Crumlin Road Gaol

Crumlin Road Gaol was designed by Sir Charles Lanyon and built between 1843 and 1845 of black basalt at the foot of the Crumlin Road in north Belfast. Modeled partly on London’s Pentonville, it had four wings fanning out from a central hub called the Circle, inside a five-sided wall. Its first 106 inmates — men, women and children — were marched there in chains from the old county jail at Carrickfergus in 1846. In its early decades children from poor families were jailed there for stealing food or clothing. A tunnel under the road linked it to the courthouse opposite.

Seventeen men were executed at the gaol: publicly at first, and from 1901 in an execution chamber inside the walls, until the last hanging, of Robert McGladdery, in 1961. Among them was Tom Williams, a 19-year-old IRA member hanged in 1942 for killing a police officer; his remains were later removed and reburied elsewhere. Most of the executed were buried in unmarked graves in unconsecrated ground against the back wall. Through the 20th century the jail held suffragettes, Éamon de Valera, Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness and Bobby Sands, and during the Troubles it was badly overcrowded; a 1991 IRA bomb inside the prison killed two loyalist prisoners.

The gaol closed in 1996 and stood empty for years before restoration; it reopened in 2012 as a visitor attraction and venue, now also home to a whiskey distillery. The ghost stories gathered after it closed. The attraction says former prison officers and inmates insist the building was haunted long before that, and visitors and staff report figures, footsteps and voices in the cells and corridors, especially around C-Wing, the condemned cell and the execution chamber. The gaol runs its own guided paranormal tours in low light.

Shadowy figures in the wings, footsteps and voices in empty corridors, doors banging, cold spots and a heavy atmosphere in the condemned cell and hanging cell — reported by former officers, staff, visitors and paranormal tour groups.

C-Wing, the Circle, the condemned cell and adjoining execution chamber, the tunnel to the courthouse and the small prison graveyard by the back wall.

The gaol is one of Belfast’s most visited attractions, hosts concerts and events, appeared in the BBC children’s series The Sparticle Mystery, and runs regular paranormal tours and Halloween scare events.