Last week room 17 & 15 we went to Kilmainham Gaol! We went on the bus to Kilmainham which took around 25 minutes to get there. Once we got there we met our guide Alan, & he showed us around. The first place we saw was the chapel where Joseph Plunkett (Leader of the 1916 Easter Rising) got married to Grace Gifford. The story of the pair is very sad since they got married in the prison & after 10 minutes they couldn’t see each other anymore. The day after, Joseph was shot dead by firing squad.The brothers Frank and Seán O’Meara made the song ‘Grace’ after them.
Next, we went to see the prison cells which was really cool. During The Famine, life was so bad that people were purposely committing crimes just so they would be jailed and guaranteed food. Fun Fact! The youngest prisoner was Thomas Roberts, he was 3 years old, he was jailed for begging. Since everybody was doing this Kilmainham Gaol made the decision to only give one meal a day.
After a while, we went to the bigger cells which were built in 1861. This wing was much nicer than the last one. Fun Fact! A scene from Paddington 2 was shot in Kilmainham Gaol East Wing!
Next, we went to the exercise yard. One of the prisoners’ activities was to carry cannon balls from one side of the yard to another and repeat. That was later taken away when a prisoner threw a cannon ball at an officer. We also got to see where the leaders of the 1916 Rising were shot by firing squads, this was called the Stonebreakers Yard, it was very eerie.
Afterwards, we went to Kilmainham Museum where we saw the ring that Joseph gave to Grace, it was really nice. We also got to see one of the original proclamations which was very interesting.
When the tour was over we went to eat our lunch in a park nearby, it was really sunny. Our class played room 15 in football and we won, the boys were very competitive. At around two o’clock, we went on the bus back to school. We had a brilliant time visiting Kilmainham Gaol, we think every student in Ireland should visit there.
Thanks for reading.
Fareedah and Ola, Rm 17
