Locked up in St Patrick’s from 1973 to 1976, the artist and politician Mannix Flynn describes it as part of the “gulag of Irish institutions” that processed generations of Irish children.
Convicted of a malicious damage
charge he contests to this day, Flynn said the institution he was in
played an important role in bolstering Irish crime. “Generations of individuals passed
through and graduated into Mountjoy,” he said. “You can trace most of
the adult criminals in Ireland at the moment into [these] institutions.