‘You wouldn’t do this to a dog’

From slopping out to learning arts and crafts,Cormac O’Keeffe looks at what life is like on the inside in the first of a two-part series

IT’S hard to know what to expect when 226 men are unlocked from cells after 12 hours inside. Particularly when they’ve only had a plastic bucket to use as a toilet and the bulk of cells, about the size as a box bedroom, have two men packed into them.

The ‘slop out’ room in A1 wing in Cork Prison comprises two large and filthy toilet bowls. It’s a narrow, open room, with a container of disinfectant on the floor, a mop beside it, and another mop holding a window open. It has a concave floor, with a small drain in the middle.