Taoiseach: Calls to protect Cork Prison coming ‘very late in the day’

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said there are “other agendas afoot” behind a proposal to place the old Cork Prison on the Register of Protected Structures.

It was in the old prison, in August 1920, that Cork lord mayor Terence MacSwiney began the hunger strike that would end, 74 days later, with his death in Brixton Prison, bringing his cause to international attention.

A motion to have the building listed as a protected structure will be debated tonight at a special meeting of Cork City Council.

A request for the meeting was submitted by 22 of the 31 councillors, including Lord Mayor Damian Boylan and his deputy, Gary O’Brien, and their Fine Gael party colleagues, Shane O’Callaghan and Joe Kavanagh. Fianna Fáil’s Colm Kelleher also signed the letter.

Fine Gael’s Des Cahill did not sign the letter, and neither did Fianna Fáil’s Terry Shannon, Seán Martin, Tony Fitzgerald, John Sheehan, Mary Rose Desmond, Fergal Dennehy, Margaret McDonnell, or Terry Coleman.

The old prison, which was built by the British Army in 1806 as a military detention facility and became a civilian prison in 1972, closed in 2016. It was replaced by the €45m, purpose-built 296-bed prison, built across Rathmore Rd from the original.

The new prison has been routinely overcrowded in recent years, and the State plans to demolish the old prison, with two new prison facilities — one for 230 men and the other for 100 women — to be constructed on the site.

Yesterday, Mr Martin said an attempt to list the old prison was “very late in the day”.

“Where was City Hall 10 years ago, 15 years ago, in terms of listing that building? There’s other agendas afoot as well, regrettably, and I think, in any building, the historic or the heritage aspects can be retained as well".

Adding that there was a political context to the motion, Mr Martin said there was “an urgent need” for more prison space, and that was “the balance that has to be struck here”.