The Evening critic., 1882-01-04
The irish uss,,,e.


Ejlmainham prison. which has bocu up.
pointed by The English government Tor the
Incarceration ot rcbcllious subjects in Ire
land, was built q hundred years ago, or SD,
iu ol Cn fields SOME quarter OF milc away
from Dublin. AZ that time The surround
iu.,s Of The prison presented an Che appgnr-
Wcc of q village. aud thither hockcl The
citizcus and thCiI wives and their daughters,
with the gallaut5 Of the latter. ON holiday
thoughts incut Thithcr, too, went the
0utauisis iu search Of hcrbs and siuplOs.
which grow there in such abundance %, to
give a distinguishing flavor tp the primary
and secondary product. Of the local ddiric3.
II was the tradition hat these plants were
the descendants Of those which grew ia the
gardens of the Tcmplars who once held
lands extending miles beyond the limits of
the parish. There were woods there too.
where boars and deer provoked the skill of
the hunter Great oaks grow where now
crowded th0fOughiaios are found, aud some
of the trees furnished timber for the roof Of
Westminster Hall.
Away back in the carly days Of the
seventh century there stood on this very
spot the Church OF St. Magnend, ON the
ruins of which was built in l17i, an insti.
tuition which was balf monastic and half
military. Strongbow was ut its head, and
the priors were peers in the Parliament of
of state. 1t was fortress in It's construc.
tion, necessity in the days when adventu-
rers from across the Irish Sea- and bellger-
ent princes of the island, came before the
castle walls prepared to give battle. The
Templars made a good record in the first
crusade, when Tancred and William of
Normandy fought with them in Palestine.
"All the consent of Europe would have
made no music if the Irish harp had been
lam. E,,lt
homage TO the knights of Kilmainhan,
whom he considers as the representatives
of the ends Of the earth, in his Gerusa-
lemme Liberata." Edward IT, suppressed
the order in 1909, and the knights were
shut up in Dublin Castle, and all their
worldly goods were given to the
knights of st. John the Baptist.
Those were the times when persecution
was the fashion, and the order having in
CURED the bitter enmity of civil and &C.
clesiastical dignitarios because of the
riches and influence which it had acquired,
it was the easiest thing in the world to
rOsse the people by charges of witchcraft,
and such Il charge always meant con viction
and punishment. The priors of che new
order into whose hands the kilmainham
property fell were men of might and in.
huence. One of them led on legions of
Irish at Rouen in 'upport Of Henry V.
pretensions of Lambert Simueli, a law was
passed forbidding any but an Englishman
of undoubted loyalty from being made
prior of X kilmainham.
In 1850 the Duke of Ormande established
a new hospital, the ordinances of which
continued the mixed character of the
priory. The duties were mainly of pious
sort, but the routine was as strict as in
garrison. TO this hospital succeeded the
Jail, which has also had its history. Here
it was that in 1872 prisoners were first clas-
sfied according to their ofienses. A Lon
don writer says that the fare of the pris-
oners up TO comparatively recent date
was only bread and milk, no exception
being made in favor Of offenders of what
ever kind.
Until penal servitude was substituted
for transportation, the prison was OCCASION
ally overstocked with convicts from the
north and centre of Ireland waiting for II
ship to convey them to Botany Bay. A
high wall incloses rectangular space Of
2e3 feet by 40 feet, which contains the
main building, composed of two quadFan-
giles incl0sing two courtya.ds 53 feet by 10
feet each, one originally intended for pris-
oners confined for capital o1enses, the
other for those under sentence of death. A
ballad, Luke Catlrey's kilmainham Min
uet danced at the end of y cord1, once
gave to the place certain kind of fame.
st. John, the Temperance governor of
Kansas, has officially recognized the claims
OF woman to official station by appointing
Mrs. Cora NJ. Downs, of Wyandotte, to be a
regent of the State University.