Exhibition reveals the secrets of life inside Mountjoy

THE bright pink air fresheners catch your eye.

Five of them are lined across the cistern of a toilet, situated in the corner of a small prison cell.

A prisoner, aged somewhere in his 30s, is sitting on the edge of his bed, a couple of feet from the toilet. Two bottles of cleaning fluid and a large container of industrial-strength cleaner stand out in the photograph.

The inmate is caught just as he’s about to roll a cigarette from tobacco and rolling paper.

His stark cell contains other clues as to the person behind the prisoner. Two Easter cards from his children are placed beside his basic, metal framed bed. Behind him are pictures of his children and wife.

In one, two of his children smile innocently up at the camera as the play. Another is a typical family picture of him posing with his wife and three children.

Above that seems to be a small religious photograph depicting Jesus.

The picture is part of an exhibition of Mountjoy Jail, simply called The Joy, on show in Dublin’s Gallery of Photography.

The photographs were taken by artist Noel Bowler, who spent two years going into the notorious jail.

He said his aim was to “convey the mundane reality of doing time.”

He captures different scenes such as prisoners sitting in their cells, in some cases smoking a cigarette, in other cases just sitting.

Various pictures capture the stark, cold, uninviting nature of visiting rooms, television rooms and recreation yards.

The overall impression is of anonymity, confinement, inactivity, boredom and the weight of time.

The inactivity is all the more pronounced given that almost all of the prisoners depicted are dressed in tracksuits and runners.

Noel Bowler spent two years gaining the confidence of the prisoners, closely observing and sharing their daily routines.

He said the idea of people “waiting” for such an extended period of time to be released seemed incomprehensible and contrary to most people’s lives.

He said the photographs, which were shot with little dramatics, focused on the “everyday lives of prisoners in an environment of boredom, repetition, isolation and routine.”

Not all photographs are grim, however. One captures a young man in a metal workshop, posing for the camera.

Dressed in overalls, he has a cheeky smile, containing perhaps a hint of pride in his work.

Another photograph depicts a prisoner lying on his bed in his cell, with a slight smile on his face.

That young man’s cell is clean and tidy and the walls look plastered and well-kept.

Behind him are four birds either stuck, or painted, onto the wall. Reinforcing the freedom imagery is a framed painting of five helicopters and a car in open countryside.

Numerous tidy shelves in the cell contain fragments from his life outside.

Framed pictures of his partner and children and other family members surround him. There are also toys from his children and what looks like a soccer trophy, suggesting talents other than crime.

There is no information in the exhibition about the crimes these men have committed, nor the victims they left behind.

But amid constant claims of prisoners living like kings, the exhibition is a quiet reminder of the price prisoners have to pay when convicted.

The Joy runs in the Gallery of Photography, Temple Bar until the end of the week.