22 June 2006 Kilmainham Gaol Anita Mareiner

During the day we went to Kilmainham Gaol. Gaol is an old word for jail. This jail is near the Irish Museum of Modern Art, so we took the bus from the Tara Street DART station. The jail has been there since its construction in 1795. Before this time prisoners had all been kept in the same room, whether they were women, children or men. After the 18th century the jail was rebuilt. Nowadays prisoners normally don't share cells with other prisoners.
In the little chapel where the tour started, the prisoner Joseph Plunkett had married Grace Gifford before he was shot because he had taken part in the Easter revolution of 1916. He was executed in the jail yard, together with his friend James Conolly, who had been seriously injuried and had to be strapped onto a chair during execution.
During the tour we passed the little cells where some other prisoners had been waiting for their execution. Among them William Pearse, John McBride, Thomas McDonough, Jean J Houston and Tom Clark. All these were executed in the jail yard. The two black crosses in the yard stand in rememberance of the revolutionists.
In one cell we could see a painting of the holy mother Mary on the walls, painted by the prisoner Ms. Plunkett. The last prisoner left Kilmainham Gaol on 16 July 1924. It was the rebel Eamon de Valera.
I think it was a very interesting excursion into the cruel past. The old part of the building let you feel the cold alarming narrow radiation of this jail. The room where the prisoners came to before execution also has an oppressing air. You can really feel what prisoners must have felt in 1916.