Calls in Cork and London to save ‘historic’ prison

Calls not to demolish the old Cork Prison have been made at hunger strike commemorations in Cork and London.

Cork city councillors last month voted unanimously to add the 220-year-old former jail to the Register of Protected Structures to stop plans by the State to demolish the building and construct a new prison in its place.

The protected structure process will take until the end of March, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin recently told The Echo there was “no guarantee” the building wouldn’t be demolished before then.

At the Terence MacSwiney commemoration in London, Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh and commemoration committee chair Frank Glynn both called for the plan to demolish the site to be scrapped.

In Cork, at the annual hunger strike commemoration, Sinn Féin councillor Joe Lynch called for the building to be preserved and the history of the site respected. “I was honoured to speak at this year’s hunger strike commemoration in Cork,” said Mr Lynch.

“Remembering our patriot dead helps us to remember who we are and where we came from. Plaques and statues only go so far. The physical buildings that bring us back to these moments create a connection that will keep these stories and moments alive.”

Cork Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould said: “When Terence MacSwiney died in London and Joe Murphy died in Cork on October 25, 1920, there was a bond of solidarity between our cities that no ocean could break.

“That bond lives on today and on October 25, 2026, crowds in London and Cork both heard of the shocking plan to demolish Cork’s detention barracks and the fight to save this historic building. 

"This is a building that saw the start of Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike wearing the chain of Cork’s Ard Mhéara. It is the only building that stands today that links us to his final days in Cork. We want our history remembered and saved.”