I've been wanting to go for a while, but it is a little difficult to get there. Not really -- we took the Dart to Connelly and then the Luas. Not a big deal just further out than we had been before.
I get really interested in these sorts of tourist sites. I'm a huge sucker for the historical underdog. I've been to every Stasi museum (or museum like that) in every central or Eastern European city and country I've ever visited.
The Kilmainham Gaol was a prison built basically at the just prior to the Irish Rebellion of 1798, also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion. In fact, the history of the jail as an institution is intimately linked with the story of the Irish nationalism.
The Rebellion of 1798 was an uprising against the British rule in Ireland and lasted from May to September of 1798. Since 1691, Ireland had been controlled by a minority of Protestant members of a church loyal to the British Crown. It governed through the form of institutionalized sectarianism codified in the Penal Laws. These laws discriminated against the majority Irish Catholic population as well as all non-Anglican Protestants in the country.
According to Edmund Burke: the Penal Laws were “a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."
Inspired by the American Revolutionary Wars and the French Revolution, liberal elements of the ruling class in Ireland wanted to change things up. Wolfe Tone founded the Society United Irishmen in 1791 (he is known as the father of Irish Republicanism). The goal of the group was to establish an independent Irish republic, and essentially this group launched the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
The Rebellion ended rather miserably, even with help from French armies. The rebels fought a nasty gorilla war and tons of people died (there is speculation that this was the concentrated outbreak of violence in Irish history).
Upon his capture, Wolfe Tone famously said, "From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced, that while it lasted, this country would never be free or happy. In consequence, I determined to apply all the powers which my individual efforts could move, in order to separate the two countries." After being denied a soldier's death by firing squad, Wolfe Tone cheated the hangman by cutting his own throat.
Four rebellions followed (1803, 1848, 1867 and the famous Easter Rising of 1916). The majority of Irish leaders in all of the rebellions were imprisoned in Kilmainham. According to Wikipedia: "In the period of time extending from its opening in 1796 until its decommissioning in 1924 [Kilmainham Gaol] has been, barring the notable exceptions of Daniel O'Connell and Michael Collins, a site of incarceration of every significant Irish nationalist leader of both the constitutional and physical force traditions."
What is particularly important about the jail happened after the Easter Rising of 1916. At that time, as I think I have noted on this blog, public opinion about another rebellion was ambivalent. Many people had served themselves or had sons serving with England in WWI (which started in 1914 here). The thought was that if Ireland helped, that independence would certainly be on its way once the war was over. Just prior to this time, the Sinn Fein (which means "we ourselves") movement seemed dormant and was without a dynamic leader.
At the same time a union/worker-rights movement was rising and James Connolly had founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood. To some, it seemed that the British involvement in the war was an opportune time for another rising
"After the events of Easter Sunday, 1916, the nationalist leaders that supported an independent Irish Republic were all quickly court-martialed, then brutally shot (executed) at Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol (prison) by the British.Within that prison's central courtyard (marked by a cross shown above) bravely stood the Irish heros, Eamonn Ceannt, Tom Clarke, Cornelius Colbert, James Connolly, Edward Daly, Sean Mac Diarmada, Sean J. Heuston, Michael Mallin, Major John McBride, Thomas McDonough, Michael O'Hanrahan, Patrick Pearse, William Pearse and Joseph Plunkett.
All were marched (blindfolded) into this prison courtyard, then executed at point-blank range by British solders. James Connolly was so badly injured in previous fighting that he could not stand, so he was placed in a chair, and then shot. Thomas Kent was later shot in Cork, Ireland, and Roger Casemen was hanged in London, England.
Despite its military failure - mainly because of the overpowering force of British troops in Dublin - this event, this 'Easter Rising" is rightfully judged as the most significant inspiration in the eventual creation of the Irish Republic."
Dublin was small at the time, so people knew these men and knew that they now had widows and young children who survived them just out of spite by the British. These events caused public opinion to shift and support the rising.
In December 1918, republicans (then represented by the Sinn Fein party) won 73 Irish seats out of 105 in the General Election to the British Parliament, on a platform of Irish independence. In January 1919, the elected members of Sinn Féin who were not still in prison at the time, including survivors of the Rising, convened the First Dail and established the Irish Republic.
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