Kilmainham Jail (1796-1924) Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Producers’ heaven, that’s Kilmainham jail
Five famous films made here, give it street cred
Its walls stout built to keep out storm and hail

Conditions must have made the strongest quail
Where prisoners lay, each on his narrow bed
Starvation rations, thin soup. Bread half stale

The firing squad set up the widow’s wail
Of Joseph Plunkett’s wife, when he was dead
Connolly, shot in a chair, he was so frail

Death Row- the slop out system, stench and pail
Such images leave with you in your head
Each condemned man, a martyr’s coffin nail

The Irish Bastille. Lights out. Life in braille
Feeling the cell close in, a special dread
The last meal only, offered cakes and ale

Now song and history book still tell the tale
Young lives cut short like sentences unsaid
When Eire’s tracks went off the British rail
And patriots for love of Freedom, bled