Mountjoy : The Story of a Prison

Mountjoy is an epic story. Since 1850, a cast of over 250,000 people has passed through its walls. They included ordinary prisoners, thieves, and the most vicious of murderers, as well as some of the most famous figures in Irish history: O’Donovan Rossa, Eamon de Valera, Hanna Sheey Skeffington, Arthur Griffith, and Brendan Behan. The story of this city of cells is intertwined with historical issues and events that set it in a broader context: the invention of prisons, how they were viewed by society and those who inhabited them, capital punishment, and the role of the prison in Irish history, especially during the Civil War. This book opens a new window on Mountjoy’s remarkable and often bizarre history. “The author’s ambitious grasp of the entire Irish penal system promises to serve as the foundation for future generations of Irish social historians.”