SNIPPET: Wicklow Gaol: Experience the harshness of life in the Gaol Dungeon, where you will see the punishments being meted out and hear the anguished cries of the prisoners, or just sit in the solitude cell and feel the desperation of those that were there before you. Come meet Mary MORRIS, the 19th century Gaol Matron, sit in her school room and listen as she instructs you in the lessons of the day. Work commenced on Wicklow Gaol in 1702 and was completed within a few years. Conditions within the Gaols at this time were appalling. Gaolers were paid a wage and from this expected to supply prisoners with food, bedding, heat, lighting and clothing. Many of these Gaolers were themselves unsavory characters and with little, if any, supervision of the prison system, they were open to bribery and corruption. Prisoners were held together in rooms and it was not until prison legislation in 1763 that the separation of prisoner - male and female, tried from untried and sane from insane was introduced. From the 1760s onwards legislation was enacted and an attempt to provide better sanitation and living conditions for prisoners was eventually put into operation on the ground. The 1798 Rebellion put considerable pressure on the physical structure of Wicklow Gaol and a new wing was erected in the 1790s. Some of the 1,798 rebels - United Irishmen - such as Bill BYRNE (whose monument stands in Wicklow's Market Square) were hanged in or near the Gaol. Another leader of the United Irishmen, James 'Napper' TANDY was held in Wicklow Gaol prior to his deportation to France. Hugh Vesty BYRNE, a first cousin of Michael DWYER, 'the Wicklow Chieftain,' was one of the few prisoners ever to have escaped from the Gaol and remain at large. More info: www.wicklowshistoricgaol.com. The Gaol is closed during the winter months from the 31st October until St. Patrick's weekend in March.