Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe.

It opened in 1796 as the new county gaol for Dublin and finally shut its doors as such in 1924.

During that period it witnessed some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland’s emergence as a modern nation.

Among those detained – and in some cases executed – here were leaders of the rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916, as well as members of the Irish republican movement during the War of Independence and Civil War.