Mónicas Prison

The Convent of Santa Mónica, in Graça, dates from the end of the 16th century. After the religious orders were abolished, it became a reformatory for minors and, from the beginning of the 20th century, a women’s prison; according to the English Wikipedia, which cites the inventory of architectural heritage, a decree of 16 April 1918 created the Lisbon Women’s Civil Prison here.¹

It was mainly a prison for common crimes, but it took in women political prisoners: the Memória Comum project counts the Mónicas, “residually”, among the places where the political police imposed incommunicado detention.² In June 1937 ten women from Ribeira Brava arrived here, arrested after the “milk revolt” in Madeira.³ From May 1938, the political prison for women became the North Redoubt of Caxias Fort.⁴

The Mónicas also served as a punishment. Isabel Aboim Inglez, called to give evidence as a defence witness at the Plenary Court, stood up to the presiding judge, who had her locked up for three days for “lack of respect for the court” and sent her here. On her way out, she said she had learnt from the other prisoners and carried out a “sociological study” there.⁵

Magda Fonseca, of the Union of Portuguese Anti-Fascist Resisters, remembers the visits she made as a child, before 1946, to her aunt Dalila, a communist activist arrested several times: the “apalpadeiras” (the women who frisked visitors) at the entrance, the searching of the bread and the food tins, a net at half height separating prisoners and visitors. Political and common prisoners had the same visiting hour and were told apart by their uniform — “little blue and white checks for the political prisoners, and red and white for the common prisoners”. Notes were often passed hidden in the child’s underwear.⁶

From 1953, the inmates were gradually transferred to the new prison at Tires.¹ In the same lane, at no. 57, lived Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, who described the house as having one side facing “onto the Travessa das Mónicas, where there was a prison”.⁷ In 2021 a plan for a hotel in the former convent was reported, contested by a citizens’ movement.⁸