TO THE outsider, Limerick Prison is a gloomy place. Full of old buildings, warrens of dark, narrow corridors with low ceilings. You stoop to get through low doorways into narrow cells, perhaps three times the size of a single bed, with a window set high into the end wall.
And there are many walls the high stone perimeter boundary and then the high steel and mesh structures inside the compound, all tupped with barbed wire or other obstacles.
It's a good place for a film set... this is how people would expect a prison to look.
According to the Governor, Pat Laffan, a shadow still hangs over the prison from a series of violent incidents in 1992, which became the subject of three separate inquiries.
In one incident a prison officer was badly injured. Then there was a second, "follow through incident" as he terms it, which became "a general melee between prison officers and prisoners". The Garda, Department of Justice officials and an EU committee investigated, and the committee produced a critical report which is still debated among prison officers.
"There were no allegations against staff, it's important to emphasise that," an officers' representative said yesterday as the Governor began to discuss the matter.
Those involved in the incidents are still working at the prison and it seems the memories of 1992 are still very much alive.
"It certainly cast a shadow over the prison," said Mr Laffan.
"Unfortunately when people talk about Limerick Prison, they talk about 1992." This was the second tour of a prison for the media organised by the Department of Justice since a new policy of glasnost was introduced on Monday.
Limerick Prison has 140 prisoners, including 13 women. Like Mountjoy in Dublin there is no canteen, so prisoners collect their food on trays and are locked in their cells to eat it. Like Mountjoy there are no toilets inside the cells. A new "D" wing is being built which will offer more modern facilities, and Mr Laffan says he hopes that over the next 10 years one part of the prison after the next will be replaced, so that a wholly new prison will eventually emerge from the one which was built in 1821.
Unlike Mountjoy the overcrowding in Limerick is not severe - there is some doubling up in single cells but the population is currently only 10 above the 130 which it should accommodate. The 13 women are in a space for 10.
The offenders are a mixed bunch high security, ordinary crime, sex offenders. A small group of Republican Sinn Fein prisoners was transferred to Portlaoise on Monday. The splinter republican group has opposed the IRA's ceasefires and it was negotiations between prisoners in Portlaoise and Limerick which allowed the transfer to take place without incident.
According to Mr Laffan, Limerick Prison is a "relatively quiet" institution. "You might get a row or a fight about once a week, you'd get two fellas fighting, maybe with not much conviction."
Prison officers regularly find home made weapons, such as razor blades embedded into melted plastic toothbrush handles, but these are usually considered props for the "the hard man image" within the prison rather than weapons being stored for escape attempts, he says.
Many of the prisoners are from local housing estates, serving short sentences, and are content to serve their time, he says. The top floor of "A" wing houses the high security prisoners. These prisoners, with long sentences, have a stricter regime. They cannot, for example, work in the workshops - work or education is obligatory for other prisoners - because they are not trusted with tools.
The sex offenders are mixed with the low security prisoners, and juveniles sent to Limerick by the courts are also put into this section. Yesterday there was one 15 year old in it. Does the Governor have any concerns about a 15 year old being placed among sex offenders? "There's lots of staff around," he says. "And all the prisoners in each part of the prison have been interviewed and assessed when they come in. Anyway, no matter where you put him, he'll meet difficult and dangerous people." He adds the Limerick Prison is used to receiving young people.
The busiest part of the year was the Feile weekend at Thurles, when up to 30 young people could appear at the gates, remanded on drugs and assault charges. Ahead of Feile, the Governor tried to clear space by transferring some prisoners elsewhere.
As in other prisons, Limerick is short on space. The conditions in the women's wing are "the worst we have", the Governor said. The women's exercise yard - high steel walls around a space the size of a tennis court - has been accurately described as a "cage". The yard for men is little over twice as large.