St Mary's is a large cruciform parish church in sandstone, sometimes referred to as the "cathedral of South Cheshire". Mainly in decorated style with later perpendicular additions, it was restored in 1854–61 by George Gilbert Scott. The exterior has an octagonal tower; the interior has an unusual stone lierne-vault above the chancel, carved oak canopied choir stalls (late 14th century), a perpendicular stone pulpit and a later wooden example (1601). The church was used as a prison during the Civil War.
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Countess Markievicz played an active part in the Easter Rising of 1916 and in post-1916 Irish history. Born in 1868 as Constance Gore-Booth, Countess Markievicz was sentenced to death for her part in the Easter Uprising but had the sentence commuted to life imprisonment on account of her gender. More about her here: www.historylearningsite.co.uk/countess_markievicz.htm
Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe, covering some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland's emergence as a modern nation from 1780s to the 1920s. Attractions include a major exhibition detailing the political and penal history of the prison and its restoration, though when we visited much of it was closed to visitors because of building works (Sep 2014 to Dec 2015). It is Located 3.5km from the centre of Dublin.
Extract from Wikipedia:
When it was first built in 1796, Kilmainham Gaol was called the 'New Gaol' to distinguish it from the old gaol it was intended to replace - a noisome dungeon, just a few hundred yards from the present site. It was officially called the County of Dublin Gaol, and was originally run by the Grand Jury for County Dublin.
Originally, public hangings took place at the front of the gaol. However, from the 1820s onward very few hangings, public or private, took place at Kilmainham. A small hanging cell was built in the gaol in 1891, on the first floor, between the West and East Wings.
There was no segregation of prisoners; men, women and children were incarcerated up to five in each cell. With only a single candle for light and heat, most of their time was spent in the cold and the dark. The candle had to last the prisoner for two weeks.
Children were sometimes arrested for petty theft, the youngest said to be a seven year-old child, while many of the adult prisoners were transported to Australia.
At Kilmainham the poor conditions in which women prisoners were kept provided the spur for the next stage of development. Remarkably, for an age that prided itself on a protective attitude for the 'weaker sex', the conditions for women prisoners were persistently worse than for men. As early as his 1809 report the Inspector had observed that male prisoners were supplied with iron bedsteads while females 'lay on straw on the flags in the cells and common halls.' Half a century later there was little improvement: the women's section, located in the West Wing, remained overcrowded.
Kilmainham Gaol was decommissioned as a prison by the Irish Free State government in 1924. Seen principally as a site of oppression and suffering, there was at this time no declared interest in its preservation as a monument to the struggle for national independence. The gaol's potential function as a location of national memory was also complicated by the fact that the first four republican prisoners executed by the Free State government during the Irish Civil War were shot in the prison yard.
The Irish Prison Board contemplated reopening it as a prison during the 1920s but all such plans were finally abandoned in 1929. In 1936 the government considered demolition but the cost of this was seen as prohibitive. Republican interest in the site began to develop from the late 1930s, most notably with the proposal by the National Graves Association, a republican organisation, to preserve the site as both a museum and memorial to the 1916 Easter Rising. However, with the advent of the Emergency the proposal was shelved for the duration of the war.
An architectural survey after World War II revealed that the gaol was in a ruinous condition. The Commissioners of Public Works proposed only the prison yard and those cell blocks deemed to be of national importance should be preserved and that the rest of the site should be demolished. This proposal was not acted upon.
From the late 1950s a grassroots movement for the preservation of Kilmainham Gaol began to develop. Lorcan C.G. Leonard, a young engineer, along with a small number of like-minded nationalists, formed the Kilmainham Jail Restoration Society in 1958. A scheme was devised whereby the prison would be restored and a museum built using voluntary labour and donated materials.
By 1962 the symbolically important prison yard where the leaders of the 1916 rising were executed had been cleared of rubble and weeds and the restoration of the Victorian section of the prison was nearing completion. The final restoration of the site was completed in 1971 when the prison chapel was re-opened to the public having been reroofed and refloored and its altar reconstructed.
An art gallery on the top floor exhibits paintings, sculptures and jewelry of prisoners incarcerated in prisons all over contemporary Ireland.
Kilmainham Gaol has aptly been described as the 'Irish Bastille'.
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Members of my family fought alongside Countess Markievicz in 1916, and they survived the Easter Uprising and subsequent civil war (see e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norgrove_Family).
Tags: Kilmainham Gaol Dublin Easter Rising Irish Free State Irish Civil War
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Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire in the West Midlands. In recent years it has been hit by the economic recession and in particular by public sector cuts (there are a lot of jobs in administration in the town), but boosted by an influx of staff into nearby military sites.
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I'm not sure what happened here. Perhaps the prisoners trashed the toilets on their last day. Doing it any earlier would have been a mistake.
Tags: toilet lavatory khasi restroom bogs Alcatraz prison jail gaol San Francisco California
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The 14th century St Mary's Church (listed grade I) is a large cruciform parish church in sandstone, sometimes referred to as the "cathedral of South Cheshire". Mainly in decorated style with later perpendicular additions, it was restored in 1854–61 by George Gilbert Scott. The exterior has an octagonal tower; the interior has an unusual stone lierne-vault above the chancel, carved oak canopied choir stalls (late 14th century), a perpendicular stone pulpit and a later wooden example (1601). The church was used as a prison during the Civil War (1640s).
Tags: Nantwich St Mary's Church Grade 1 Listed sculpture Grade I Listed
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