8/28: Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol, Temple Bar, O'Connell St. Stroll

After an engrossing morning at Dublin's EPIC Emigration Museum that took longer than we intended, we had to hightail it back into the city center to then get a bus out to Kilmainham Gaol aka jail where we had a reservation for a tour at 1 pm.

Ha'penny Bridge was an elegant, iron footbridge connecting the north and south sides of the city over the River Liffey.

If I had to use a little bit of imagination, I could almost think the views from the bridge reminded us of the grand canals in Amsterdam.

So many buildings in Dublin were decorated with marvelous murals like this one advertising Rory's Fishing Tackle or the ones that follow this photo.

Since we had so much time to wait for the bus, I had ample time to scamper across the street and take pictures of these statues or were they a monument? I didn't see any sign indicating what they were.

The statues and bus stop were in front of the old Parliament Buildings, now the main branch of the Bank of Ireland.

A couple of days after leaving Dublin, Steven became a big Guinness fan, a beer he'd never had beforehand! Passing the brewery on the bus on the way to the gaol was as close as we got to the plant.

Though we'd missed our time slot, we were fortunately able to join the next one which was really appreciated. David, the guide, started the tour by saying,"Let's Go to Gaol!" It opened on a hill known as Gallows' Hill in 1796 as Dublin's county jail and a debtors' prison.

The jail, though, was frequently used by the British for political prisoners as many of those who fought for Irish independence were held or executed here. There were five separate rebellions against the British from 1798-1916 and one civil war. Above one entrance way were the 'serpents of hell' to dissuade people from committing crimes!

It continued to operate until the day in 1924 when the last prisoner and future Irish President, Eamon de Valera, was released. 

The tour began appropriately, I thought, in the original chapel where male prisoners sat in the lower part and women were in the upper level. The majority of the prisoners were not political but in for crimes of poverty, sadly a case that's all too common in United States prisons nowadays, too. 

One of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Uprising, Joseph Plunkett, married his sweetheart, Grace Gifford, in the jail's chapel the night before he was executed. 

In 1796, there were no glass in the windows in the corridor as the 'ventilation' was considered the best way to deal with any viruses. The jail was built to house 1,500 inmates but, during the Great Potato Famine years of 1845-1850, there were a staggering 9,000 prisoners. 

The gaol was considered a model for other prisons and known as the 3 'Ses' for silence, separation and supervision. 

That was largely as a result of the British having passed the Vagrancy Act so that anyone sleeping in a public place or begging could be arrested and therefore sentenced to jail. Young children ended up in Kilmainham including, incredibly, a five year-old boy who was accused of stealing a piece of meat. 

Everyone was sentenced to work in the jail, including the children as early reformers felt that hard labor was their main weapon against "the vice of idleness" in prisons. The main forms practiced at Kilmainham were shot drill, working the crank pump and stone breaking.

Some, according to David, welcomed going to Kilmainham as it meant that at least they would get some food. The main meal was Indian (corn?)meal and water, aka gruel, David said. There were five men allotted per cell with each given a blanket, light and a bucket - the latter to piss in. 

We moved next to the jail's Western Wing used by the British for political prisoners when Kilmainham became a political prison instead of a civilian one as of 1916. That year's Easter Rising was intended to be a resurrection by the rebels to coincide with the holy period. Those Irish republicans who signed the famous Proclamation for an Irish Republic against British rule that was was read on the steps of the General Post Office in Dublin were not army men but linked with literary society in Ireland. Each was later executed here at Kilmainham. Although the Easter Rising was crushed after a week of fighting, it and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish independence. In the December 1918 election, the republican party Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in Ireland. 

David stressed the huge role Irish women played in the right to vote and the right of equality. The inference was that many women also landed up in Kilmainham but he never mentioned the numbers involved. 

Looking through the keyhole, I could get a sense of how small and barren the cells were.

Charles Stewart Parnell, 1846-1891, was an Irish nationalist politician, a land reform agitator, and founder in 1879 of the Irish National Land League and a member of the British Parliament. The relationship with land in Ireland was always tough, David explained, because land was owned by absentee landlords in Britain and tenant farmers had no rights. 

Parnell advocated for a peaceful resolution to the issues affecting his countrymen. He was imprisoned at Kilmainham in 1882 for six months but lived quite luxuriously in jail, nonetheless, having his own lawyer, being able to attend his nephew's funeral for two weeks in Paris, ordering food in from hotels, etc. Thirty years of Irish history were negotiated in this room between Parnell and William Gladstone, the Prime Minister, concerning Home Rule for Ireland. David joked if we took a picture here, it would be a 'cellfie!'

The East Wing of the gaol was constructed in 1862 for 96 men and 'just' two per cell; however overcrowding was so severe here that five men per cell became the norm. The intent of the wing's design was the Biblical reference of heaven and hell: heaven and light was the sky through the arched roof line resembling a cathedral; hell and darkness was the underground areas where the kitchen and laundry were; and limbo was here in the middle where the prisoners slept.

The stairway was intentionally designed so that only one prisoner could go up or down at a time so there couldn't be a mass stampede of prisoners.

A cell in the center was occupied by Grace Gifford in 1923, the widow of Joseph Plunkett, one of the leaders of the Uprising.

Even though the building was restored from ruins in the 1960s, all the ironwork was original here. The acoustics were so fine that U2 recorded music in this wing. In addition, films starring Liam Neeson and Daniel Day-Lewis were shot here. 

When prisoners were allotted time in the exercise yard, the zone of silence had to be maintained at all times. Men were kept in this yard and women were over the small wall in the next yard. 

David spoke with great emotion when he relayed the events during his country's twelve month-long War of Independence or Anglo-Irish War in 1921 when Irishmen were killing their fellow Irishmen because of those who were for or against the Union Treaty. A cross at either end of the enclosed yard showed where men were executed in this space. 

In May 1921, Ireland was partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act, which created Northern Ireland. This ended British rule in most of Ireland and, after a ten-month transitional period overseen by a provisional government, the Irish Free State was created as a self-governing Dominion in December, 1922. Northern Ireland remained within the United Kingdom.

David led us to the stone breakers' yard where a dozen political prisoners were executed by twelve British soldiers. There was no martyrs' grave provided because the British didn't want family members and Irish people gathering there and fomenting trouble. W.B. Yeats, the great 20th century Irish poet and literary heavyweight, commented "that a terrible beauty is born" about the public hangings in this square. 

Kilmainham gaol was also used as a transportation hub with 4,000 people from the eastern and northeastern parts of Ireland were sent to Australia directly from the gaol in the early 19th century. As the presence of those people in the gaol directly led to severe overcrowding, the practice of using Kilmainham as a collection depot was stopped by the 1830s. The nature of the crimes for which sentences of transportation were handed down varied greatly depending on the judiciary's arbitrary attitude in sentencing. Transportation of prisoners from Ireland ended in 1858.

Not to be too flip about it but Steven and I were relieved we got our free 'Get Out of Jail' card as we walked out of Kilmainham as our tour with David had been enlightening, giving us a brief but thorough introduction not just to life in one of his country's gaols but more importantly of his country's history until the 1920s when Ireland became a free country.

Front row seats on the top deck of a double-decker bus back into the center of Dublin afforded us great views and a sense of the importance of one's freedom and how we take it for granted.

We only had time for a brief walk through Temple Bar, the once bohemian and now entertainment area jam packed with pubs and restaurants. Three hundred years ago, sailing ships offloaded their goods on this waterfront space onto a loading dock known as a 'bar.' The Temples were a prominent merchant family.

Leo Burdock's Fish and Chips opened in 1913 and were the last chip (i.e. french fries) shop in Ireland to use coal-fired pans to cook their signature fish and chips until 1991. The food was wrapped in day-old newspapers, so people could eat and read the news at the same time!

The statue was of Daniel O'Connell, known as the great Liberator for founding the Catholic Association and demanding Irish Catholic rights in the British Parliament. He organized thousand of nonviolent protesters into massive meetings which intimidated British authorities. Dublin's main drag since the 1740s was renamed O'Connell Street in his honor after the country gained independence in 1922. 

The statue of William Smith O'Brien was a little further along O'Connell St. O'Brien was an O'Connell contemporary but the leader of the Young Ireland Movement which advocated more force to reach his goals. Rick Steves wrote that O'Brien was imprisoned after a failed uprising, and exiled to Australia in 1848. 

One of the strangest monuments I can remember seeing was officially called The Spire, 398 feet of stainless steel to memorialize nothing but rejuvenation on the north side of the river. There used to be a statue of the British hero at Trafalgar but the IRA blew it up on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1966. Dubliners have all sorts of amusing names for its replacement: the Stiletto in the Ghetto, the Stiffy in the Liffy, the Erection in the Intersection but agree it was the biggest waste of five million euros in all of Europe. 

The General Post Office was the location where Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of Irish Independence in 1916 which began the Easter Rising, a bloody five-day siege that followed the proclamation. The post office was chosen as the rebels' location because it housed the telegraph nerve center for the country. 

At the top of O'Connell St. was the monument to Charles Stewart Parnell whom I wrote about earlier in connection with Kilmainham Gaol. Around the monument were the names of the 32 counties in Ireland, including those from the north and south as it was erected before the country was divided in two.

The Garden of Remembrance honored the victims of the 1916 Rising and was dedicated on its 50th anniversary. It was also the spot where its rebel leaders were kept prior to being transferred to Kilmainham.

To more easily read this moving poem about the rebels' dreams and hopes for a free nation, click on it to make it bigger. 

At the bottom of the cross-shaped pool, were mosaics of Celtic weapons, which represented how the early Irish proclaimed peace by throwing weapons into a river or lake.

Again according to Steves, one of Ireland's most emotional times came when Queen Elizabeth 11 came to the Garden of Remembrance on her historic visit to Ireland in May of 2011. She laid a wreath here at the Children of Lir sculpture under the Irish flag, bowed her head in silence in respect for the Irish rebels who had died seeking independence from her United Kingdom. This has been characterized as a "hugely cathartic moment" for both countries as no British monarch had ever set foot in the Irish Republic since it was founded 80 years previously.

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Next post: Granted we only had two days to take in as much as we could of the country's capital, we still felt we left with an understanding of the triumphs and tragedy of the country which would help us as we continued our month-long tour of the island by driving south toward Kilkenny.

Posted on September 7th, 2019, from tiny Knightstown on Valentia Island in southwestern Ireland.