Belfast: Crumlin Road Gaol Experience

Journey through Northern Ireland’s only remaining Victorian-era prison. Hear the stories of the murderers, suffragettes, loyalists and republican prisoners who were jailed here. Learn about the births, executions, hunger strikes and riots that have taken place within the prison walls. Begin your visit in the jail basement, where you can see artifacts from when the jail was in operation. Walk through the passageway, known as “the tunnel,” which connects the jail with the courthouse across the road. Between 1968 and the prison’s closing, over 25,000 prisoners made their way through this tunnel. See “the circle,” which is located at the centre of the four wings of the jail. Marvel at the jail’s 19th-century Victorian architecture. Next, make your way to the C-wing. Experience what the living conditions were like in the prison at various points throughout the jail’s history. See the condemned man’s cell. Seventeen men in total were executed at the jail, and you will see where many of them spent their last days. Enter the execution chamber where twelve men had their lives ended. End your tour at the graveyard, where the executed men were buried. As part of their sentence, the condemned men were “to be buried in an unmarked grave, in unconsecrated ground.”