Kilmainham Gaol (Prison)

Kilmainham Gaol (Prison) has certainly been the most interesting experience I've had yet in Dublin (in my very long 2 1/2 weeks here). It really was incredible and I hope to go again, several times, when you wonderful people come to visit us. 

Surprisingly, there are not any thorough histories online but I had hoped to give you all a little snippet of history. I'll try my best to be brief and concise.
Essentially it was opened in the 1790s to be a prison for all of County Dublin. I believe he said there were 8 other prisons, just for the city of Dublin at that time so it was meant to be a smaller addition to help out the outlying areas. Through the many political revolutions however, it became a prison for a very small area around Dublin city.
At one point, it became so overcrowded, they ended up shipping over 4,000 (THOUSAND!) prisoners to Australia. (and these were for offenses like "stealing a wheel off a cart", petty theft, larceny, - and on up to murder). Also, I believe he said they had about 100 cells and one year they had more than 12,000 prisoners come through the doors. You can only imagine the conditions.
There were prisoners here as young as FIVE (who would stay several months to years for things like petty theft). One young man was sent here at the age of 10, and died there at 12, after getting sick (because, well, they had a "Dr." but he lied about being a "Dr." and therefore could not treat/save this poor little boy). Our guide told us, in the 1800s, children here worked from the age of 8 and they figured, "if you were old enough to work, you were old enough to be in prison".
And, most famously, Kilmainham became the prison for nearly every revolutionary in Ireland's history. Most notably, each of the men involved in the 1916 Easter Rising were executed here. 14 in all. At the end, you will see the two pictures of black crosses in the courtyard. At one, 12 of them were executed and at the 2nd cross, the last two.

 The first 12 were each killed at this spot, by a firing squad of 12 men.

And here, at the other end of the courtyard, the last 2 were executed.

One beautiful/tragic/awful story was that of Joseph Plunkett (look for the pictures of his door) and Grace Gifford. He was a member of the Rising and was sentenced to death.

"One of the most poignant events that ever took place in Kilmainham was the marriage of Joseph Plunkett, one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, and Grace Gifford.

When she learned that her fiancé was to be executed, she persuaded the authorities to allow the wedding to go ahead in the prison. Thus on May 3rd 1916 the two were married in the small prison chapel.

The next morning Joseph Plunkett was shot by a firing squad. Grace lived until 1955 and never remarried. Grace herself became a prisoner in Kilmainham in February 1923, during the Civil War."

As our guide told us, they were married at 11:45 pm in the chapel (where our tour started) and 3 hours later he was executed. Awful...

 Sadly (poetically?) this is the long hallway from the chapel to Joseph Plunkett's door where he was married for 3 hours before being executed.

There were over 150 people executed here (around 10 of which were women). Approximately 50 executions took place at the front gate of the prison which were each a public spectacle. The majority were executed within the prison but some were killed at the sites of their offenses and some at others sites around the city.
The last prisoner held in Kilmainham was anti- treaty IRA leader Eamonn De Valera, who in later years served first as Toiseach (Prime Minister) and subsequently President of Ireland. I guess he's the only happy ending in this place. He actually got to walk out the doors. He lived until the age of 93.

 These are a bit creepy but I love them!

 haunting...

This is about 1 inch x 1.5 inch

 (one of the females executed)