Question

what is the Memorial Book mentioned in Irish prison records?

Answer 1

The only account of an "Irish Memorial Book", that I could find, is a list of those who died in the Great War.

Comments

Well I know my GGrandfather was never in the Great War, he was in prison at that time.   It was suggested on another forum, that if the wife or family paid money to the prison, it would be added to the Memorial book, which shortened the prison sentence, I am trying to verify this.

Answer 2

Hi Marjorie! You've raised what I find to be an interesting question. Do you have a specific prison or city of interest where the prison was located? Also, please consider adding the IRELAND or IRISH_ROOTS tag to your post to attract folks fluent with Irish genealogy issues.

Comments

It was Maryborough Prison.

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Hi Susan, I am new to wiki tree, not sure how to add tags.

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Hi Marjorie - Looks like you're all set regarding tags on this post. You have the option to add tags to your post when you first create it or when you go back to edit. It looks like after I suggested to you this be done, someone else who had the user rights on G2G to update this for you added additional tags for you. In this post, the tags are 'andrews', 'smyth' and 'irish_roots'.

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Also, I expect the following are not new to you, but I'll share them just the same. I browsed around a bit and some sites you may wish to investigate are as follows. I didn't take the time to note which ones are free vs. fee based. I didn't do any searches as I'm not certain the name of the person you're looking for. A name and rough dates related to him would help! Anyway, hopefully this will set you off in a useful direction? Let me know if you'd like me to try to help further. My maternal grandfather's line is all rooted in Ireland, and I have a lot of research left to do. Helping others makes me realize other techniques for my own research, so please don't hesitate to ask.

Today Maryborough Gaol is called Portlaoise Prison. It is located in County Laois, Ireland in the Province of Leinster. The name changed to Portlaoise in 1929. The prison opened in 1930.

https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/irish-prison-registers.html

Article in New York Times 31Aug1922 with title "Rebel Captives Fire Irish Prison: Several Are Wounded at Maryborough in Riot After Attempt to Escape. CORK IS ATTACKED AGAIN Free State Forces Capture 700 Republicans From Belfast and Seize Arms." If you are not able to get to the full text of this, please send me a private message and I think I can provide you a clipping.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/08/31/99062968.html?pageNumber=13

https://www.findmypast.com/articles/world-records/full-list-of-the-irish-family-history-records/institutions-and-organisations/irish-prison-registers-1790-1924

https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=su%3AMaryborough+Convict+Prison+%28Maryborough%29&qt=hot_subject

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Thanks Susan, yes, Maryborough is the correct prison, he was there from 1914, he was sentenced to 5 years, no idea if he was there that long, he has been my most elusive relative, he was also charged with bigamy in 1930 for marrying another woman while still married to my G Grandmmother, I also found a record of him being charged with larceny at PRONI. quite the character.