The chalice used at the wedding of Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford on the eve of his execution is to go on public display at Kilmainham Gaol Museum.
The chalice, along with a ciborium and paten, has been lent to the Office of Public Works by St James’s Parish and the Archdiocese of Dublin.
The vessels have been preserved by the parish since the wedding in May 1916.
Plunkett and Gifford married by candlelight in the prison chapel on the night of May 3, 1916. Fr Eugene McCarthy, a priest from St James’s Parish, performed the ceremony.
Grace Gifford outside Kilmainham Jail, May 2, 1916
Plunkett, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, was executed the following day.
The vessels will be displayed in the museum’s Last Words section, which examines the final days of the 14 Rising leaders executed at Kilmainham.
An inscription on their base also records the later association between the parish and the prison: priests from St James’s continued to minister to prisoners there during the War of Independence.
Other material going on display includes a diary account by Rose McNamara of Mass at the gaol on May 7, 1916.
She recorded seeing Con Colbert, Michael Mallin and Éamonn Ceannt in the prison chapel.
All three were executed the next day.
A letter written by Mallin to his wife on May 7 will also be exhibited.
Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW Kevin “Boxer” Moran described the wedding as one of the most poignant moments in the history of this country.
He thanked the parish and the archdiocese for lending the objects, saying it was a privilege to have them displayed at the gaol.
“The wedding of Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford is one of the most poignant moments in our national story,” he said.
“It is a privilege to see these rare objects go on display at Kilmainham Gaol Museum. I would like to thank St. James Parish and the Archdiocese of Dublin for entrusting us with these important historic artefacts”.
The museum’s current temporary exhibition, The Prisoners’ Lens: Secret Photography in Kilmainham Gaol, 1921, includes a photograph of Mass being celebrated in the prison’s East Wing.
It was taken shortly before prisoners were released from the gaol in December 1921.
Together, the objects and records show the place of the prison chapel in Kilmainham’s history, from Plunkett and Gifford’s brief wedding ceremony to the religious services held for prisoners in the years that followed.