KEY POINTS:
When they demonstrate the working of the gallows in Belfast's Crumlin Rd prison, the trapdoor drops away with shocking abruptness and a sickening thud. Fifteen of the 17 men who were hanged there are still in the jail. Their bodies lie by the towering perimeter wall in unmarked graves.
Until now, the chilling workings of this notorious prison have remained a closely guarded secret. It does, after all, have a potentially incendiary history. The Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams both did time inside its Victorian walls. So did four of Northern Ireland's current ministers. Escapes were planned, revolutions plotted and fellow prisoners killed each other on an occasional but regular basis.
This week, however, the dark realities of one of Belfast's grimmest historical chapters will be on display for all to see. For the first time, members of the public will be able to take a tour of the gallows, the anonymous graves and the hangman's lethal paraphernalia. They will also see the cells which held some of the city's best-known figures.
The prospect of Crumlin Rd becoming a visitors' attraction will strike many as bizarre. The streets around the prison are the most dangerous in Northern Ireland, long the scene of riots, bombings and assassinations. The Murder Mile has witnessed exceptional turmoil and frequent death. It was where the first petrol-bomb was thrown, and where the first on-duty soldier was killed.
From these deprived and violent areas a stream of men and youths, from Protestant Shankill and Woodvale, from Catholic Ardoyne and New Lodge, joined the ranks of loyalist and republican groups. Many of them wound up in Crumlin Rd jail.
The gates are now to be thrown open not simply as a gruesome historical curiosity, but as part of an ambitious blueprint to transform a violent sectarian faultline into a scene of neighbourly co-existence. It will not be easy, yet if there really is to be a new Belfast the problems that immediately present themselves - not least whether the two communities can live together after years of segregation - must be resolved. Paisley and Adams are much more moderate than they were, but, if the political settlement they reached is to become firmly anchored, there will have to be a measure of accord not just at the top but also at the grass roots.
While all this is a tremendous challenge, it may also be a great opportunity. The jail site, together with an adjoining former army base, makes up a full 10ha, quite close to the city centre. An imaginative regeneration plan could do wonders for the area and for the city as a whole.
The theory is that a start will be made when the prison doors are thrown open, for although the jail was an epicentre of conflict it is also, paradoxically, viewed by both republicans and loyalists as a shared space. Hundreds from both sides were locked up here, held on remand as they awaited trial in the courthouse across the Crumlin Rd.
They were led from cell to dock via a tunnel which visitors will see: hushed, ancient and Dickensian, its eerie atmosphere helps perpetuate the rumours that ghosts roam the jail.
Ghosts or no ghosts, the district is certainly haunted by history. There were "wild outbursts" in 1922, a report stated at the time, "the whole area of the Crumlin Rd was affected, the din created was terrific and a reign of terror prevailed".
The prison's growing population of loyalists and republicans, some of whom would become the political leaders of today, could hear the turmoil from their cells. Paisley worked in the prison garden and studied his Bible. It was not a safe place. One occupant was Lenny Murphy, leader of a loyalist gang known as the Shankill Butchers.
While his men were outside killing Catholics with knives, axes and cleavers, Murphy killed a loyalist inside, the only known victim of the Troubles to die by poison.
The prison closed in 1996. The envisaged regeneration will encompass workspace, shops, leisure facilities and varying types of accommodation for families, singles and the elderly.
There will surely be obstacles along the way, but the question now is whether such issues can be settled by dialogue and debate.
It will be a key test of whether the recurring cycle of violence which once created a war zone on the Crumlin Rd can be ended.
It will show whether, in this conflict-ravaged part of Belfast, a bitter past can give way to a better future.
- INDEPENDENT
