There is a prison in Dublin today where inmates (residents) have no bars on their windows, have keys to their own rooms and can lock themselves in when they like. Breakfast is served in the morning and education classes start at 9am.
There are classes offering fabrics, woodwork, computers, various other trades and hobbies. Aside from good standard breakfast fare, there is a diverse menu for dinner. On Sunday there are specials like roast chicken and vegetables, with a dessert of fruit and ice cream. After evening tea, there is access to a library, a recreation hall, table tennis and a gym. Bedtime rolls around at 9.30pm. You can also write as many letters as you like and phone your solicitor as much as you want as well. Two visits a week are allowed and one personal phone call. There is no common violence against residents. To reside there, you must have committed a crime and be an adult.
One resident/inmate who resided in this facility had already beaten an 81-year-old pensioner to death for the princely sum of €45 back in the year 2000. The facilities may not have been up to his standard for he decided to escape and did.
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There was a prison in Galway of recent yesteryear where inmates (residents) had no bars on their windows, no keys to their dormitories, and were locked in, like it or not. Porridge was served every morning, and ‘special religious education’ started at 7am. There was no woodwork or other classes, no library, and no gym. Most of all, there was no freedom and your identity was sealed and forgotten about.
Sunday was as special as Monday and what rotten food you could not hold down was fed to the obese pigs grunting expectantly nearby. Bedtime was at 9pm. You could write letters but they were opened going out or coming in. There were no phone calls, visits were rare and only at the discretion of the manager who was overseer to those that ventured to come.
Common extraordinary violence that became ordinary was used against the residents by the management. The rule book of this place also stated that you could be locked up in a cell on bread and water and beaten and it was all legal. Manual labour was to be 8 hours and schooling for two.
To reside there, you must have committed no crime, be a Catholic and a child no younger than six years old and no older than sixteen.
One resident, who had been abandoned by both parents as an infant, stood up to the machine as the facilities may not nave been to his liking. The machine did not like it and threw him into a mental hospital. He did not escape from there. Many others followed him.
I arrived as a prisoner here and given a reference number as my identification. It was 100. I was five years old on arrival and 15 on my departure when I escaped at fifteen. This act left me homeless and sleeping in farm sheds but also became the first taste of freedom I had felt in ten years.
Mountjoy Prison training unit in Dublin is still open for business today.
St Josephs Industrial/reformatory institution for children in Galway, where I was a prisoner for ten years, is not. The last one of its kind closed in 1997.
Barry Clifford
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