kilmainham gaol

So Wednesday was suppose to be my “get started on my project that’s due two days after I get back to France” day but I got the idea to go to Kilmainham Gaol prison instead because 1. three different Irish people on three separate occasions recommended it to me and 2. I somehow lucked out and got people to take me to places outside Dublin for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday so this was my only free day to check it out.

I actually had no interest in going there before people recommended it and Dave has been there several times and told me it was kind of depressing but it was either go out in the cold rain to catch a bus of which the origin point I’m unaware of to get off at a stop I’m also unaware of to pay money to see a place of suffering OR stay in a nice warm apartment in my p.j.’s doing much needed schoolwork. I think the choice is clear here.

You can only see Kilmainham gaol by group tour and I lucked out by getting a full blooded red haired Irishman with a passion for Irish history as my tour guide. He was awesome.

If Kilmainham Goal made the claim: To know the history of Kilmainham Goal is to know the history of Ireland itself, my eyes would remain unrolled. Honestly the place is fascinating.

I learned about the Great Hunger where you can see the number of prisoners in the prison spike to ridiculous numbers. That’s because people in prison were getting fed so people would commit petty crimes to get admitted for food. Could you imagine a time where life outside prison is worse than inside a prison? Really gives you a since of how awful things were (Hearing about how the people that were literally starving to death on the side of the road didn’t even have the strength to shoo away animals that were starting to eat their bodies before they were actually dead also gives you a sense.)

I also saw where the ringleaders of the 1916 Easter Uprising were imprisoned and then executed one by one turning them into martyrs thus gaining international support for Ireland’s independence from the British. The tour guide also included a story about one of the prisoners that, 24 hours before he was to be executed married his love in the prison church and afterwards was brought back to his prison cell alone for the night. The next day they were given 10 minutes together before his execution under the watchful eye of a prison guard. After 10 minutes they took him out and shot him. She never remarried.

Gore, drama, death, and romance. That prison’s got it all (Ireland’s daytime soap writers could learn a thing or two from that place). I highly recommend.