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We finally went to Kilmainham Gaol the last time we were in Dublin and found it a tremendously moving experience. The huge common room with its three teirs of cells is familiar from movies like Michael Collins, and the jail yard where four leaders of the Easter Rebellion where executed by firing squad are both powerful symbols of the trauma Ireland endured in the first quarter of the 20th century.  But, for me, the brutal underground cells tell the true story, as chilling today as they must have been to Padraig Pearse and the other Republican ringleaders who were imprisoned there.

The crumbling walls of the dimly lit corridors are in fact a dark, dank yellowish green but I've chosen to turn them red, a genuflection to the intense passions of the men locked away behind those doors so long ago.

The text: Shortly before his execution, Padraig Pearse wrote to his mother and included a poem, written as if his mother were speaking.

A MOTHER SPEAKS

Dear Mary, that didst see thy first-born Son
Go forth to die among the scorn of men
For whom He died,
Receive my first-born son into thy arms,
Who also hath gone out to die for men,
And keep him by thee till I come to him.
Dear Mary, I have shared thy sorrow,
And soon shall share thy joy.