Leaving the hotel, we returned to St. Stephen's Green to get on the "hop on, hop off" bus again, this time to go to Kilmanheim Gaol. (Kil- comes from an old Irish word that means church, so Kilmanheim means the church at Manheim, and Gaol is the Irish word for prison). There was a museum and a guided tour that we took, which explained the rich history of the place. It was restored in the 1960s by a group who was dedicated to preserving this piece of Irish history, provided that its use during the Civil War was not highlighted, as public opinion regards this as a black mark upon Irish history. The cells of notable prisoners (most of them political) are marked with placards above the wall. The prison was revolutionary when it opened in that it followed a new standard for prisons at the time, that of isolation and separation of prisoners. Traditional prisons housed petty thieves with murderers and men with women and children in large, one-room jails. Kilmanheim Gaol had individual cells with observation peepholes built into the door so the prisoners felt that they were under constant supervision. There was a hole at eye level for looking in, and a lower hole at waist level, where a candle could be held, to light the interior of the cell. The guards even went so far as to put pieces of carpet in front of the cell doors so they could sneak up on the prisoners.
The main building of the prison itself is a three-storey gallery with a single point of entry for each floor and a massive skylight, to improve morale among the prisoners. Each cell had a door with the aforementioned peepholes, but also an open hole cut into the wall adjacent to the door. Kilmanheim Gaol was on a hill, away from the city, and so there was almost constant wind blowing in and out of the jail. These holes were cut to allow for continuous airflow to circulate out the old air, thought to cause disease. The walls were made of limestone, however, so they trapped moisture and disease was rampant amongst the prisoner population. The main room of the prison is built with acoustics in mind, such that a warden could hear a prisoner making noise on the far opposite side of the gallery with ease. The prisoners were expected to keep quiet, and the acoustics in the gallery allowed the guards to enforce this rule. The acoustics are so good that orchestras and some bands, including U2, have played concerts in the jail.
In the older part of the jail, there is an exercise yard, which was really a 20m square of gravel, where the prisoners would exercise in the cold Dublin air an hour a day by being blindfolded, instructed not to talk, separated by gender, and told to walk in a large circle counterclockwise. Near the exercise yard is the original gate where the leaders of the Easter Rising were brought into the Gaol, and a memorial on the place where they were executed by soldiers of the Crown. 13 of the 14 leaders of the Easter Rising were imprisoned from the GPO building, brought to the Gaol, and shot in a private courtyard. Executions in the Gaol were usually by public hanging, which was a form of entertainment in that day, but due to the political nature of these prisoners, the British soldiers thought it best to execute them away from the public eye. The last leader, James Connolly, avoided imprisonment in the Gaol due to illness. On the day he was to be executed, he was transported by military ambulance to the Gaol, brought in through the gate still standing today, into the courtyard where his fellow leaders were shot. He was told to walk across the courtyard to the place where his compatriots died, but was too ill to walk. He was not even able to make it to the close side of the courtyard. The soldiers tied him to a chair and shot him on the opposite side of the courtyard. Today, two crosses mark the spots where the leaders of the Easter Rising died, one on each side of the dismal courtyard. Once the public found out about the private executions, support for the Nationalists surged. Public opinion was that the executions were an overreaction, especially in the midst of the war, and eventually fueled the Nationalist movement to victory.
After the somber afternoon, we got back on the bus where it began to rain. It's always raining in Dublin, and if it's not, then it's about to. As we drove east along the River Liffey, I saw the red brick house that James Joyce's aunts lived in, south of the bridge attributed to him. This house served as the setting of the dinner party in The Dead, a short story from the Dubliners.
We returned to the hotel for lunch and many presentations about academic and cultural life in Ireland. After an afternoon of presentations, we had dinner as a group for the last time at the Barge Bar on Charlemont street. The entire pub is shaped like a barge, complete with internal ribbing and portholes. It is situated along the river, and part of the outer deck is actually a barge of sorts. I had more fish and chips, and tried brown sauce for the first time. It is an interesting mix between sweet and tangy, kind of like barbecue sauce, but with much more vinegar. After dinner, we parted with Hilary and Emily, who had been leading our orientation for the past two days, and they returned to Scotland, to the EAP United Kingdom Offices.
Later that night, a group of us went to The Bleeding Horse on Upper Camden, which was an original pub, established in 1649. I had my first Jameson, and after going outside for some fresh air, got carded for the first time. The bouncer struck up a conversation with us, and we talked for an hour or so about California and school. If you tell Irish people you are from America, you get a kind of polite indifferent smile, but if you tell them you are from California, they ask, which part?
In the hotel room, An American In Paris was playing on Sky.
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Go raibh maith agat.
(Irish, literal: A thousand thanks)
Thanks a million!