ABSTRACT
The Irish Civil War was a short-lived conflict fought between recent comrades over acceptability of the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Britain. The mass imprisonment of women during the Civil War should be viewed within the context of movement and targeting of women in the arena of guerilla warfare. Although there are difficulties in retrieving documentary and oral information on civil war prisoners due to poor survival of official records and later reticence at reopening contentious wounds there are also more prosaic issues that impact on accessing even most basic details. Bringing together range of sources available on Kilmainham Gaol during Irish Civil War reveals an intriguing picture of the sensory experiences inside this most feared institution, a picture that is not without contradictions. Probably the most prominent dead Irish nationalist referenced by the women, appearing in a number of autograph books and in at least two major slogans on the top and middle floors of the B Wing is Thomas MacSwiney.
