Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

DOI 10.1007/s10761-016-0355-4

Graffiti Revelations and the Changing Meanings

of Kilmainham Gaol in (Post)Colonial Ireland

Laura McAtackney 1

Published online: 22 July 2016

# European Union 2016

Abstract Kilmainham Gaol (1796–1924) became the de facto holding center for
political prisoners in Ireland by the mid-nineteenth century. Officially closing in
1910, it reopened a number of times for Bemergencies^ before its final closure after
the Irish Civil War (1922–23). After 1924 it lay abandoned until reopening as a heritage
attraction in the early 1960s. It was taken into state protection in 1986. Using a range of
graffiti assemblages predominantly dating from 1910 onwards this paper will explore
the Bimperial debris^ of contested narratives of meaning, ownership, and identity that
the prison walls continue to materialize.

Keywords Prison . Graffiti . War . Ireland

Introduction

Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin operated as a prison from 1796 to 1924 and is now one of
the most popular fee-charging tourist attractions in Ireland (Fáilte Ireland 2013). While
an historic colonial prison may seem an unusual tourist attraction, its appeal lies in the
heightened place of political imprisonment in the Irish nationalist imagination. Follow-
ing Neil Jarman (2001, p. 290), discussing Long Kesh/Maze prison in Northern Ireland,
it is clear that prisons play a significant role in Ireland as a transitional state due to their
ability to symbolize both the power and vulnerability of the state and those incarcer-
ated. This is particularly true of Kilmainham Gaol, whose predominant population in
the closing years of its functional life was political prisoners. However, the association
of Kilmainham Gaol with the bitterness of civil war (1922–23) has ensured that its
transition from colonial bastion to figurehead of national commemoration has been

* Laura McAtackney
laura.mcatackney@cas.au.dk

1
Department of Archaeology, Aarhus University, Building 4215, Moesgaard Manor, Moesgaard
Allé, Hjøbjerg 8270, Denmark
Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505 493

neither smooth nor inevitable. This paper argues that the remnants of graffiti that
continue to fill much of the interior of the prison are a particularly poignant
materialisation of the complexities of the post-colonial transition that reveal a variety
of (often forgotten) previous occupants as well as the evolving meanings of this
institution.

Ireland and Colonialization

Ireland has had a long, complicated and entangled colonial relationship with its near
neighbor, Great Britain, which dates back at least to the Norman invasion of Ireland in
the twelfth century; a longevity that helps explain the contestation as to whether Ireland
was indeed a true Bcolony.^ Liam Kennedy (1996) has argued the Irish in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not call the island a colony, despite displaying
obvious colonial features, making the term anachronistic. However, Sean Ryder (2005,
pp. 165–185) has highlighted a need to be more reflexive in how words such as
Bcolonial^ and BEmpire^ were used historically and to consider their highly loaded
associations with progress and modernity, or lack thereof, in the past. He argues that the
language employed by Irish nationalists prior to independence begins to shift into
terminology we associate with later anti-colonial movements and therefore should be
considered implicitly acknowledging a colonial status.
Regardless of terminology or uniqueness of political relationship, Ireland’s extrac-
tion from its formal union with Great Britain was protracted and bore similarities to
other anti-colonial movements. Pressure for partial independence in the form of Home
Rule gained momentum from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, until Ireland gained
limited freedom following the contentious Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921). This legislation
allowed for the partition of the island into a retained, British six counties (Northern
Ireland) with the remaining 26 counties becoming the Irish Free State. Eventually, a
new constitution was adopted in 1937 that renamed the Free State and claimed the
entire island as Éire. Yet another constitutional shift saw the creation of the Republic of
Ireland in 1949. This extended extraction is indicative of the practical difficulties and
psychological barriers inherent in the decolonialization process and how it is often
accompanied by hesitation at making irreparable ruptures. From an archaeological
viewpoint decolonialization can leave significant material traces—often linked to
institutions of the colonial regime—that retain power even as they lie in a transformed
or ruined state (see Stoler 2008).
Kilmainham Gaol is one of the most infamous colonial institutions in the country,
often called Bthe Bastille of Ireland^ (including O’Dwyer 2010), whose extant graffiti
reveals how these issues take material form through reference to both everyday
experience and extraordinary event. I argue the entanglement of the colonial and
institutional is most poignantly materialized in Ireland at Kilmainham Gaol. An early
form of a purpose-built prison, it was designed by the English prison reformer John
Howard but unexpectedly gained increasing significance in the Irish colonial state as
the push for independence neared reality (Cooke 1995). Focusing on the last days of the
functioning prison, the period now known as BRevolutionary Ireland^ (ca. 1912–24),
the institution’s remaining graffiti is poignant for a number of reasons, the most
prominent being: revealing the entangled nature of this carceral institution with its past
494 Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

colonial masters; articulating divergent views on what postcolonial Ireland should be;
and highlighting the longstanding and meaningful nature of this imperial debris.

The Colonial and the Institutional in Pre-Independence Ireland

The dominance of the intertwined colonial and institutional systems increasingly

emerged in the British state and Empire from the late eighteenth century. While
European colonization had been a longstanding global project from the fifteenth
century (although it should be noted it did not take a homogeneous form, impact or
materialization [see Voss 2012, pp. 13–16]), increasingly centralized social control,
both at home and abroad, focused on a conjoined colonial and institutional framework.
During what Eric Hobsbawm (1989, pp. 23) has called the BAge of Empire^, Britain
reached the apex of its power for a short period that corresponded with a time of
capitalist expansion, industrialization on a vast scale and the broad acceptance of the
Bvalues, assumptions and institutions of the British liberal democracy.^ The colonial
institution became the preferred form of imposing acceptance of British standards in the
Empire, before the entity started to unravel due to increasing pressures for colonial
independence and in the aftermath of brutal and industrialized warfare (1914–18).
Examination of the British Empire as a material entity is already well-trodden
ground for material culture specialists (including Edwards et al. 2006; Thomas
1991). However, it is especially fruitful to examine the added dynamic of the devel-
opment of the colonial institution as its primary mechanism of control. Institutions in
colonial settings were important due to their heightened effectiveness (and brutality)
when entangled and utilized together (as highlighted in Casella’s (2012, pp. 31–49)
analysis of the use of Australian penal institutions in breaking emotional ties). Michel
Foucault (1991) has shown that institutions, and prisons in particular, were a product of
Enlightenment ideals that foregrounded reason and individualism but also paternal
conservatism and the need to protect the lower orders. The combination of such ideas
resulted in the increasing institutionalization of the modern state and the utilization of
architecture to allow control not only of the bodies but also the minds of the citizen
body. Within the colonial project, institutions were not only deployed to protect the
most vulnerable and to remove the criminal from normative society, they were also
used to educate acceptable colonial norms and to punish deviation.
Carceral institutions were, and still are, used as a means of social warehousing
(Rhodes 2001). From workhouses to asylums and prisons they have protected the sick,
infirm and destitute but they have also separated, controlled, punished and attempted to
rehabilitate those who deviate from prescribed social norms. Their uses in colonial
contexts had more specific aims in explicitly maintaining and naturalizing the colony.
Colonial institutions were not only used to control the lower echelons of society, they
focused on suppressing dissenting voices and a repercussion of this role was the
creation of atypical prison populations. In the context of colonial Ireland, prisoners
most famously associated with nationalist insurrections were imprisoned, transported or
executed for their roles in violently resisting the colonial project. Increasingly being
imprisoned by the mid-nineteenth century, political prisoners remained relatively few in
comparison with criminal prisoners. However, they did make up a distinct body behind
the prison walls, including the mercantile middle classes, landed gentry and even
Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505 495

members of the British and Irish aristocracy. It was this educated prisoner who was
perceived as Bthe worst type of criminal^ by the establishment (O’Farrell 2001, pp. 28).
This significant divergence from the typical institutional inhabitants found in British
prisons—the poor, lowly, dishonest, drunkard, and mentally unstable—hints at how
prisons gained a heightened role in the colonial context. In holding those who directly
and most publicly protested the injustices of the colonial state, often in a highly
public and violent manner, they ensured the elevated importance of colonial prisons
as symbols as power and, conversely, enduring resistance.

Archaeological Approaches to Kilmainham Gaol and its Surviving Graffiti

While postcolonial studies emerged in and remains fundamentally tied to literary

studies, archaeology provides often overlooked possibilities for interpreting material
culture as a central aspect, and remnant, of the colonial project. Material remains can
reveal both public and private experiences and understandings that result from the
entanglement of the colonial, institutional and personal. They can highlight the role of
resistance and deviancy, especially the possibilities of transformative change that the
colonial and institutional environment inadvertently nurture. This opening up of unin-
tended opportunities to subvert colonialism has been noted in the case of gender
relations (including Spencer-Wood 2013, this volume; Voss and Casella 2012), which
often focus on the complexity of human interactions in controlled environments.
Kilmainham Gaol allows us to trace such complexities and entanglements through
graffiti remnants.
The West (Old) Wing of Kilmainham Gaol is arranged across three perpendicular
corridors over three floors, with the top floor only containing two corridors (Fig. 1).
Graffiti is found throughout the wing (the East [New] Wing was significantly
Brenovated^ during restoration in the 1960s and retains few surviving plastered walls)
revealing a variety of responses to both the external colonial situation and the grim
realities of incarceration. The graffiti, although representing a short functional period of
the prison’s life due to systematic whitewashing, provide insights into the complex
meanings and interactions of the colonial institution. Moving beyond ideas that graffiti
is primarily an output of male criminality and contesting power (Ferrell 1996;
Macdonald 2001) or acts as a mirror of the social self (Abel and Buckley 1977),
Kilmainham Gaol provides a multi-layered and complex case study. It reveals graffiti as
spatially, temporally as well as socially constructed; it cannot simply be interpreted as
an act of defiance or resistance as it was used to sustain, contest and/or proclaim states
of being from divergent standpoints and perspectives.
Methodologically, a graffiti study of a structure of long-term imprisonment that was
abandoned for decades before becoming an official site of Bdark tourism^ (see Lennon
and Foley 2000), presents many challenges. While Kilmainham Gaol is one of the most
visited heritage sites in Ireland, it has been deeply affected by post-use interventions.
Intrusive restoration, including removing plaster from most of the East Wing cell walls
and sporadic painting of corridors and cells in the West Wing, has impacted on the
survival of graffiti as has ongoing tourist graffiti that is being added up to present day.
A tacit policy of limited structural intervention means that on entering now locked cells
decades of neglect are revealed through fallen plaster lying on the floors in almost
496 Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

Fig. 1 Plan of West Wing Kilmainham Gaol showing layout of ground floor (Level 1) (c. Office of Public
Works, 2014)

every space. Photographs of the gaol walls taken in the 1960s, and then 2000s (see
O’Sullivan 2009), highlight insidious decay and disintegration resulting in the wide-
spread and ongoing loss of historic graffiti.
Against this backdrop, and inspired by the previous recording of O’Sullivan (2009)
the decade before, a systematic graffiti survey was undertaken in 2013 in the West
Wing; finishing in 2015 in the East Wing. Recording began with a preconception that
the majority of graffiti was made by female political prisoners from the final year of the
prison’s operation, however, a decision was made to retrieve and record any historical
Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505 497

graffiti located. Utilizing a semi-structured methodology that entailed starting from the
same point of each cell, and each corridor wall, and moving from left to right around all
spaces in the Wing to the height of two meters, photographic recording was achieved
through utilizing a mixture of the camera flash, natural light and moveable light
sources. After each graffito was discovered, it was photographed (over 9000 images
in total), described/transcribed, and its location plotted. Graffiti were photographed
both contextually (overview photographs were taken of each wall and of graffiti in
close proximity to each other) and individually. Evolving decisions were made as to
what to include and exclude: all graffiti known or suspected to date before 1960, when
the site became the focus of active restoration (see O’Dwyer 2010), were photographed
along with representative and exceptional examples to present day. Such an approach
ensured graffiti from the colonial and transitioning state remained central to the project
but later interactions were not excluded.
Graffiti is increasingly being incorporated into historical archaeologies (including
Casella 2009; Clarke and Frederick 2012; Frederick and Clarke 2014; Oliver and Neal
2010; as well as Clarke and Frederick and Palmer this issue), however, there is often an
assumption that we all know what graffiti is, how it should be recorded and that we can
retrieve the intention of the creator. Kilmainham Gaol offers a number of distinct
questions in the context of better understanding colonial institutions: How do we
interpret institutional graffiti? Does the graffiti reveal lived experiences of this colonial
institution? How did meaning alter after abandonment? Through an evolving strategy
that started by recording all historical text, drawings, patterns, and numbers engraved or
written on the walls, other graffiti forms were added to include all manifestations of
intentional interactions including any examples that were partial, had been deliberately
defaced, decayed through long-term abandonment and/or obscured by later graffiti.
Given the long years of abandonment and the continuing accrual of graffiti at
Kilmainham Gaol, decisions about how to record and interpret the existing palimpsest
without having a true idea of what was exceptional and representative was problematic.
It quickly became apparent that positive identification of the graffiti creator was not
always possible. It was also difficult to definitively ascertain if graffiti was Bhistoric^
due to issues with water infiltration shifting top layers of whitewash. An issue that
became apparent during the recording process was that Bgraffiti^ was not always
intentional and did not simply take the form of text or image but also more unusual
survivals such as painted/glue frames that had surrounded paper postcards (few small
scraps of paper remain in situ) were located. There were many animal interactions—of
scurrying rats and nesting birds—that act as a material indicator of abandonment
(explicit engagement with ruin being in keeping with current archaeological interest
in incorporating transitional states; see Olsen and Pétursdóttir 2014). Clearly, many of
the most contentious civil war graffiti were deliberately targeted for whitewashing
during, and probably after, those final months of imprisonment by the prison author-
ities. Civil war graffiti could only be properly understood in the context of earlier and
later periods of political graffiti creation, including evidence of earlier graffiti forms
being reinterpreted by later inscribers to create composite images or being defaced as
contexts changed. Taking such an evolving and open-ended recording process meant
that the earliest recordings had to be reexamined to allow a truly informed interpretation
of the extended, enduring and in some ways unresolved nature and meaning of this
colonial institution.
498 Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

(Post)Colonial Graffiti from Kilmainham Gaol

Barracking British Soldiers (ca. 1914-ca. 1918)

One of the most important, and unexpected, graffiti survivals from the later colonial
period were created by British soldiers who were barracked—and imprisoned—at
Kilmainham Gaol in the aftermath of its initial closure as a criminal prison in 1910.
While graffiti were partially covered by a documented mass whitewash in the Fall
of 1922, the last on record, pencil marks peer through due to poor execution at the time,
later water infiltration diluting the wash and deliberate attempts to uncover graffiti
during abandonment. The wash was too thin to fill all but the lightest graffiti engravings.
Many of these graffiti are partial in nature, and difficult to record, or even see, in totality.
However, in some places they appear as the current top layer due to the vagaries of
survival, making the stratigraphy of graffiti problematic to definitively ascertain.
The soldier graffiti traces are important as they add to our current knowledge about the
use of space and the different users of the site in close temporal proximity. The location of
the soldiers’ graffiti is largely confined to two areas: the ground floor of the West Wing,
particularly the corridor leading to the external yard, and to the unadulterated reverse sides
of cell doors and the basement of the East Wing. Alongside the form and execution of
graffiti at times it is possible to differentiate between graffiti created by passersby from
those executed by longer-term occupants due to location and care taken in execution.
Furthermore, the subjects of the graffiti reveal considerable divergences from those created
by later political prisoners. Examples of naked or partially dressed women, popular culture
references (including a portrait of the female entertainer BPearl White^; Fig. 2), requests
for Bno cursing^ as well as the expected military iconography, such as depictions of
regimental emblems, presence these largely unknown inhabitants.

Fig. 2 Pencil graffiti of BPearl White^ located on a downstairs cell in the West Wing of Kilmainham Gaol (c.
McAtackney, 2013)
Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505 499

Soldiers frequently add their Btestimonies^ to the wall (Casella 2009, pp. 174–175),
including detailed entries with their familial and military Bfamily^ including name,
place of origin, military rank and even their experiences both as soldiers and prisoners.
One partial example from a cell on the ground floor of Kilmainham contains identifiers
from two soldiers: BPte R Hughes / doing 21 days in this cell / for fuck all / Up the ??^
(Fig. 3) and BPte ? Mathews / ? Coy 949574 / Richmond Barracks / Dublin.^ Research
conducted by Paul Turnell held by the current archive at the heritage site reveals how
these individual lives connect with historical events as participants in World War I
(unpublished). This includes William Corri, a private in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers,
who was awarded a Victory Medal and British War Medal on the conclusion of the war.
His co-graffitier Patrick Reddy was not so fortunate. This married Dubliner was a
member of the Royal Inniskilling Fusillers, A Coy, 8th Battalion, who subsequently
died in action on August 16, 1917. A host of new soldiers’ testimonies were uncovered
through the 2013–15 fieldwork that may allow further stories to be located in the
military archives. What these testimonies reveal—beyond identification and a brief
insight into the lives of soldiers on the brink of personal engagement with catastrophic
war—is a wide range of predominantly young men from all corners of the British Isles
who were barracked at, and left their trace on, this prison. They were often members of
Irish regiments, and these Irish British (and British Irish) soldiers materialize the

Fig. 3 Pencil graffiti detailing partial prison and military biographies of two British soldiers: Pte Hughes and
Pte Matthews. (c. McAtackney, 2013)
500 Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

diversity of the make-up of the British Army. They materialize the level of Irish
involvement within the British Army; a long-term state of affairs that was evidently
ongoing at this transitional time in Ireland. Their stories represent a deeply entangled,
colonial narrative that has until recently been largely obfuscated from histories of
revolutionary Ireland (Jeffrey 2011) due to discomfort with enduring British connec-
tions appearing simultaneous to narratives of republican uprisings.

Female Political Prisoners of the Irish Civil War (1922–23)

Female political prisoners were only housed en masse in Kilmainham gaol during the
Civil War—the first period in Irish history that saw women become a collective political
prisoner group (Ward 1996)—however, their presence is infrequently referenced in wider
histories, and their graffiti has largely been ignored. Instead, narratives of the prison have
concentrated on the Bbig men^ of the Easter Rising and elite individual women (such as
Countess de Markievicz) or those whose fates were inextricably linked to the men
(including Grace Gifford who famously married her fiancé Joseph Plunkett the night
before his execution in 1916). Sighle Humphries’ imprisonment is recognized with a
plaque placed above her cell doorway by the original, voluntary restorers of the prison in
the early 1960s dating to B1919–1921^ (the War of Independence) when it should read
B1922–1923^ (the Civil War). This reticence does not appear to be accidental. It was
stressed in meeting notes from 1958 that the old IRA committee (men involved in
revolutionary Ireland) would only support the restoration of the prison if Bnothing of or
relating to the period after 1921 would be identified with the Kilmainham project^ (quoted
in O’Dwyer 2010, pp. 36). The women’s transition into public conscientiousness during
the Civil War was publicly known at the time (see Ryan 2001), however the desire of
many to publicly forget that conflict ensured that their contribution was too. As Anne
Dolan (2006, p. 2) has noted Bthe Irish Civil War has been assumed, distorted, misunder-
stood. It has been manipulated, underestimated, but, most of all, ignored.^
The graffiti traces of the women at Kilmainham Gaol are much more difficult to bypass.
The majority of the dateable, historical examples of graffiti were created by women and
include Btestimonials^ (discussed previously), pro-Republican slogans, anti-Free State
statements, traditional nationalist verses and sayings, Celtic designs, Gaelic writing,
portraits of famous men and women and even lists of contents to be requested for
prisoners’ parcels. Many of the largest and most ornate graffiti examples in the West
Wing were created by the women—including the slogans and Celtic designs around
windows and doors (Fig. 4)—and while many have been whitewashed, lost through decay
or were vigorously Brenovated^ in the opening years of the restoration there are substantial
traces surviving. They provide particularly vivid evidence of this atypical group of
political prisoner when Ireland was in the early stages of decolonialization and had begun
to imprison those fighting for more complete independence.
Alongside the use of other contemporary sources, including prison crafts and autograph
books passed around the women while in prison (see McAtackney forthcoming), they
provide rare insights into the women’s hopes, fears, experiences and understandings of
their incarceration. While themes such as passing time/past times, memorialization, the
role of food and hunger strikes, performing political status and geographical origins are all
retrievable (for more information see http://kilmainhamgaolgraffiti.com) the graffiti also
engages explicitly with Kilmainham Gaol as a colonial institution.
Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505 501

Fig. 4 Painted Celtic designs located in a cell on the top floor of the West Wing of Kilmainham Gaol. Known
to have been created by the female prisoner Brigid O’Mullane while imprisoned during the Irish Civil War.
(McAtackney, 2013)

The women created graffiti that was meaningful spatially and temporally; taken as a
collective it reveals they were glancing back to their glorious antecedents, decrying
contemporary compromises through explicit resistance while also looking forward with
fear and anger to the unraveling future. The circumstances of the Civil War—that enabled
partition of the island while providing only a limited freedom within the British Empire—
saw female political prisoners emphasize the betrayed aspirations of their republican
predecessors. In this context the backward glances focused on those who unleashed the
initial uprising for a Republic at Easter 1916, rather than those who campaigned for the
more limited aims of Home Rule that broadly characterize preceding Irish nationalism. Not
only did such an emphasis tie into the aspiration of the women, as anti-Treaty Republicans,
but it also had a strong material connection to Kilmainham Gaol. It did not escape attention
on all sides that the majority of the executed leaders of 1916 were held (and executed) in the
grounds of this prison. Indeed, the women’s autograph books and graffiti reveal how they
explicitly articulated the link between the Rising leaders and the material structures of the
jail in graffiti. Quoting the ideals of dead leaders, including the Mayor of Cork, Thomas
MacSwiney, who died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in 1920. A quotation from his
play The Last Warriors of Coole (1910) appears as a large slogan in the top floor cell of
Bridget O’Mullane: BFortune who betrays us today / Will smile on us to-morrow^ [A
painted tricolour is located here] BA few men faithful / and / a Deathless Dream.^
Anti-Treaty Republican’s designated their official commemoration of the Easter
Rising to the women in Kilmainham Gaol in 1923 (Dolan 2006); an event ornately
depicted in programs in a number of autograph books. Clearly the material and
structure of the building acted as a touchstone for the ideals of 1916, with commem-
orative acts moving through the interior and exterior spaces: a tricolour was unfurled in
the prison yard and speeches, prayers and pageants were performed there and in the
502 Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

wings. The importance of Easter 1916 has been a steady theme throughout the enduring
interest in Kilmainham Gaol. On entering 1916 leader Patrick Pearse’s cell it is notably
the most heavily graffitied space in the wing, containing examples from the later
periods of imprisonment as well as post-closure.
Graffiti slogans mocking the lack of steadfastness and integrity at the compromises
made by their imprisoners—focusing on partition, summary executions and denial of
Republican ideals by the fledgling Free State—were common. They were placed in
many prominent locations to mock the guards and appear to have been specifically
targeted for whitewashing in the immediate aftermath of the conflict when the prison
closed in early 1924. One large slogan is placed over the cell doorway in the highly
decorated cell that once held Sighle Humphries: BMen and measures may come and go
/ But principles are eternal.^ Even more publically, a large piece of graffiti is strategi-
cally placed over a doorway in a corridor leading to the so-called 1916 Corridor,
quoting the writings of one of the executed leaders (Patrick Pearse): BBeware of the
Risen People / that have harried and held / Ye that have bullied and bribed^ (Fig. 5).
This famous quote has often been interpreted as anti-British in the context of 1916,
ensuring its survival to date, but it’s placement during the Civil War suggest a more
ambiguous intention. It is clear that early in the postcolonial state the nationalist
pantheon of heroes were being claimed by anti-Treaty Republicans with BStaters^
considered akin to, if not worse than, the previous British oppressors. Following Dolan
(2006, p. 138) it was from this time there was a largely unchallenged assumption
amongst both the Free State government and the Republicans Bthat 1798, that 1916
were theirs [anti-Treaty Republicans].^ Proclaimations of enduring steadfastness
linking to the then on-the-run anti-Treaty Republican leader—Éamon de Valera—
(later Taoiseach [for four periods from 1932 to 59] and Uactarán [1959–73]) cover

Fig. 5 Painted graffiti located on the doorway into, what is known as, Bthe 1916 Corridor^ quoting Patrick
Pearse: BBeware of the Risen People / that have harried and held / Ye that have bullied and bribed.^ (c.
McAtackney, 2013)
Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505 503

the cells and corridors. However, long into abandonment, as de Valera becomes the
establishment that he once sought to overthrow, defacement of old graffiti and new
graffiti insults appear that decry their civil war leader.

Post-Closure Graffiti at Kilmainham Gaol (1924–)

All public areas of the West Wing of Kilmainham Gaol contain post-closure graffiti,
however, there are a number of forms that are particularly telling in how they materialise
the long decolonialising process and the enduring links to conflict. In 1938 a group of
women from Cumann na mBan (the women’s group whose members were held in number
in the prison during the Civil War) revisited the site as a group and reinscribed their names
and thoughts on the walls. Many of these women had continued to harbor still-thwarted
Republican ideals and had suffered greatly—including intermittent imprisonment—in the
intervening years. Kilmainham Gaol remained their touchstone of colonial oppression
through both the execution of the 1916 leaders and their own internment during the Civil
War. They articulated these connections—and enduring Republican-sentiments—through
communally re-inscribing not only their presence in the gaol but their steadfastness to an
ongoing struggle. Amongst lists of women’s names that note their status as Bpolitical
prisoners^ they included lists of places of imprisonment and even the precise details of
their arrests over a decade before. One example is located in a cell on the top floor: BRose
Mulligan / arrested by Jack Nolan CID / Connaught Str off ?Phibsb[orough] / On Easter
Saterdauy [sic] 31st / March 1923.^
The continued struggle—at least at the level of publicly inscribed protest—for full
Irish independence occupied the thoughts (and graffiti) of many of the visitors who
returned to the site in the decades after Kilmainham Gaol closed. This can be especially
seen in the treatment of pre-existing graffiti referencing Éamon de Valera. Examining
graffiti conversations reveals that civil war hero de Valera had been transformed into a
villain in the period after abandonment. His acceptance of the reality of the border in
the 1937 constitution was decried by Republicans as the ultimate betrayal. Of all the
graffiti in the wing, those that reference de Valera’s receive the most post-closure
attention with substantial defacement, often to the point of complete eradication (Fig. 6),
or contesting additions. One example in a cell on the Top Floor of the West Wing
simply proclaims, BFuck de Valera.^

Conclusions

Kilmainham Gaol had long been a symbol of injustice and resistance for Irish nation-
alists before it closed. It was an institution of heightened importance due to its
connection with anti-colonial leaders who were executed there during its twilight years.
Despite extensive survivals, graffiti has been an underexplored resource due to its
association with the Irish Civil War as well as the custodians’ perceptions of graffiti as
being an illegal and illicit activity that is best bypassed. While there are few graffiti
traces at Kilmainham Gaol that can be definitively dated prior to the 1910 closure of the
criminal prison, the waves of graffiti created thereafter provide a glimpse into the
worlds of the very different inhabitants and visitors to the site since that time.
504 Int J Histor Archaeol (2016) 20:492–505

Fig. 6 Pencil graffiti located on the top floor of the West Wing of KIlmainham Gaol that had proclaimed
BDeValera is a gentleman / ?Mulcahy [Richard, the Chief of Defense during the Irish Civil War] is a brute^
Later defaced. (McAtackney, 2013)

The remaining graffiti reveal a complicated transitional colonial story. Substantial

traces of British soldiers—barracked and imprisoned on the site after its closure as a
criminal prison in 1910—reveal personal connections to the international horrors of the
World War I trenches and highlight the substantial role of Irish soldiers in the British
Army. The graffiti created by women held en masse at the site during the civil war
materialize how it was already being rearticulated to focus on the Free State rejection of
the aims of Republican heroes, imprisoned and executed there by the British, but
ultimately betrayed by compromises of the proto-decolonized state. Lastly, graffiti dating
from decades of post-closure abandonment reveal how Kilmainham Gaol was the ultimate
Bimperial debris^ (Stoler 2008) for those who remained steadfast to Republican ideals for
a very different post-colonial Irish state. For Republicans the decolonialisation process
continued for decades after the establishment of the Free State and this colonial institution
is where they continued to reascribe their protests and resistance.

Acknowledgments Thanks to the Irish Research Council for founding the project BFollowing the
Fighters?^, which enabled the graffiti-recording fieldwork to be completed at Kilmainham Gaol. The
custodians of Kilmainham Gaol, especially Niall Bergin and OPW, for facilitating access and to Dr Katherine
O’Donnell for her guidance and support in completing the website http://kilmainhamgaolgraffiti.com . Many
thanks to my co-editor Russell Palmer for his helpful suggestions and to the anonymous peer reviewers for
their questions, comments and prompts.

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