'The Women's Gaol'

Cork City Gaol Cork City Gaol is located near our school in an area called Sundays Well. The Gaol was constructed in 1824. In the beginning it served as a prison for both males and females of all aged. Later it became the city's women's prison. During the nineteenth century conditions within the prison were wretched. Prisoners slept on straw, were fed with a meagre nation of bread and gruel and whipped for breaking prison rules. Most prisoners ended up in the City Gaol for ended up in the City Gaol for offences, which we would now not consider serious. In most cases their major crime was rampant in the city during the nineteenth century. The cell became home to young boys caught stealing and mothers nursing babies as well as the committed criminals. There are also stories of the city's poor committing crimes in order to be put in the prison, where at least they would be fed. In 1922 the gaol was used to house republican prisoners during the Civil War. These were the last people imprisoned here. Cork Gaol closed soon after. In 1927 Radio Eireann set up a broadcasting station,6ck, in the former gaol. Today the 'Radio Museum Experience' includes remarkable equipment from the R.T.E. Museum Collection. It is located in the original studio and gives us an excellent insight into the early days of Irish and international radio broadcasting. Some of the class wrote their own stories about what it might have been like in the gaol back then. These are to be found in 'Stories from the Gaol'

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