Belfast Crumlin Road Gaol
Crumlin Road Gaol Photos
About Crumlin Road Gaol
In 1996 the heavy air-lock gates of Belfast’s Crumlin Road Gaol closed and brought to an end 150 years of imprisonment and state executions. An estimated 25,000 people were imprisoned here.
This Victorian building, originally called the County Gaol for Antrim, was designed by Sir Charles Lanyon in 1841. It was constructed from Black Basalt rock on a 10-acre site and modelled on London’s Pentonville prison at a cost of £60,000.
Of course it looked a lot different in the past than it does for today’s visitors. Strangely though, this photo of the main entrance before the prison wings did have a certain cleanliness about it. This was partly due to the administration and the governor’s offices being located here.
This first area here was known as ‘The Circle’. Each of the four wings A,B,C and D fanned out from here. This was also the first gaol to be designed so that prisoners could not converse freely with each other. There are 3 floors, lower, middle and upper. Each cell measures 12 by 7 feet, and 10 feet in height.
Due to the increase in prisoners in the latter years up to 3 people may have occupied a cell. During the 1970s with the introduction of internment this would certainly have been the case.
In this C wing there was one particular cell which reveals a deeply poignant and sinister side to the history of Crumlin Road Gaol. Any prisoner in this cell which was larger than average would have been counting down the hours before their execution. And unknown to them, behind a secret door in this very cell was where the executioner Thomas Pierrepoint would have been waiting to hang them. The governor would watch from a doorway on the floor above while the condemned prisoner, tied to the beam above, dropped through these trap doors.
As a final insult to the prisoner, their remains were classified as state property and they were buried out the back, along the perimeter walls in this deconsecrated ground. In fact, the white chalk marks here indicate the as still unclaimed remains of 15 prisoners. Another two including the remains of Tom Williams was removed in 2000 and reinterred in the Republican burial ground at Milltown Cemetery.
It’s worth knowing though that Crumlin Road Gaol has a much longer and brutal history than can be imagined going back to when children and women were locked up for petty crimes as theft of food. Presently, it’s now classified as a Grade-A listed building and open for business.
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