1800s, builders demolished the East Wing. They used Victorian design to rebuild. All of the cells were visible from a viewing location, which allowed light to flood the cells. More light was expected to inspire the prisoners to think of heaven and become more religious.
Some isolation cells were built under darker conditions for more hardened criminals to stay in. The prison was built to overcome many of the problems faced by prisoners in its day, but a number of the same troubles soon befell the Kilmainham Jail.
Many of the problems stemmed from the fact that this jail became very overcrowded. This led to disease, health, and hygiene issues. Furthermore, the men and women were not separated by cells. There was no separation based on age either, which meant children, teenagers, and grown men and women were all crowded into the same cells.
Mind-Blowing Facts About the Kilmainham Jail
There are many unique and unbelievable facts about the Kilmainham prison in Dublin. Some of these include:
- The shapes carved into the entrance of the prison represent five crimes: treason, theft, rape, piracy, and murder.
- The women incarcerated in the prison were treated worse than the men and left in older, colder, and darker quarters.
- More than 4,000 prisoners were transported from Kilmainham prison to Australia.
- Robert Emmet, a leader in a rebellion in Dublin, was imprisoned and one of the first to be executed at the Kilmainham Jail in 1803.
- Eamon de Valera, who was Prime Minister and the President of Ireland, was once a political prisoner in the Kilmainham prison.
- Closing in 1910, the prison was opened back up after the Easter Rising of 1916 to hold the leaders of the uprising.
It is important to note that the prison played a vital role in the fight for independence in Ireland. After the Easter Rising of 1916, the rebellion leaders were executed outside the prison. The executions made these individuals martyrs for the independence of Ireland.
The War of Independence began in 1919, which led the prison to incarcerate the fighters of this war. Then an Anglo-Irish Treaty was developed, providing Ireland with some independence while requiring allegiance to Britain. Many were unhappy with this outcome, and, eventually, the Civil War of 1922-1924 came to pass. At this point, the Kilmainham Jail was finally closed.
Where the Dublin Jail is Now
The last prisoner left the Dublin jail in 1924. It was officially closed by 1929. The Irish people wanted to provide remembrance for those who fought for freedom and lost their lives. A group, which involved veterans, was formed in 1960 to devise a memorial.
The group planned to restore the jail into a museum for the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. By 1966, a museum was opened in the East Wing region of the prison. President Eamon de Valera, one of its last political prisoners, was present on the Kilmainham Gaol museum’s opening day.
Over the next 20 years, the group voluntarily toiled to restore the property. The landscape outdoors also needed repair. To raise funds to continue renovating this museum, the founders sought public contributions and government funding.
In addition, more money was raised when the museum was used as a film set to produce multiple movies, according to Irish Tourism. Movies such as The Italian Job (1969) and The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977) were filmed here.
Since the mid-1980s, the Office of Public Works (O.P.W.), which is a government organization, has been in charge of the Kilmainham Gaol Museum. Today, the Kilmainham Jail is a popular historical site that tourists and local visitors love to see.
The Kilmainham Jail in Dublin represents the history of Ireland’s fight for independence and as many as 300,000 visitors come to this museum every year.