I remember going on a tour around Kilmainham Gaol one time. It was years ago. Anyway I was the last in a line of people listening to a guide. All of a sudden I felt this tap on my shoulder and a push from behind (This was in around the cell area on the stairway. Near the beginning of the tour). Course I looked behind me and there was no one there. The place has some hauntings from what I hear. The chapel area has an evil presence apparently. And the jail even locked up kids during the famine for stealing bread. Anyone else have any paranormal encounters in Kilmainham Gaol?
When I was a kid, I remember we did a tour with school around Kilmainham. All good until we got to one room and even though I was only like 9 or 10, this room made me feel overwhelmingly sad and I just wanted to cry. Tour guide caught up to us and told us that this was the cell one of the Easter Rising leaders were kept in, the night before he was executed. Then we walked on further and went out into this big prison yard area, again the moment I stepped out into it, I felt sick and overwhelmingly sad, it was like I just got bad vibes from the place, just an insane oppressive feeling. Tour guide then proceeds to tell us how this is the yard where they were all brought to be executed. No ghosts, but I always remember it. I was a kid, didn't know anything about empaths or mediums or whatnot. I just remember telling my mum about it afterwards cause it freaked me out so much. Never experienced anything like that ever again despite visiting a few 'haunted' locations.
I went here in Feb 2023, I heard an ominous low groan/wail, whilst we were on the tour of the jail. It was so spooky!
Joseph Plunkett's cell in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin
During 2014 I had the opportunity to travel to Dublin and London for a few weeks. My husband was there for work, and I was tagging along. I spent every day exploring on my own, and on my last day in Dublin I visited Kilmainham Gaol. It was a bleak place.
During the tour, I was roughly in the middle of the group. I'm short, and I was curious what the cells looked like because the doors were all closed. I rushed ahead after some stairs, chose a cell, and held my Nikon Coolpix up to the little window and snapped a quick shot before catching back up to my spot in line. This may sound silly, but that particular cell along the row felt like there was a heavier weight to it. There is no airflow within the cells which are always kept closed, and I did not have a flash turned on. I only looked at the photos a few weeks later when we were back home.
No other images either within the jail or throughout the trip looked unusual. I do wonder if the beam of light from the small window may have simply caught some dust in a way that I have personally never seen. Then again, those who work at the jail report odd occurrences, attributing it to restless spirits. The tour guide said, once the entire group was standing together, that the cell I had so quickly photographed had been Joseph Plunkett's cell and that he was granted only a few brief minutes with the love of his life to profess their love for one another and to say goodbye within the cell immediately before facing a firing squad in the Stone Breakers’ Yard. The folks at Kilmainham Gaol treated the cell with reverence, and I was glad that I had been drawn to that one in particular.
Some Background:
Notorious for a multitude of reasons, Kilmainham Gaol imprisoned and executed leaders of the Easter Rising. The Easter Rising was an Irish republican insurrection against the British government in Ireland. It began in Dublin on April 24, 1916, which was Easter Monday. The insurrection was planned by Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Joseph Plunkett, and other leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Lasting for six days, the rebellion was quickly suppressed by the British Army and was a seminal moment in modern Irish history, helping pave the way to the nation's independence in 1922.
One of the leaders, Joseph Plunkett, the youngest of the rebel leaders to be executed, was wholeheartedly in love with Grace Gifford, a woman who was also passionate about Irish independence. She was an artist and cartoonist while Plunkett was a poet and editor for the Irish Review. Against the wishes of her parents, Grace became engaged with Joseph Plunkett in December 1915. When Plunkett was imprisoned, awaiting his execution by firing squad, he was granted his request that a priest marry him with Grace in the prison chapel. On the night of May 3rd 1916, just hours before he was to be executed, she was brought to the jail. In 1949 she recalled that evening, saying: “When I saw him… he was so unselfish, he never thought of himself. He was not frightened, not in the slightest.”
Before facing the firing squad, he said: “I am very happy I am dying for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland.” In his will, Joseph left everything to his widow, but his parents refused to honour it. Grace remained resolutely nationalist after her husband’s death and was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol for three months in 1923. She never remarried and outlived her husband by 39 years. Grace Gifford died on December 13, 1955, and was buried with full military honours in Glasnevin Cemetery.
In Greece our tour of 20 went to ancient Mycenae, and there were a few minutes at the old Imperial Tomb or whatever they called the beehive tomb there. The guide said we have 5 minutes, and sat outside as we went in. He said “Take some pictures!”
When we came out he said “Let’s see your pictures.”
All of them had orbs.
“I never go in there,” he said.
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