THE KIDNAPPING OF RED HUGH vice, or company, but theirs, what l Lord Delvin was imprisoned in one of good eould come of this young man I these towers, but unfortunately gives f0ir 1his educatioITT. amongst such, I no clue to the source of this informahumbly refer to your Highness. tion. Delvin, who was suspected of It has alwa!s b:en. as~umed t~at 1 rornp:icit~ in R~d Hugh's final escape, Red Hugh was impnsoned m the Bir- broke pnson himself in 1607, by a mingham Tower in Dublin Castle and 1 rope smuggled into him, and Sir Arthur seve:al w:it·ers have stated that he w.as 1 1 ~hichester, describing '.· this . feat as a conflllled m the '1gr1ate.,' that notoripus · desperate escape" added that it was quarter of the Castle prisons where I "an accident which has often happenthe captives had to rely on alms for I ed in this place." subsistence, like the wretched prison- I ers in the Newgate goal of the city. The THE FIRST ESCAPE grounds for this opinion are very de- There were o'!'lly two sally-ports in batable. We kinow that the grate was the ·old castle, the principal bei~g the deep underground-hventy-four feet I main entrance in Castle Street, with -and that the.re was a better prison in I its drawbridge, port-cullis and flanking t;he upp·er rooms to •which prisOiners Gate Towers. The other led to the out with any •wealth or influence aspired. j offices and was near-but not in-the The fact that on both escapes Hugh Bermingham Tower. It faced towards fled by means of a 1rope would scarce- Ship Street, -which would seem to inly accord with the theory of a subter- dicate ·that it opened interiorly into annean prison, and from a comparison I the Castle precincts'. These details aG:e of the details of the first escaP:e with 1 importc.ut becaus·e it is highly probable what we know about the Castle and that in his carefu~ description of the its prisons it would seem likely that he first escape O'Clery was writing from was imprisoned iin one of the Gate I first-hand knowledge. To1wers. 1 . About eighteen months after In 1685 a plan was made of Dub- Hugh's capture, a number of pledges lin Castle showing it in almost its , escaped from the g1rate, where they original form-at all events as it was 1 had been lodged either before, or shortin Red Hugh's time. Only eighty years ly after, Fitz:williams' arrival. It would after tihe making of this plan. while ,::.ee.m from Eitzwilliams' reports that there 1was still a consider.able amount all pledges were confined in this dunc f the old fabric of the Castle remain- geon or dungeons and most w~iters have ing, the antiquary HarlI'is wrote a de- ,assumed that Red Hugh was also conscripti'on of the builditng and its pre- I fined there, but, apart from the nature vious organisation. Both Hanis and of the escapes, _there is evidence to the also J. T. Gilbert, state that the Ber- contr•ary. Unfortunately within the mingh:am Tower and the Wardrobe (or scop·e of a short paper it is not posGunner's) Tower were used as prisons sib1e to examine . this evidence at -the latter C'0:1tinuing t.o be used for I length. One point must suffice.. Red this purp1ose to the end of the eight- Hugh's friends, Oweny O'Gallagher eent.h century. Ac.cording to Harris the I and Donnell Gorm 1Mac81winey were Gate Towers were al.so used as prisons, J among those who escaped-poor Donheing specially put aside for the Con- Inell Gorm.was recaptured ·a:ict .escapsitable's 1'odigings and ''the custody of i ed ·later v:it:h Hugh. At the time when State nris·o1ners and so late as ·the :Donnell first escaped he was-obvious- - ' I . . . year 1715, one of them together with· 1y not in the. same ,prison quarters as the adjoining buildings was applied to Hugh. otherwise hoiw could Hugh have the 1atter of those uses." He says that ,been isolated from a venture in which, 4GO.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQxNzU3