The Ghosts of Kilmainham Gaol

There’s a place in Ireland that globetrotting ghosthunters agree is one of the most sorrowful and powerful on Earth.

This place.

Some years ago now, when Groupon still had those great international travel packages, I surprised my husband at Christmas with a trip to Ireland. He left from O’Hare airport New Year’s Day, and for the next two weeks he sent me hundreds of photographs, each more breathtaking and evocative than the one before, of the stunningly beautiful and deeply historic places the tour took him each day. Each night, he’d call me and roll out the stories of these places for me. But while each day’s tales were fascinating, I will never forget the night he called me after the day he visited Dublin’s Kilmainham Gaol (jail).

His voice was more sober than usual. He didn’t make jokes in an Irish brogue the way he had the nights before. I asked him if he was ok.

Now my husband is a former firefighter and paramedic. Years of service built a certain shell around his mind and heart. Though we investigated countless places both personally and as part of designing tours for our ghost tour company in Chicago, I rarely saw him fazed by the history of a location or by its current “feel.” But that night after the gaol visit was different. He was obviously shaken. Since that day, that spell has never been broken. And even now, some years later, when anyone asks him (knowing our history with ghosts), “What’s the most haunted place you’ve ever been?” he answers without a pause, “Kilmainham Gaol.”

Defiance

Though the Gaol is inextricably tied to the entire Irish diaspora, it is most intimately connected to its environs, where every building, every street, every green space even, seems to breathe the very air of the former prison. If you’re planning an event at the Hilton Kilmainham in Dublin, you can pick meeting rooms named after mayrtered Irish rebels  William Connolly and Padraic Pearce, leaders of the infamous and ill-fated April 1916 Easter Uprising. They also have a meeting room called “The Gaol,” a far cry fromits namesake down the street, where the revolutionaries were held in cells which still bear some of their names. Sixteen of them were executed by the British in May 1916, all by firing squad in the prison courtyard, hidden from view by high stone walls. William Connolly, gravely wounded in the uprising and unable to stand, was carried into the courtyard on a stretcher and then strapped to a chair in order for his sentence to be carried out. The rebels’ killings sparked outrage not only in Ireland but also in the United States and Britain and played a key part in the eventual independence of Ireland in 1923.

Behind The Walls

When opened by the British in 1796, Kilmainham was christened the “New Gaol,” replacing an older, notoriously dank and disease-ridden dungeon nearby. For more than a century it stood as a menacing symbol of British imperialism.  Life inside was the stuff of legend. At first, the cells—an average of 28 meters square—held as many as five inmates each, including women and children (one just seven years old). The tenants of these cells were provided with a single candle each fortnight, as a result spending long hours in the frigid darkness.  Some time before 1809, a women’s wing was established, with the female prisoners given straw to soften their slumber. When the Great Famine decimated the country, Kilmainham was near to bursting.  Starvation, helplessness and fury erupted in frequent violence, but in addition to those related incarcerations many of the starving deliberately committed crimes knowing they’d find a meal—however meager—behind the prison walls.  In 1850, at the height of the nation’s suffering, more than nine thousand people did time at Kilmainham Gaol. 

fighting for history

Kilmainham Gaol ceased operating as a prison in 1924, after the Irish Free State declared independence. After its closure, years of resistance blocked the recognition of Kilmainham Gaol as a national historic site. The suffering and death of the Irish revolutionaries at the jail led many to disown it as a memorial site to the heroes of Ireland’s Civil War.  Though some officials considered reopening it as a jail , before 1930 that idea had been thoroughly rejected. By the mid thirties, the Prison board had decided to tear it down, but thankfully  the cost was prohibitive.  In the late 1930s, a Republican club known as the National Graves Association proposed the long-ago scrapped idea of turning the jail into a memorial site.  This time, the proposition was met with interest and energy by a number of local organizations and individuals, and Dublin’s Commissioners of Public Works set out to determine the feasibility of such a project.  The Department of Education refused to move artifacts from the Easter Uprising from the National Museum to a new Gaol museum but suggested having portraits of the 1916 rebels commissioned for hanging in their former cells.  However, the First World War put a halt to the entire project as all funding was frozen in the interest of the War effort.

By World War II, the prison structure had significantly deteriorated under the fierce Irish elements. At that point, the Office of Public Works recommended the demolition of all but the jail yard and rev’lutionaries' cell blocks, and the department of Education continued to oppose the transfer of artifacts to the location. 

By the hand of some Irish angel, efforts to save the Gaol yet continued throughout the 1950s. In 1958 the Kilmainham Prison Restoration Society was founded by a group of locals headed by Dublin engineer Lorcan C.G. Leonard after Leonard learned of the Office of Public Works’ call for demolition estimates from contractors. They set aside the idea of a memorial to the Irish rebels in favor of a memorial to the entire Civil War, and they suggested that the renovation be done with donated materials and labor. Though it wasn’t the end of deliberations over the project, a restoration of the Gaol was approved by the Department of finance in the winter of 1960.

That spring, with the help of scores of volunteers, work began to clear overgrown flora and damaged stonework. By 1962, the execution yard had been cleared of every last weed and pebble, and in April of 1966 the doors of Kimainham Gaol opened to its first tourists.

The Ghosts of Kilmainham

Throughout the renovation, volunteers were keenly aware that their work was accompanied by unseen observers. Footsteps—including the sound of an entire marching brigade—were commonly reported by the workers, as was a feeling a intense menace around and inside the old prison chapel. One volunteer, painting in the former dungeon alone, was suddenly thrown across the room by an unseen force. Attempting to flee up the staircase, he was held back by invisible hands. When he finally gained his freedom he vowed to never return.

Many of the experiences endured by those selfless volunteers in the days of the Gaol’s restoration are echoed today, by both staff members and visitors to Kilmainham, now a museum and one of the most popular tourist attractions in all of Ireland. In addition to the footfalls and malevolent entities sensed by many, full body apparitions have also been reported, dressed in rags of days gone by, appearing mournful or enraged.

AND SO. . .

This month we pray for all souls who died in Dublin’s Kilmainham Jail, and for the souls of all who fought for Ireland’s freedom, in 1916, before and after.

We also ask our Blessed Lord and St. Michael the Archangel to protect the Gaol’s stewards and visitors and their historic home from all evil.

Eternal rest grant unto them,

and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed

Through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Amen.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray. and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

Thanks for taking this supernatural journey to Ireland with me. You can help have Masses said for the souls of Kilmainham Gaol by purchasing a ticket to my monthly livestream lecture on Chicago’s Irish Ghosts on March 15th (more information here), or by becoming a Patreon supporter at any level (but check out the higher tiers, too, and this month’s exclusive Kilmainham Gaol tees, candles and pins). You can also purchase these items individually in the Supernatural Shop.

I’ll see you here next month for another visit. In the meantime, remember to #prayforghosts!