Those voices belonged to debtors, imprisoned not for violence or theft but for owing money, who stood at an unglazed window holding a wooden box with a hole in the top, begging passers-by for coins to pay their fees or simply to eat. It is one of the more quietly disturbing images in Dublin's urban history, and the site where it occurred has since been entirely erased.

The City Marshalsea, Dublin's dedicated debtors' prison, moved to the south end of Merchants Quay in 1704, relocating from its earlier premises on Bridge Street. It occupied a plot between Skipper's Lane and Swan Alley, and according to the historian John Gilbert, writing in 1854, the soliciting of charity from inmates was a constant feature of life on that stretch of quay from the prison's establishment until at least 1805. A later account from 1825, recorded by G. N. Wright, describes the building's predecessor on the same site as little more than a wretched hovel, suggesting that the formal prison structure represented, at least in architectural terms, an improvement. The Marshalsea closed in 1842, after which the Dublin Militia took over the building for use as a barracks. It then stood empty for a number of years before being demolished in 1975. Some of the stone salvaged from the demolition was put to use repairing the old city wall at nearby Cook Street, so fragments of the building did not entirely disappear.

There is nothing to see at the site today in the conventional sense. The stretch of Merchants Quay where the prison stood has been entirely redeveloped, and no marker or plaque currently identifies the location between the former lines of Skipper's Lane and Swan Alley. For anyone walking the quays with an interest in what the city looked and sounded like in the eighteenth century, it is worth pausing here and consulting a period map to get a sense of the original layout. Cook Street, a short walk away, is worth the detour to see the repaired section of the medieval city wall where some of the Marshalsea stonework was incorporated.