This year is not only the celebration of the centunary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, but it’s alsothe 25th anniversary of the diplomate relation between Ireland and South Africa. For this occasion, the exhibition of Mandela’s life takes place in Kilmainham Gaol.
Kilmainham Gaol Museum
As a foreigner or as a true Dubliner, you must have heard about the very famous Kilmainham Gaol. The prison in which so many Irish figures of revolution have been locked up. But have you heard about Nelson Mandela’s exhibition that is taking place in this Museum?
If you visit the Kilmainham Gaol, you will hear the history of Ireland and mostly the revolution while wandering throughout the cells and shivering at the knowledge of the conditions in which the prisoners lived.
From Prisoner to President
Since the 12th of July 2018 until January 2019, an exhibition of the life of Nelson Mandela: From Prisoner to President, takes place in this prison. To understand why it is in Ireland, we have to go back to the 80’s, during the Apartheid.
In South Africa, between 1948 and 1994, a separation of races was established by a white government, which is called Apartheid. Movement anti-apartheid was then created and Ireland helped them fight against it.
Nelson Mandela was an activist and the figure of the movement anti-apartheid. Indeed he led various actions to break the rules of the regime, but this caused him imprisonment for 27 years. The exhibition looks over his life through different themes, billboards are exposed in different rooms and videos are diffused on screens exploring all parts of his life.
You will be able to see the start of the exhibition at the end of the Kilmainham Gaol tour with videos projected in the cells.
So if you are interested in history, you have to go visit it!
