Mountjoy Prison Hotel?

Mountjoy Prison, a notorious landmark site on Dublin's Northside, is set to close in 2011 - as a prison. Some buildings, like the women's prison (only finished in the late 1990s), are going to be torn down. But the old prison itself is a protected structure. In the care of the Office of Public Works (OPW), which soon will find itself with a nearly usable prison nobody has use for. Unless ... an investor is found.

The OPW has now proposed a future use of Mountjoy Prison as a hotel. Obviusly some interior alterations and serious re-decorating will have to take place here. All this without harming the exterior, including the stout prison gates. Talk about "secure accommodation". An alternative use as a museum is unlikely to attract investors - and the structure does not really lend itself to many other uses.

Well, should Mountjoy Prison in future be a landmark hotel, may I humbly submit the idea to name it after Irish literary giant Brendan Behan? After all, the "drinker with a writing problem" spent many a night there, listening to the "auld triangle go jingle-jangle along the banks of the Royal Canal" .