The Joy

MOUNTJOY Prison, known colloquially as “the Joy”, has been the alma mater for some of this country’s most hardened and notorious criminals.

The largest committal facility of its kind in the country, the Joy, a closed, medium-security prison, has for decades been the nucleus of Ireland’s prison system.

In 1850, when it first closed its doors, it was known as Ireland’s model prison. Designed by Colonel Joshua Jebb, the architect of Pentonville Prison in England, it was intended as the first stop for men sentenced to transportation. After a spell in the Joy, prisoners were transferred to Spike Island before they were shipped out to Van Diemen’s Land.

Today, Mountjoy Prison has a design capacity of 547 and a bed capacity of 454, due to the closure of one of its wings.

It frequently holds in excess of 770 prisoners and is grossly overcrowded at present.

Recently, a prisoner brought a case before the High Court prompted by the awful conditions in which he was held.

The court granted the former Mountjoy inmate the right to sue the State for damages.

He had been forced to sleep in cramped conditions with seven other prisoners on the floor of a filthy, rodent-infested cell in Mountjoy, the High Court was told.

The cell had no beds and all the prisoners had to sleep on stained, stench-ridden mattresses without any other form of bedding.

Mr Justice Michael Hanna said the conditions violated human and constitutional rights and were a health risk.

Mountjoy Prison will be turned into a village complex housing several thousand people under plans for the site announced recently by Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

A new prison, on a 150-acre site at Thornton Hall, north Dublin, will replace Mountjoy.

“The poor physical infrastructure in Mountjoy Prison has impacted severely on the prison system to provide even the most basic services for prison rehabilitation. In the area of work and training, medical facilities and education, the building is simply not fit for purpose,” the minister said, when he unveiled he plan.

“Those who object to the closure of Mountjoy Prison cannot at the same time expect the dedicated staff who work in our prisons to deliver a 21st-century model of correctional excellence in a 19th-century physical environment.”