Two miles from the historic North Wales town of Bala is the tiny
hamlet of Fron Goch. Blink and you'll miss it as you travel westwards on the A4212, past the beautiful Llyn Celyn. However, in the minute or so it takes to
drive between Fron Goch and the lake you will have passed the sites of
probably two of the greatest injustices ever to take place on Welsh
soil.In 1916, many Irishmen grew tired of the failure of various Irish Home Rule Bills in the British Parliament, the latest of which was the Government of Ireland Act 1914 which was never implemented due to the outbreak of the First World War. On Easter Monday 1916, an insurrection took place in Dublin mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic. The uprising was swiftly and brutally crushed by British military forces and 15 of the leaders of the uprising were executed.
The British authorities were then left with a problem of 1,863 prisoners taken during the uprising. Their solution was to ship the prisoners to the Welsh hamlet of Fron Goch and intern them in an abandoned distillery which had been turned into a barracks. Originally it had housed German prisoners of war but these were relocated and the Irish prisoners occupied the prison enduring insanitary conditions and malnourishment. The prisoners were held without charge for roughly eight months until they were finally released.
