HM Prison Crumlin Road

HM Prison Belfast, known locally as Crumlin Road Gaol, stands in north Belfast beside the Crumlin Road. Built between 1843 and 1845 from black basalt, it replaced the old County Gaol in Carrickfergus. Designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, the prison introduced the ‘Separate System’, keeping prisoners apart in four wings that fan from a central circle. The gaol held up to 550 inmates in cells measuring just over three metres by two. A tunnel under the road once linked it to the Crumlin Road Courthouse for prisoner transfers. The gaol witnessed many key moments in Northern Irish history. Children from poor families were jailed for petty theft, and suffragettes like Dorothy Evans and Madge Muir were imprisoned here in 1914. Seventeen executions took place, the last in 1961 when Robert McGladdery was hanged for murder. During the Troubles the prison held figures such as Bobby Sands and Martin McGuinness, while Loyalist prisoners died in an IRA bomb in 1991. Today the gaol is a museum and events venue. Visitors walk through the circle of wings and the execution chamber, then cross the tunnel to the courthouse. The grounds host concerts and ghost walks, and a distillery opened in one wing in 2024. The prison’s dark past lingers in its stone walls and stories told by guides.