Cork City Gaol

I came to Ireland via study abroad through my university and although these

blogs make it seem like I am not exactly doing the "study" part, I can assure you I still learning quite a bit here. In my most recent adventure, I went to Cork, Ireland and got to tour the Cork City Gaol - which was a prison used back in 1824. This may not seem interesting to many people, but as a criminal justice major, this was a very cool field trip. 

The city of Cork has transformed this old prison into an interactive museum that allows people to walk to halls of this old building and listen to the stories of old prisoners who spent part of their lives behind the walls of this gaol. I haven't been to many prisons - 2 before this one. One was another out-of-commission one while the other was a male prison in Albion, PA. I got to study there with inmates for a semester, such a cool experience. ANYWAY, this prison was the first one I went to with audio guides and wax figures, and I honestly really liked it. It allowed me to connect to the place on a more emotional level rather than just walking around and looking at empty cells. There was also a video that plays at the end where the judge explains the history of the gaol and introduces you to people who were on trial and locked up. This video took place in a circular tower, so every word echoed around you and made you feel surrounded by the word's the judge spoke.

There was one part of the prison that really stuck with me and that was the room full of old punishment methods. Depending on the type of crime you committed to get you incarcerated and what you do while you're in there, you would be forces to undergo a strict punishment. Some examples being whipping, untwisting rope, and being handcuffed to a never ended staircase that would crush you if you were unable to keep up with the pace. In the child section of the prison, there was a small boy being whipped by a guard because he committed theft, that was hard to look at and listen too.

While I was look at all these torture devices, it brought me back to a famous Heaney poem in his North collection titled "Punishment". This poem is his reflection on violence, betrayal, and complicity that is centered around the image of a bog body. He also draws this parallel between ancient punishment and the public shaming of women. There are themes of punishment, justice, complicity and guilt riddled through this poem and in the walls of Cork gaol. There are a couple lines in this poem that really resonated with me, and I felt best described the emotions at the prison.

"I am the artful voyeur

of your brain's exposed

and darkened combs,

your muscles' webbing

and all your numbered bones"

"who would connive

in civilized outrage

yet understand the exact

and tribal, intimate revenge"

These two stanzas held the most meaning to me because I feel the best represent what this prison was trying to get people to feel. Yes, the people locked up committed crimes, but the punishment did not fit the crime and the men, women, and children who went here underwent harsh living conditions and physically abusive conditions. So, even though I thoroughly enjoyed my time here, the underlying factor is that the people who were sentenced here suffered more than they deserved too.