Crumlin Road Gaol is located a few kilometers from Belfast city center and is the only remaining Victorian prison in Northern Ireland.
It was built between 1843 and 1845 and was one of the most advanced prisons in the United Kingdom at the time.
Sometimes referred to as Europe’s Alcatraz, it features a five-sided wall and the cells were designed using the “separate system,” meaning prisoners could not communicate with each other while in their cells.
The most infamous of these prisoners include Eamon de Valera, Irish political leader and third President of Ireland; Martin McGuinness, former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland; and Bobby Sands, a member of the Provisional IRA and leader of the 1981 hunger strike.
After closing permanently in 1996, Crumlin Road Gaol was abandoned. Restoration work began only in 2010, leading to its reopening in 2012.
Moving from one room to the next, visitors walk on the original floors of the former prison, as do many of the original features that have remained unchanged over 150 years of history.
Upon entering, the first room is the Governor’s office, where the prison’s administrative life was centered. The tour continues through Wing C and finally reaches the area reserved for those sentenced to death.
In the last room, visitors find a desk and a wooden cross above the bed. This place was available only to those condemned to death, who spent several weeks in these spaces before being executed.
Hidden behind a false bookcase concealing a door, the gallows room awaited the condemned.
Once the execution was over, the body was lowered to the lower level where the coffin awaited. The bodies of the 17 executed were buried in the prison cemetery without a headstone.
Beneath the former prison, you can enter the basement, the original 84-meter-long passageway that connected the Crumlin Road Gaol to the Courthouse and which prisoners used to walk to be tried.
The Courthouse is located across the road from the prison and is now abandoned, with its roof collapsed and windows bricked up.
