Sligo Old Gaol Opens to Public

25/08/2010 -

Sunday 22nd August saw an Open Day at the Old Sligo Gaol as part of Heritage Week 2010. This unique tour bought visitors back to a time when the Gaol had a huge influence within the County and the wider region. Staff from Sligo Local Authorities worked with the Sligo Youth theatre to make the tour an interactive experience.

Since 1818, Sligo Gaol has never been open to the public.  Sunday 22nd August was the first time ever that the public were able to see at first hand a building that has been secreted away and shielded from public view for almost 200 years. The tours were booked out and such has been the interest that another open day can be arranged for a later date.

Plans of the Old Gaol as it was on display for the Open day

The tour started off with Sligo Youth Theatre re-enacting some of the activities of the wardens and prisoners in the jail. The tour then takes you around the gaol buildings. Visitors were also given a  history of the architecture of the buildings through the years and background to some of the more famous inmates.

   
Members of Sligo Youth Theatre act out the roles of police, prisoners & wardens as part of the tour. Photos by James Fraher

Former inmates of Sligo Gaol include prominent figures associated with the emerging Irish State and figures of national significance are naturally remembered.  Michael Davitt was briefly imprisoned in Sligo Gaol in 1879 after his speech at the first meeting of the Land League, held at Gurteen, County Sligo in that year (McTernan, p.422).  In 1918, Michael Collins was held in the Gaol after making a speech against conscription to the British army (McTernan, P.264 and Collins’ Diaries).  In his prison diary his recurrent observation is that he could not sleep and ‘must get this wretched mattress changed’.  He also records that, ‘By standing on my table I can see Knocknareagh.’   

 
Sligo Youth Theatre bring the tour to life for visitors. Photo by James Fraher

On 26 June 1920, a party of approximately 100 volunteers from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) undertook a raid in Sligo Gaol with the aim of liberating Frank Carty, the OC of the South Sligo Brigade of the IRA and the newly elected Sinn Fein council of Sligo Town Council.   The IRA members forced open the main gate of the gaol and the inner doors.  They then forced the nightwatchman to turn over the keys to the cells and they released Carty who was taken away in a waiting motor car.  In 1915, the Italian, Angelo DeLucia was the last man appointed to be hung in Sligo, along with his mistress accomplice Jane Reynolds who bore a child to DeLucia whilst serving her sentence yet both were pardoned after a petition was organised.

When the new Gaol was first opened, executions took place on the open ground in front of the Gaol.  The last public execution is said to have been that of Matthew Phibbs, ‘the Ballymote Slasher’, on the 19th August 1861 (some elements of the contemporary account suggest that he may not actually have been executed in public).  After 1862, executions took place in the treadmill yard, which was also referred to as ‘the hangman’s yard’.  The bodies of executed prisoners were interred in the yard and there seems to be no evidence of exhumations and re-interment before construction of the existing machinery yard. 

 
On the left prisoners deemed unstable were held in cells in the lunatic wing and on the right part of the prisoner wing where men, women & children were held. Photos by James Fraher

The final public hanging at Sligo Gaol occurred on 19 August 1861 when 26 year old Ballymote native Mathew Phibbs, also known as the "Ash Lane Murderer", was hung for murdering William and Fanny Callaghan and a servant girl Anne Mooney in January of the same year.  The last person to be hanged within the prison was a Mr. Doherty of Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim in 1903 who was convicted of murdering his son.

During the 1950s the number of prisoners detained in the prison was low and dropped to less than 15.  The prison subsequently closed on 5 June 1956 after the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, James Everett passed the Sligo Prison Closing Order, 1956 on 25 April 1956 and the prisoners were transferred to Mountjoy Prison.  The last Governor of the Gaol was John Francis Moody.
 After its closure in 1956, the complex passed to Sligo County Council and remained largely unused.  In 1963 the Council decided to use the Gaol as a store and machinery yard.  In due course, several important components of the structure, including the tread mill, portions of the cell blocks, the infirmary, female prison and parts of the front south boundary wall and main entrance were, unfortunately, demolished to facilitate the construction of a fire station by Sligo County Council. 

 
Today, the cell blocks are largely unused except for storage and a small amount of workshop space.  The remainder of the complex continues in a variety of uses including office accommodation in the Governor’s House and Marshalsea (Debtors Prison) and, until 2010, a machinery yard with associated outbuildings of recent origin.

One of the groups look around the cells of the Old Gaol on the Open Day tour. Photo by James Fraher

Siobhán Ryan, Heritage Officer with Sligo County Council outlined that a Conservation Plan has been prepared for Sligo Gaol. At its simplest, a conservation plan is a document which explains why a site is significant and how that significance will be retained in any future use, alteration, development or repair.   ‘It is about putting policies in place to protect significance, but it is not a management plan or programme of conservation works per se’ she added.  Once the draft conservation plan is finalised it will be presented to Sligo County Council before being put on public display as part of the public consultation phase.  It is expected that public consultation will take place during the Autumn. 

 
The Old Gaol as it is today. Photo by James Fraher

The Open Day was the first step towards raising awareness of Sligo Gaol and the important role that it has played in the lives of many people in County Sligo and the surrounding counties and the way that it reflected wider social change.