Cork is a lovely city. Not that big, plenty of pubs and restaurants, college crowd, art house cinema. I was thoroughly impressed.
The Cork City Gaol (apparently an old English word for jail) was an unusually interesting tour. The jail was made in the 1820s and stopped functioning about a century later. It’s on the northwestern outskirts of the city centre, where they wanted to give the inmates a fresh breeze with a hilltop view. Isn’t that nice?
Front gate building
Entrance and outside one of the wings
It was the tape-player-and-a-headset kind of tour, and usually I ain’t too keen on those types of things. But this one was actually interesting. As you walked from cell to cell, the tape would tell you about the former occupants (some in mannequin fashion, some simply the tape’s quaint Irish accented voice), their misdeeds, their struggles on the inside, etc. I’m always one for tales of societal angst or life inside prisons, semi-medieval or not. This prison actually housed most of the political prisoners of the early part of the 1900s, including author Frank O’Connor and Michael Sullivan.
Who knew history could be so fun? With creepy mannequins to boot!
You would come upon a scene like this and the tape would say something like, “This is Mary Bowles. She was convicted of stealing from her neighbors and starving her children to near death. Mary is upset right now, because she has to do what every newcomer is required to do upon arriving here, give up her outside clothes for the standard issue prison ones.” See how much you can learn just from that small scene?!
I learned I like taking pictures of mannequins. They’re a lot easier to deal with than people.
Don’t worry. According to the tape, this ten-year-old boy was in there for stealing food from the markets and pickpocketing travelers at the local pubs. Totally justifies the daily whipping he received.
Early 20th century graffiti from the numerous IRA members and general protesters of the English and early Irish governments who were forced into the prison to keep their ideas off the streets.
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Well, I’m in Edinburgh, Scotland right now, just for a couple of days. I have one more set of Ireland to post. I’ll try to get it up in the next couple of days. I’ll give you a hint to what it is: I can officially now say that I have truly indeed kissed the Blarney Stone. Eternal eloquence and persuasiveness are now mine.
Nice to hear you’re finally getting some foreign action. Sweeeet.