Maryborough Prison??

[Elliebob]

Hi

Welcome to Rootschat.  I think it is quite likely that your g-grandfather knew my father in law's family.  My fil and his brothers were all born in the early 1890s while he was at Mountjoy.  We know, from the prison correspondence register which is held at the Irish Record Office in Dublin, that he went to Maryborough after 1901.  By 1911 they were in Belfast and Robert was a trade warder at Crumlin Road.  They remained in Belfast after retirement and from there the 3 brothers all joined the British Army.  The prison cottages at both Mountjoy and Portlaiose have been demolished.  The Mountjoy cottages were demolished to build the women's prison. 
Records for prison staff are hard to access -  we were told (although it was a few years ago now) that there is only the correspondence register accessible for research.
I am guessing that you are in the States but  contact with http://www.nationalarchives.ie/ may be helpful.  Good luck with your research - Ellen

[luckytobeirish]

Sinann,

Thank you so much for the terrific photos and for the information.
I do have the 1901 and 1911 censuses which lists the family's addresses as 18 Dublin Street and "House 5 in Borris Little, part of Dublin Street". Although I haven't been able to find an historical street map, I assume these were addresses of the prison cottages (?)
I had no photo of the cottages as you sent and am very thrilled to see it. What a treasure. Where did you find it? (I don't think it's on the link with the other photos.)
I was also thrilled to find out there's an article in the Leister Express about my family. Yes, WJ Smith was RJ's eldest son and he was in the U.S.. I'm curious to know how you located this article. There's clearly a lot of information that I can access and I'm excited about learning how to do this. I'd also like to see an image of the article if that's possible.
Thanks again for your much-appreciated help, Sinann!

[luckytobeirish]

Sinann,

I see from your link that John Dunne has a treasure-trove of photos posted on his site portlaoisepictures.com and in his book as well. I'm glad to know about this site and the book.

[luckytobeirish]

Ellen,

Thanks for your reply. I was sorry to hear that the prison cottages at both Mountjoy and Maryborough no longer exist. Do you happen to know the address of your fil's family in Dublin? In 1886, my family lived at 6 Philsboro Ave in N. Dublin and in 1889 they lived at 18 Avondale Ave. My G grandfather's occupation was prison warder then, so I assume he worked at Mountjoy, which was close to those addresses. Perhaps those addresses were of prison cottages (?)

Although I was sorry to learn that there wasn't more information available about prison staff, I was glad to know about the prison correspondence register, which I will try to locate through the National Archives.

BTW, if you haven't seen it before, there's a fascinating diploma dissertation about the prison written by Matt Keenan.
http://www.hh-gs.com/UCCDiplomaGenealogy/Matthew_Keenan-Queens_County_Gaols-2017.pdf

[Elliebob]

Hi Sinann

My fil was born at 46 Mountjoy Cottages, as was his younger brother.  The elder one was born at  39 Innisfallen Parade which was close by the prison.

Ellen

[Elliebob]

Sinann,  Thanks too for the link to the dissertation.  It is fairly recent and I've not seen it before.  Just glancing through it I see that prisoners were transferred from Mountjoy to Maryborough and it is likely that is why Bob's grandfather went there too.  Thanks again
Ellen

[Sinann]

Getting a little confused about who posted what there, Ellen.

[Sinann]

Borris Little is the name of the townland, the prison is also in Borris Little

You can use GeoHive to see old maps, unfortunately I can't post direct links although I have been assured they are working on introducing this feature.
http://map.geohive.ie/mapviewer.html
Search for Portlaoise, than use Base Information and Mapping, choose the Historic 25" map, the prison as you look at the map is on the right of the town, you can look at the other old maps as well.

[Kiltaglassan]

 .....and "House 5 in Borris Little, part of Dublin Street". 

Welcome to RootsChat   

Borris Little townland, Borris Civil Parish.
https://www.townlands.ie/laois/maryborough-east/borris/borris-little/

KG