Tommy O'Reilly and Leo Fox relaxing in one of their cells in Kilmainham Gaol which they have personalised with pictures cut out from magazines. Image courtesy OPW Kilmainham Gaol Museum
In a dramatic photograph from September 1921, a prisoner lies sprawled against a wall in Kilmainham Gaol. His eyes are closed, his mouth open. Four hard-bitten British soldiers crouch around the body, one with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
The caption reads: “Shot while trying to escape.” But this is not a forgotten atrocity of the War of Independence. The “dead” man is alive and, like the “soldiers”, acting. All four are inmates of Kilmainham and the prostrate figure has been shot only in the photographic sense, by a camera they have smuggled in.
Such theatrical scenes, with props including military unif
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