This is a picture of the "courtyard" at Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin Ireland. My family visited this landmark about 3 years ago. Most people talk about this place because the famous martyrs of the Easter 1916 Rebellion were killed there. But I am haunted by other "residents" we learned about on our tour. The prison, like so many others of the time, served as a debtor's prison. But don't picture old men there; many of them were women and children. I remember the guide walking us out into a courtyard with slate flooring and explaining that the children would be sent out there for a walk once a day. But also, when someone would die in the prison, they would bury them in the courtyard by lifting up some stones, digging a little, putting the body down, covering it with quicklime, and then replacing the stones. So children would walk over the bodies of people they knew on the daily walk.
When I was looking over our readings this weekend, I was caught by N.'s discussion of the word "debt" and its link with the word "guilt." (p.63). Maybe more importantly, "innocent" is linked to being debt-free. We don't often think of it, but people who can't pay their debts can still be put in prison. More often though, because of our bankruptcy laws, people are given second chances. It is easy to think that is "not fair" that they are getting out of their debts. But I always remember what those laws prevent when I think of the children in the Kilmainham Gaol. The statistics on the people who are in our prisons now, however, show that the poor are WAY overrepresented in jails, and we have an enormous jail population. Have we really solved our problems?
No comments:
Post a Comment