Kilmainham Jail (1796-1924)

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