Kilmainham Gaol · The Executed in the Yard

Kilmainham Gaol has a “Victorian” wing on the east side: iron stairs and galleries face an open yard, so that a warder standing in the middle can see every level at once. The surveillance was designed into the building.

The leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were executed here. After the founding of the Irish state the prison went on holding people, and it was abandoned in the 1960s.

It is now a museum. Tours take visitors through the execution yard and the cells. The guides rarely add adjectives; they say which person, which day, what time.

Historical Mysteries / Dublin · Ireland / 1796