Project proposed for redundant IRA men

The chairman of Kilmainham Gaol Historical Museum, Damien Cassidy, has called for a flagship project that would occupy redundant IRA members, in the way hundreds of volunteers worked on restoring the gaol in the 1960s.

Mr Cassidy said that one of the main blocks to the peace process was the need to provide work for redundant IRA men.

The success in restoring Kilmainham Gaol over 26 years proved that a similar initiative could work again.

He said that he, a pacifist, had worked side by side with some of leading members of the IRA in restoring the building.

These included people who had been involved in a bombing campaign in the 1950s, as well as members of the old IRA, commandants from the 1916 campaign and members who had fought the Black and Tans.

The work on the gaol began after a lull in IRA activity in the early 1960s. Close to 1,000 people had volunteered their skills to the project, with Protestants and Jewish people working alongside IRA members.

"These were some of the toughest people, very, very clever people and if they were happy to do this work, then I don't see why it wouldn't work again. We need to give them a focus." He said many of the IRA members went on to take up full-time employment elsewhere.

Mr Cassidy said the restoration of a cross-Border rail link could be an ideal flagship project for these people and would provide a valuable service.

People from Donegal faced a 10-hour journey to Dublin for cancer treatment because there was no train to take them there, he said.

Kilmainham Gaol had become one of the most successful museums in the State and had been nominated as the "place to visit" by a US tourism body that evaluates tourism sites around the world, he said.

Kilmainham Gaol opened in 1796 and closed in 1924, having detained leaders of the rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848, 1867 and 1916.

Historical figures such as Robert Emmet, Thomas Francis Meagher, Charles Stewart Parnell and Eamon de Valera have all been associated with the gaol.