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1. Another in our #LostPrisonsofDublin series. "New Newgate" opened in 1781 to replace "Old Newgate", the medieval city prison located in Cornmarket. Designed by Thomas Cooley, it was quickly seen as out-dated and overcrowded with poor ventilation and sanitation. (image DCC)
Corrupt Gaolers made profits by renting private rooms to those who wished to avoid the dangerous and insanitary Common Halls. In 1790, 40 prisoners escaped. Soldiers were also sent in that year to restore order when prisoners rioted and almost burnt the building down.
Dublin Evening Post,15/3/1783 - “A tremendous apparatus for the execution of criminals is fixed at the front of the New Gaol in the Little Green ... a strong iron gibbet ... underneath which is a hanging scaffold on which the fated wretches are to come out from the centre window"
In the 1790s a number of United Irishmen were held in Newgate. John and Henry Sheares were executed there, while Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Oliver Bond both died within its walls. In 1803 Robert Emmet was also held in Newgate during his trial in the Courthouse next door.
By the 1840s Newgate was largely used to house prisoners on remand. These included a number of the leaders of the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848, most notably John Mitchel, Kevin Izod O’Doherty and Charles Gavan Duffy, who were all tried in Green Street Courthouse.
In 1863 the building became a fruit and vegetable market and was finally demolished in 1893. In 1898 the site was laid out as St. Michan’s Park where the circular base of some of the corner turrets can still be seen, a reminder of the site’s dark and disturbing past.
