Foucault anybody?
Day one’s solitary wanderings were interrupted when I bumped into a couple of Georgetown kids and other visiting students on their way to Kilmainhaim Gaol. “Sure!” I said, exhausted, my head in disorienting travel clouds. On a bus to a jail, cool.
The prolific short-story writer, Frank O’Connor, described Ireland as being defined by “The Backward Look.” Of course an historical tour around an historical prison would have to be backward looking. But one does get the sense here that history counts. There are statues of dudes everywhere. And each tell a worthwhile story – simply by asking if they were Catholic or Protestant; Irish or English. It is strange that these cleavages can be felt so strongly historically and hardly at all presently. “Hardly at all” may be going too far, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten so far.
Kilmanhaim, the guide insisted several times, played an important role in five uprisings. She promised to discuss all five – she didn’t. Mostly she focused on the 1916 Easter Uprising the leaders of which were executed by firing squad in the prison’s exercise yard. History overwhelms.
The walk around Kilmainhaim is a lesson in the history of the prison. From its opening in 1796 it is possible to trace corrective philosophy through changes to the prison. At some point walls of glass were installed wherever possible, as Victorians believed natural light to be a cure for deviance – where before darkness was preferred as punishment. Large holes gained window panes when it was decided freezing to death each winter wasn’t very good for prisoners either. The most remarkable, though, is the Victorian Wing. This is the panopticon. The mind-control prison. From anywhere a prison guard could see everyone. So no one could help but feel watched all the time.
On this sunny day light flooded the place. It shone on the wrought-iron staircases and lit up the light-coloured floor. The panopticon seemed an outdoor atrium. I had to remind myself, in the beauty of it all, that each door led to a cell.
2 Comments to "This is the panopticon!"
Very interesting.
Whoa! We’re reading about the Panopticon for CULP in Foucault’s “Discipline and Punishment,” that stuff is trippy… but your picture really helped me visualize it! Thanks!