Your chance to spend some time in prison. This brief stretch in Kilmainham Jail should prove more interesting, informative and pleasant for you than that experienced by former prisoners of this grim establishment. Now a museum, it is intimately linked with the various rebellions and uprisings in the long struggle for Irish Independence.
Many of Ireland’s great leaders and patriots were imprisoned here and many died within its walls, mercilessly killed for their defiance of British rule. During the interesting guided tour you will see the cells occupied by famous Irish men such as Robert Emmet, Charles Stewart Parnell, Padraic Pearse and Eamon de Valera. You will also be shown the execution yard where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were shot dead by firing squad -- among them, the already wounded James Connolly who was tied to a chair as he was too weak to stand for his execution.
The jail has two main cell wings. The original is starkly dark and forbidding: the later wing dates from the Victorian era and offers more space and light. Still visible are the writings and names that some prisoners etched onto their cell walls during the tedious hours of confinement.
One particular moment of personal tragedy is remembered in the prison chapel. This was where the 1916 leader Joseph Mary Plunkett was permitted to marry his fiancé, Grace Gifford, just hours before his execution.
The informative audiovisual presentation and the tour include all of this and many others points of interest. The real memory, however, is the oppressive atmosphere of confinement that is still palpable within the walls of the jail even to present day visitors.
