The Prison Story

European Union

European Regional Development Fund Investing in your future

An tAontas Eorpach Coiste Forbraíochta Réigiúnaí na hEorpa Ag infheistiú i do dhán

First published in May 2011 Tar Abhaile 1 Westend Park Derry Ireland BT48 9JF T: (028) 7126 6675 W: www.tarabhaile.com Photographs courtesy of Guildhall Press, An Phoblacht, Phil Cunningham, Hugh Gallagher, The Willie Carson Collection, Eamon Melaugh and Barney McMonagle.

The authors assert their moral rights in this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

Copyright © Tar Abhaile/Gasyard Trust 2011 We are aware that there are almost certainly omissions within this publication. If the reader is aware of any events which they feel should be included in future editions please feel free to contact freederrytours@gmail.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is originally published and without a similar condition to this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

2

Contents Foreword 4 Introduction 5 Prisons in the North Before 1968

6

Imprisoned for Civil Disobedience

9

Special Category Status and the Reintroduction of Internment

13

Internment, Mistreatment and Interrogation

16

Detention Centres, Internees and Escapes

21

Long Kesh and the Burning of the Cages

24

Hunger Strike – A History of Protest and Sacrifice

37

1976 – Criminalisation and the Creation of the H-Blocks

40

Blanket Men, No Wash Protests and the 1980 Hunger Strike

43

1976-81 – Relatives Take Action

52

Chronology of Key Events Leading Up to the 1980 Hunger Strike 56 Chronology of the 1981 Hunger Strike

58

Implications of the 1981 Hunger Strike

65

The Final Sacrifice of Derry Hunger Strikers

67

Crumlin Road Gaol, 1980-1996

70

Long Kesh and The Great Escape

77

Armagh, Magilligan and Maghaberry

85

The Bombing Campaign and English Prisons

89

Gaols in the 26 Counties

93

3

Foreword The publication of this book – to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike – is a fitting tribute to all those who were part of the prison story.

Their collective accounts and memories are very much a part of the history of the conflict and indeed the history of Ireland.

Down through the decades, thousands of men and women have been held in prisons in Ireland, England and other parts of the world; prisons such as Crumlin Road, Armagh, the Curragh, Long Kesh, Mountjoy, Portlaoise, Maghaberry, Durham, Parkhurst, the Isle of Wight, Brixton, Pentonville and many others all form a part of both history and folklore.

Many of the stories are about the prisoners themselves. But equally important are the stories of families making new and challenging journeys.

The Prison Story is also about the politics of our struggle. So often in our history, prisons became the focal point of the struggle – from Thomas Ashe and Terence MacSwiney, to Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg, and to the ten men who died in Long Kesh in 1981.

The Prison Story reflects the campaigns supported by thousands on the outside, from the Armagh H-Block Campaign to the strip searching in Maghaberry and Brixton and the Saoirse campaign for the eventual release of political prisoners.

These pages capture all this hard work and sacrifice: the sadness, the hardship, the courageous, the daring, the humorous. Together, they tell a story that needs to be told. The Prison Story is an important account of the collective spirit, dedication and participation that underpinned our story of political imprisonment in recent times.

Raymond McCartney MLA/Coiste Na nIarchimí Raymond first became involved in republican politics after witnessing the events of Bloody Sunday, during which his cousin, Jim Wray, was murdered by the Parachute regiment. He was first imprisoned in the internment camps of Long Kesh in the early 1970s. Arrested again in 1977, he joined the Blanket and the No Wash Protests and would eventually go without food for 53 days during the first Hunger Strike of 1980.

Following his release from prison, he became involved in community politics and Sinn Féin structures. Raymond was co-opted onto the Assembly team following the retirement of Mary Nelis and was a founding member of Coiste Na nIarchimí, the group set up to look after the interests of former political prisoners.

4

Introduction The modern political conflict in the north of Ireland was the longest in western Europe. As an inevitable result, the gaols in the north and further afield have seen thousands of political prisoners go through their gates. There have been numerous books and articles written about the Hunger Strikes, internment and other events which had a direct bearing on the prison situation. In this publication we have provided a chronological account of the history of the prisons and the republican political prisoners who spent time within the confines of Crumlin Road Gaol, the cages and blocks of Long Kesh, Armagh, Maghaberry and many other prisons in the 26 counties and England.

The publication is a joint venture between the Gasyard Development Trust in the Bogside and Tar Abhaile, the Derry-based support group for republican ex-prisoners from the Derry area. This link is appropriate given the fact that the Bogside is where the conflict began and accelerated after Bloody Sunday.

As a direct consequence, a large section of the area’s population ended up in gaol with many of these ex-prisoners now relying on Tar Abhaile for support.

As such, the accounts and profiles contained in the book are mainly focussing on Derry-based republican ex-prisoners. Nevertheless, the stories they tell will be familiar to former political prisoners from right across Ireland and other areas of struggle across the world.

The book is also a unique aid for visitors to Derry and students of the political conflict who may not be familiar with some aspects of the prison struggle. We hope that you find the publication informative and interesting.

Ultimately we hope that the book conveys the determination of republicans during the struggle and shows that despite their incarceration, republican political prisoners would never accept the status of common criminal nor meekly serve their time.

Mickey Cooper Gasyard Development Trust

5

Prisons in the North Before 1968 Numerous Derry nationalists have been either sentenced or interned for their political beliefs throughout the 20th century. These prisoners have endured harsh conditions and regimes which have sanctioned the use of solitary confinement, the refusal of political status, punishment diets, internal body searches, beatings by prison staff and many more forms of repression. The prisoners’ defiance of these regimes took on numerous forms including riots, escape bids, educational programmes and most notably, a refusal to accept the status of criminal, which would lead to the tactic of Hunger Strike.

Until the beginning of the conflict in 1968, Derry prisoners were most likely to have experienced one of three prisons in the north, namely Armagh, Belfast Prison (more commonly referred to as the ‘Crum’), or Derry Gaol on Bishop Street.

Derry Gaol

The wider history of the gaol goes back to 1791.

When it opened, some of its first prisoners were members of the United Irishmen including the most famous of them all, Wolfe Tone. Captured on board La Hoche at Lough Swilly, Tone was detained at the Derry Gaol before being brought to Dublin for trial.

Completed in 1824 at a cost of £33,718 Irish pounds, the jail was modelled in a gothic style and part coated with cement and Dungiven sandstone. It closed in 1953, with eventual demolition in 1971.

By the time of its closure there had been no female prisoners since 1921 (all being moved to Armagh).

The female prisoners had been replaced by republican internees, which led to the only successful escape from the gaol when Frank Carty, a TD in the second Dáil, managed to scale the 50-foot back wall of the prison in February 1921 to make his way to freedom in Scotland, a feat which eluded the men of 1943.

The ‘men of 1943’ were a group of 21 republican prisoners who made a famous escape by tunnelling under the gaol into the back of a house in Harding Street before escaping in a furniture van.

All would eventually be recaptured apart from one prisoner who was killed later on active service.

6

Armagh Prison.

Armagh Prison

Armagh Prison was opened in 1782. Despite its attractive Georgian exterior, its interior was grim. The gaol originally held both males and females but would eventually become the main female gaol in the north until Maghaberry was opened in 1986. In 1970 the prison held civil rights leader and MidUlster MP Bernadette Devlin following her conviction for involvement in the Battle of the Bogside. As will be explained, when the conflict began to accelerate in 1971 the gaol would become the key battleground for female republicans held in captivity.

Crumlin Road Gaol

Designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, Crumlin Road Gaol was built between 1843 and 1845 at a cost of ÂŁ60,000 on a ten-acre site at the bottom of the Crumlin Road. Partly based on Pentonville Prison in London, it was one of the most advanced prisons of its day. Built within a five-sided wall, the four wings were up to four storeys in height and fanned off from the central area which was known as the Circle. Originally built to hold between 500 and 550 prisoners, it was the first prison in Ireland to be built according to ‘The Separate System’, intended to separate prisoners from each other with no communication between them. Later, especially in the early 1970s, as many as three prisoners were placed in each cell. The first 106 inmates, who were forced to walk from Carrickfergus Prison in chains, arrived in 1846.

Across the street from the gaol was Crumlin Road courthouse or the Belfast City Commissions court. Built in 1850, the courthouse and gaol were linked by an underground tunnel through which prisoners would travel each week 7

for their remand hearing. The courthouse heard numerous trials, the most famous, in Derry terms, being the Raymond Gilmour ‘supergrass’ trials of 1984.

The prison did not contain a gallows until 1901, so until then all executions were carried out in public view. Seventeen prisoners were executed in the prison, the last being Robert McGladdery in 1961. The bodies of the executed were buried inside the prison in unconsecrated ground and the graves were marked only with their initials and year of execution on the prison wall.

In republican terms, the execution of Tom Williams was a seminal event.

At the age of 19, Tom was hanged for the killing of an RUC man on the Falls Road during a shoot-out. His friend and comrade Joe Cahill, who would later go on to lead the IRA, was also sentenced to death but had his sentence commuted along with four other comrades. Tom, as commanding officer of the unit involved in the killing, was told he would not be so fortunate. He bravely went to the gallows on 2 September 1942. His remains were reinterred in the republican plot of Milltown cemetery in 2000 following a long campaign by Joe Cahill, who was eventually buried beside his comrade in 2004.

When the Troubles broke out in 1968, Crumlin Road Gaol became the main location where those males convicted of involvement in rioting and other politically motivated activity were held.

Crumlin Road Gaol.

8

Dockers’ non-violent protest at Ferryquay Street/Linenhall Street in 1968.

Imprisoned for Civil Disobedience Even before the conflict began in popular terms in October 1968, there was already a list of individuals who had faced the courts in Derry for protests or activity relating to the developing civil rights campaign. In all the cases from 1966 up to July 1968 none of those convicted were actually imprisoned. This was to change in the summer of 1968 when two Derry republicans were sent to prison.

On Thursday 25 July 1968, six people appeared in court charged in connection with a sit-down protest at the official opening of the lower deck of Craigavon Bridge on 3 July. There were protests outside the court during the hearing. Two of those convicted – Tommy Carlin and Neil O’Donnell – chose to go to jail for one month rather than enter into bail bonds (reported on 5 August in the Derry Journal). The men were released in early September from Crumlin Road Gaol.

Although a number of people were summonsed in relation to the events of 5/6 October 1968 (the popular date for the beginning of the conflict in Derry – visit the Museum of Free Derry for more details), the first person to be imprisoned since the events of 5 October was actually convicted in relation to the 9

events of 4/5 January after a loyalist attack on a civil rights demonstration en route to Derry from Belfast at Burntollet Bridge. Thus began a series of convictions of Derry residents for their involvement in civil disobedience:

Monday 27 January 1969

One man was jailed for two months and two fined on charges arising from a protest outside the Guildhall on 4 January.

Tuesday 6 May 1969

James Chichester-Clark, then Prime Minister of the unionist government at Stormont, announced an amnesty for all ‘offences’ associated with demonstrations since 5 October 1968. The move was regarded more as an excuse to deflect charges against RUC officers than an amnesty for civil rights supporters, since many of the charges against civil rights supporters had already been dealt with and fines/sentences imposed.

Tuesday 22 July 1969

Five people were jailed on charges relating to riots on 12 July 1969. The riots had begun when loyalist bands and their supporters had returned to Derry from Limavady.

Thursday 7 August 1969

Three more men were sent to prison on charges related to the rioting round 12 July.

Water cannon used to disperse an impromptu riot at ‘Aggro Corner’ on William Street.

Thursday 28 August 1969

James Callaghan visited the Bogside, where an impromptu meeting with local representatives was held in the home of Mrs Ellen Diver on the Lecky Road. A statement presented to Callaghan promised a campaign of civil disobedience if political prisoners were not released.

Monday 27 October 1969

A Creggan man was jailed for assaulting a soldier at a British army checkpoint in the Diamond.

10

Monday 1 December 1969

An 18-year-old was sentenced to three months for throwing bottles at the RUC on 12 July.

Monday 22 December 1969

Bernadette Devlin was sentenced to six months in prison for her involvement in the Battle of the Bogside (visit the Museum of Free Derry for more details of the Battle of the Bogside).

Friday 6 February 1970

A crowd gathered outside the Guildhall as Ian Paisley held a rally inside. Two women from Creggan and four men were subsequently jailed for disorderly behaviour outside the meeting and a number of others were fined.

Friday 3 April 1970

As part of a new ‘get tough’ policy, Ian Freeland, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the British army, warned that those throwing petrol bombs could be shot dead if, after a warning, they did not stop using them. If arrested, those using petrol bombs could face a sentence of ten years in prison.

Bernadette Devlin, Unity MP for Mid-Ulster, addresses the crowd from a barricade during the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969.

11

British troops barricade the bottom of Shipquay Street as an angry crowd gathers around them.

Monday 22 June 1970

Bernadette Devlin lost her appeal against a six-month prison sentence imposed for taking part in the Battle of the Bogside. She was arrested on 26 June 1970.

Wednesday 21 October 1970

Bernadette Devlin was released from prison having served four months of her six-month sentence for riotous behaviour.

By the time of Bernadette Devlin’s incarceration, imprisonment was becoming a common feature for many young Derry nationalists. In numerous cases people were being convicted on eyewitness testimony from British troops which was obviously false. The rioting that erupted after the arrest of Bernadette Devlin saw further convictions, including a famous case where three teenage girls were sent to prison based on the testimony of a British soldier who claimed that they were throwing stones. During the trial, it transpired that the girls had clean hands when arrested (proving they had not been holding stones). It later emerged that, in the weeks before the riot, one of the girls had refused to go out with the same soldier despite his persistent enquiries.

The soldier had lied in court as a vindictive response to his rejection.

12

Special Category Status and the Reintroduction of Internment The ‘Crum’ Continued

With the onset of the IRA’s military campaign, the nature of those being detained began to change. In 1970 most of those being imprisoned were spending short periods in jail for involvement in riots and similar activity.

By 1971 the charges against many individuals related to shootings, bombings and membership of illegal organisations.

Despite the fact that many of the Crum’s prisoners were in prison for politically motivated activity, there was no segregation of republicans and loyalists or recognition of political status within the prison. The issue became magnified when Long Kesh was opened for internees in 1971 since all its internees were allowed segregation, the right to wear their own clothing and other prisoner of war rights. The issue came to a head in June 1972 when a Hunger Strike led by Billy McKee and Proinsias MacAirt in the gaol was reaching a crucial stage. In a bid to secure a ceasefire the British conceded that political status (which they termed ‘special category status’) would be introduced. The strike was therefore called off just as McKee was nearing death.

As a direct consequence, the convicted political prisoners were transferred and for the rest of the conflict Crumlin Road Gaol remained as a remand prison. Nevertheless, the issue of segregation between loyalist and republican prisoners remained a problem right up to the 1990s.

Escapes

There were several escapes from the Crum before the modern conflict began.

Four republican prisoners escaped in 1927. All four were recaptured inside a year. A further five republicans went ‘over the wall’ in 1941 including Derryman Gerry ‘The Bird’ Doherty who famously scrawled ‘The Bird has flown’ on his cell wall before escaping.

In 1943, Joe Cahill was involved in an escape bid from the Crum. Although he was captured, several prisoners – including the IRA’s chief of staff, Derryman Hugh McAteer, Patrick Donnelly and Jimmy Steele – escaped and were not recaptured despite a £3,000 reward being offered.

From the outset of the Troubles, Crumlin Road Gaol became severely overcrowded. The increase in numbers corresponded with an increase in escape bids.

Several escapes by IRA prisoners were carried out in 1971, including the 13

famous escape by nine republican prisoners on 17 November 1971. These men were later immortalised in song as the ‘Crumlin Kangaroos’. The song was recorded by the Wolfhounds who were later smuggled into Cage 4 of Long Kesh disguised as clergymen to play an impromptu concert to the republican prisoners. The concert was broken up when a British army riot squad launched rubber bullets into the ‘audience’.

On 2 December three more prisoners escaped from the Crum by hiding under a manhole until the late evening when they made good their escape.

Later, in January 1973, a prisoner walked out of the Crum dressed as another man who was being released on bail. A month later, another prisoner escaped through a tunnel on his way to a remand hearing in Crumlin Road courthouse.

This would be the last successful escape until 1980 when one of the most famous escapes of all was undertaken by a group of republicans known as the ‘M60 Squad’.

Internment

By 1971 a steady stream of people were arriving in the north’s gaols, convicted as a result of the political situation. Nevertheless, it was the detention of people who were not convicted of anything which led to the biggest change in the prisons situation.

At 5.00am on 9 August 1971 the British army swooped on a large number of homes in nationalist areas of the north. Internment, or ‘Operation Demetrius’ as it was officially known, had begun.

The policy of internment had been on the statute books as part of the notorious Special Powers Act since 1922. The Special Powers Act was so repressive that it was said the South African apartheid government were jealous of the level of control the Stormont Government enjoyed through its existence. Internment was one aspect of the Act which had been used by the unionist government of the six-county state on previous occasions to ensure that the ability of the Irish Republican Army (the IRA) to resist the policies and repression of the unionist government were kept to a minimum.

The measure was used in the aftermath of partition in the 1920s, during World War II and during the IRA’s border campaign (1956-62). In all cases prisoners were held in the Crumlin Road and Derry Gaols, with a female also held in Armagh in 1924. The first and third phase of internment also saw two ships (the SS Argenta and SS Rawdah) used, a tactic which would be repeated when the policy was applied again in 1971.

A number of Derry republicans were held on each occasion, famously 14

including Sean Keenan. Sean was from the Bogside area and was a republican activist his entire adult life. He was interned without trial on three occasions: from 1940 to 1945, from 1957 to 1961 and also between 9 August 1971 and 27 April 1972. As a consequence of the internment policy he spent a total of 15 years in jail despite never being convicted of an offence. In March 1972, a month before his final release, he was paroled for the funeral of his son Colm, an IRA volunteer who was shot during an incursion into the Bogside by British troops. Sean’s wife Nancy was also interned for her political beliefs.

Internment was also used by the government in the 26 counties to curb the IRA during the 1922-23 civil war, throughout World War II and also during the border campaign. They would also reintroduce the policy during the modern conflict through the increased use of the Offences Against the State Act. In July 1971, 48 people were arrested in republican areas. These raids were dummy runs for the official introduction of the policy on 9 August. The IRA, aware that internment was on its way, told its members, if possible, to avoid being in their homes on 9 August.

15

Internment, Mistreatment and Interrogation Those detained were brought to three interrogation centres: Girdwood Barracks in North Belfast, Ballykinlar in County Down, and Magilligan military base in County Derry. Of the 342 men arrested in the first week of the policy, 116 were released within 48 hours. Sixty of the remaining 226 men were from County Derry, of which 16 were from Derry City. Initially, 124 men were held in C Wing of Crumlin Road Gaol while the remainder were held on the Maidstone prison ship, an old British navy boat docked in Belfast lough. As will be explained, the number of detention centres would increase within a short time.

The reintroduction of the policy had been a political and military disaster.

It was clear at an early stage that most of those interned in the first swoops were civilians with no involvement in the conflict which led to a massive increase in alienation from the British state. Indeed, even if all of those interned had been republican activists it is unlikely that the response from the nationalist community would have been much different.

The fact that the unionist government, with the consent of the Westminster administration, were now using even more repressive security measures to deal with the political grievances of northern nationalists guaranteed that there would be a negative response no matter who was arrested. As more and more stories emerged of the brutality which had been inflicted on those detained, this negativity was compounded further.

The Five Techniques Of those interned in the first few weeks, twelve were subjected to what became known as the ‘Five Techniques’, a series of interrogation tactics carried out by specially trained British army personnel with the foreknowledge of the highest ranks of the British military and political establishment. Two more men suffered similar treatment in October 1971. The techniques were later summarised by the European Court of Human Rights as the following: • wall-standing: forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in a stress position, described by those who underwent it as being spreadeagled against the wall, with their fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs spread apart and the feet back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of the body mainly on the fingers; 16

• hooding: putting a black or navy-coloured bag over the detainees’ heads and, at least initially, keeping it there all the time except during interrogation; • subjection to noise: pending their interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud and hissing noise; • deprivation of sleep: pending their interrogations, ensuring the detainees could not get any rest or sleep; • deprivation of food and drink: subjecting the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the centre and pending interrogations.

In addition to the above, prisoners were subjected to sustained beatings and abuse. In several cases men were also forced into British army helicopters whilst hooded and disorientated and told they were flying over the Irish Sea. They were also informed that if they didn’t talk they would end up in the water. The prisoner was either then thrown onto solid ground (as the interrogation was actually taking place inside an army base) or brought back to ground. This torture lasted for eight days. Three of the men involved died a short time later whilst others spent time as patients in mental institutions as a result of their treatment.

Postscript

On 16 November 1971 the British Government commissioned a committee of inquiry chaired by Lord Parker, the Lord Chief Justice of England, to look into the legal and moral aspects of the use of the five techniques.

The Parker Report was published on 2 March 1972. Despite his clear attempts in the report to abdicate responsibility from the British state for the problems created by the introduction of internment, Parker nevertheless found the five techniques to be illegal under domestic law: 10. Domestic Law . . . (c) We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland . . . (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorized the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.

17

On the same day Ted Heath, the British Prime Minister, stated that: [The] Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques . . . will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation . . . The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances.

Directives expressly prohibiting the use of the techniques, whether singly or in combination, were then issued to British security forces by the Westminster government. Nevertheless, numerous republicans would subsequently endure similar techniques during interrogation throughout the remainder of the conflict.

In 1976 the Irish Government took a case to the European Commission on Human Rights on behalf of the men who had been subject to the five methods. The Commission: . . . considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation directly affects the personality physically and mentally; and (2) the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages . . . a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions.

The Commission’s findings were appealed by the British Government. In 1978 in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trial ‘Ireland vs the United Kingdom’ it was ruled: 167. Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/or information and although they were used systematically, they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood.

168. The Court concludes that recourse to the five techniques amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment, which practice was in breach of [the European Convention on Human Rights] Article 3 (art. 3).

18

Although nationalists were dismayed that the European court had downgraded the ruling of the commission from ‘torture’ to ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’, there remained some satisfaction that the cases had exposed the interrogation tactics of the British security forces, which had been carried out with the knowledge of the British establishment.

Female Internees

Although no females were interned during the 1920s, 18 were interned in the old wing of Armagh Prison during World War II. Amongst their number was Nancy Ward, wife of Sean Keenan.

The third period of internment during the 1956-62 border campaign saw just one women, Bridie O’Neill, held for seven months in Armagh. When internment was reintroduced in 1971, the activities of female republicans were of a much more militant nature. It was therefore surprising that no women were detained until the start of 1973.

On 1 January 1973, 19-year-old Elizabeth McKee became the first female internee. Held in Armagh, she was joined a month later by 17-year-old Teresa Holland. Others would follow and the final eight female internees would only be released from the gaol on 28 April 1975.

19

A number of well-publicised incidents took place in Armagh Prison during the internment period: 20 April 1972: Four IRA prisoners overpowered three prison staff and an RUC member, stating that they would hold them until a van was provided for the escape of ten prisoners. The stand-off only ended when CS gas was fired into the prisoners’ faces.

4 March 1973: Five prisoners, including Liz McKee and Teresa Holland, put dummies in their beds as decoys and cut through their cell windows in a bid to escape. They were captured at the prison wall.

16 October 1974: As the cages of Long Kesh are being burned, the protests spread to Armagh. A siege situation develops when the governor and three warders are taken hostage in a cell. The siege lasts through the night until a priest and Protestant minister negotiate a peaceful conclusion.

Female volunteers on parade in the yard in Armagh Prison.

20

Detention Centres, Internees and Escapes Detention Centres

Once interrogated, the detainees from Girdwood Barracks were taken to Crumlin Road Gaol while the groups interrogated in Magilligan and Ballykinlar were taken to the SS Maidstone.

Magilligan

On 16 January 1972, 50 men were relocated from the overcrowded Maidstone to Magilligan camp just on the County Derry coastline. Like Long Kesh, Magilligan had been used as a World War II base and consequently had four cages similar to those at Long Kesh. At its peak the camp held 160 people.

Compared to other locations, it was said that Magilligan had the worst conditions, with fewer recreational facilities, a constant wind coming in from the Atlantic and no proper heating. Its remote location also proved a major problem for visiting relatives. The monotony in the camp caused one internee to be moved to a mental hospital.

On 22 January 1972, an anti-internment protest march en route to the camp was stopped by members of the British Parachute Regiment on Magilligan beach. Seeing the march, some internees climbed onto the roofs of the huts and waved flags to show the marchers they could see them. Suddenly the Paras began a baton charge against the protestors. People were kicked as they lay on the ground with some being hit by rubber bullets fired at close range.

The same regiment would return to Derry within eight days. The result of their second visit was Bloody Sunday (for more information on Bloody Sunday visit the Museum of Free Derry).

On 1 May 1972, Magilligan internment camp was closed with the remaining internees moved to Long Kesh. It would, however, remain in use as a prison. The Nissen huts were later replaced by three H-Blocks similar to those at the Long Kesh site, each containing 100 cells. In 1976 the prison began to house prisoners convicted of non-political offences as well as some young prisoners including Borstal trainees.

In 1977 the trainees were transferred to Woburn House in Millisle and any political prisoners being held were transferred to the cages of Long Kesh. In the early 1980s some of the Long Kesh prisoners were transferred to the site as the H-Blocks were becoming so overcrowded. This led to other problems in the prison which will be explained later in the book.

21

Escapes

The unstable sandy soil underneath the camp meant it was difficult to dig tunnels for escape. Indeed, there was only one attempt to escape from the site when it was an internment camp, although there were several attempts by sentenced prisoners. On one occasion, a prisoner was making his escape in a tunnel when it collapsed. As a result, the prisoner was forced to stick his head above ground level unaware of how far beyond the gaol he had reached.

Unfortunately, when he popped up, two prison warders were standing right in front of him!

In another audacious escape, two visiting lecturers (including a well-known historian who worked for many years in Derry) were taken captive during a lecture and relieved of their clothing. One of the prisoners, a Fermanagh man, was the spitting image of one of the lecturers. He promptly put on the lecturer’s attire and walked out of the prison before being taken across the border through Derry.

Republican internees on their way to the Maidstone via military helicopter. Among those in the picture are Derry republicans Mickey McNaught and Sean Keenan.

22

The SS Maidstone.

The Maidstone

The SS Maidstone had been brought to Belfast lough in October 1969 to house British troops. The ship was then converted so that the internees would be held in two levels in the stern whilst the British troops and prison staff would stay above deck.

On Sunday 19 September 1971, over 200 internees were taken by helicopter from the ship to the newly opened Long Kesh camp. The previous night many of the prisoners onboard had launched a protest at their detention and conditions by burning mattresses and other material. The damage was so bad the boat was only reopened in December 1971. This time it was used as a holding centre where prisoners were kept until a decision was made on whether they should be charged, interned or released. When the British Government introduced direct rule in March 1972, the ship was closed as a detention centre. It continued to house British troops until early 1976.

Escapes

On Monday 17 January 1972, seven internees escaped from the Maidstone in extraordinary circumstances. The seven men began their escape by severing a bar on a porthole with a fretsaw. Then, dressed only in their underwear (to make their bodies as light as possible) and smeared in boot polish and butter (to insulate themselves), the men slid through the hole into Belfast lough. For the next 20 minutes the men swam through the freezing cold water until they reached a pier. They then hijacked a bus to take them to the republican Markets area of Belfast before going on the run to Dublin (where they appeared at a press conference a few days later). The escape went down in republican folklore for its daring and the bravery of the men involved.

23

Long Kesh and the Burning of the Cages Long Kesh

Long Kesh near Lisburn had been used as an RAF base from 1941 until 1971. Various aircraft operated from the base during World War II and a large number of Nissen huts were installed at the site as living quarters. Once internment was launched these huts were quickly converted to become holding centres for hundreds of republicans now being held captive without trial by the British Government. Once special category status was conceded by the British in June 1972 the sentenced prisoners being held in Crumlin Road were moved either to Magilligan or in most cases to Long Kesh which, as a result of special category status, was now being called HMP Maze, although republicans would continue to call the prison Long Kesh until its closure.

When a prisoner arrived he was quickly immersed into the POW system that had been set up by the first political prisoners to arrive. To claim political status a prisoner had to be sentenced to more than nine months and had to be claimed by the prison leader of one of the organisations within the Long Kesh cages.

Although the internees and sentenced prisoners were kept apart, they had similar rights including the right to abstain from work, the right to wear their own clothing, the right to one food parcel a week from home and the right to a half hour visit per week. Internees had the advantage of an extra half hour weekly visit and unlimited food parcels.

The prison warders, or ‘screws’ as they were more commonly known, were only permitted into the cages in the morning at 7.30am to check that there had been no escapes, or during a search of the cages when the prisoners would be locked in the canteen. Otherwise the prisoners had complete free association and were able to organise their own education classes which, as well as topics like the Irish language and history, also included training on weapons and explosives. The result was that some prisoners who had arrived at the camp as inexperienced volunteers ended up leaving the prison as experienced bomb makers and weapons experts. This led to the British establishment describing Long Kesh as the ‘Sandhurst of terrorism’. Prisoners were also expected to observe a daily routine within the cages with all prisoners allocated tasks by their OC (Officer Commanding) whilst regular military parades involving prisoners in full regalia also took place.

Despite the granting of political status, the conditions on the site were far from comfortable. The cages, owing to their structure of thin corroded steel, 24

were constantly damp and rusty. On any given day only 20% of the prisoners could eat the badly prepared meals provided. One example was the ‘riot roll’, a bread roll so hard and stale that it could easily be used as ammunition in a riot. The dry food stores of tea, sugar, margarine and salt would normally be insufficient to last the week, often because the screws had siphoned some off to use or sell elsewhere for profit. The prisoners’ bed sheets and towels, which were changed once a fortnight, would often be sent back from the laundry in a dirtier condition than when they had been sent out. Various prisoners also died prematurely either in Long Kesh or when they had left due to illnesses contracted in the prison. One such example was Derryman Jim Moyne who died in Long Kesh in 1975 through illness and a lack of medical assistance. In addition, news would regularly reach the prison of the death of a comrade or loved one, often as a direct result of the conflict.

There were few ways to escape the monotony of the prison routine. The main exception was the illicit manufacture of poteen in the gaol which would lead to a ‘night to remember and a morning to forget’!

In Our Footsteps...

John Carlin, Republican Internee (1972-1975) John Carlin was 22 years old when he was arrested in April 1972. He was tortured before being interned in Long Kesh for 23 months and later successfully sued the British Government.

I didn’t know what was happening. After being interrogated for three or four days I was a bit disorientated and then I realised that I was going to the Kesh. It was a form of relief because there were a lot of threats during the interrogation saying that you would be shot and things like that.

I did get a bad time for three or four days. They tortured me. They didn’t call it that but that’s what it was. I took a case to the European Court of Human Rights and they were found guilty of degrading treatment.

The British Government was arguing at the time that the hooded-men thing was a one-off, but word started getting out that they were using the same tactics all over the place. I was in Ballykelly but there were people in Gough Barracks, people in Hollywood Barracks.

It didn’t stop with the hooded men, they kept it going.

The thing happened and you suffered it, but there was no real recompense so you got no relief from it.

25

But I wouldn’t really be angry any more. It was the RUC with me and some of them were killed afterwards. The ones on the ground were just carrying out policy but I suppose it’s a form of war crime.

When I got to the Kesh, it was like a railway station, there were so many people running about. There were literally hundreds of people and they were rushing up to you to see who you were and where you were from.

There were a lot of Belfast people there. I don’t think I met a Derry person for three or four weeks.

It wasn’t just republicans who were there. They arrested anybody that held any kind of leadership within the nationalist community.

You get to know people and still to this day, if I went to a march I would recognise them and I’ve been recognised myself in West Belfast. You still know them all.

I was angry but I saw it for what it was. It was the British trying to take out the leadership of the republican community at the time and placate the unionists by doing that and they kept it going and used it as an instrument of policy to get people off the streets.

Nowadays, Carlin looks back at his time in the cages as a time of education and he feels that the ramifications of internment are still being felt today.

You could sit down and look at the big picture while you were in there. I have no bitterness about what happened. You move on but I learned a lot by it. I also think of people like Jim Moyne from Derry who actually died in the cages.

Hopefully we are getting towards a resolution. But I think that internment is an important chapter in the Troubles. It was a major disaster on the part of the Brits and they’re still dealing with the consequences of it. The political leadership they’re dealing with at the minute was formed in Long Kesh.

In Our Footsteps...

Francie Brolly, Republican Internee (1973-1975) Francie Brolly, who later became a Sinn Féin councillor and MLA, was a 34-yearold teacher in Dungiven when his life was turned upside down in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1973.

It was a shock of course. It certainly was unexpected. The knock at the door by the policemen followed by the soldiers. They arrested me and then they searched the house.

26

I was taken to Ballykelly and interviewed by various people. I was never really frightened because there was never really any kind of abuse directed at me.

Generally speaking the Special Branch men I talked to were civil enough.

The first introduction I got was a Special Branch man who said he was absolutely shocked to see me there and I said I was a wee bit shocked myself.

He recalled how my father, whom he knew, may have saved his life in the late 1960s during a disturbance in the town when my father persuaded people not to attack him.

After interrogation, Brolly was taken by helicopter from Ballykelly to Long Kesh, his new home until his eventual release in March 1975.

It was tough, a hell of a wrench because I had a fairly settled life. I was teaching in the town and so was my wife and our youngsters were growing up. We were going about normal life really and all of a sudden, everything changes. I suppose in a way it’s like somebody dying.

Brolly recalled how he received an unexpected visitor one day as he settled into his new life in Cage 22.

Bishop Edward Daly came to visit us. I knew him already because he was at St Columb’s College at the same time as me and I had been in touch with him on and off. The first thing he said when he came in was this should be no bother to you having been a boarder at St Columb’s!

But of course when I was at St Columb’s I wasn’t married with three kids.

Brolly recalled that, with the exception of the early-morning searches, the atmosphere in the cages was normally quite jovial.

We spent the day looking after ourselves and walking round the place. We trained in the canteen and played inter-cage football and hurling matches.

But of course there were many low points as well.

I was there for the burning of Long Kesh which was a tough time because you had nowhere to go. But my most abiding negative memory was the death of Jim Moyne from Derry. He was in our hut and he had this asthma problem. One night he suddenly started to stagger and turned a terrible dark blue colour. I grabbed him and got him up on the top bed.

This was after lock-up time and the boys all started banging windows to try and attract the warders’ attention. They were very slow at coming and so a big fella from Dungannon just put his feet through the door. We carried Jim out and put him on a trolley to take him to the gate but he didn’t survive.

On another occasion, Gerard Coney was shot dead as he came out of a tunnel during an escape attempt.

Those were two of the really very, very down times when I was there.

27

Nowadays, Francie just wants to leave his experience of interment in the past but he still talks fondly of the friends and comrades he met during his time in the cages.

When people are thrown together in conditions like that, you develop a great depth of camaraderie which is very lasting. You get to know each other well and there are people living not so far from Dungiven who I wouldn’t even know now if it hadn’t been for my time in Long Kesh.

Internment and the Burning of the Cages:

By a Derry Republican Ex-Prisoner I was arrested in the Creggan estate in Derry on 19 September 1974 by British soldiers and taken to Piggery Ridge army base where I was interrogated by British intelligence officers. I had been carrying a driver’s licence in a false name and stuck to my story that I was not involved in anything and was simply visiting friends. They had no idea of my real identity, but the house I was arrested at was well-known so they handed me over to the RUC. I was then taken to Victoria Barracks and interrogated by RUC Special Branch. I continued to stick to my cover name. The Branch didn’t believe me, but my ID was very good. After about three hours of questioning I was taken to a cell. The barracks were very old and the cell was dimly lit. The only furniture was a wooden bench on top of a brickwork frame. I could hear rats scratching inside the brickwork where they must have made a nest. It was unsettling but I decided they probably chose the cell for that reason; the mind games had begun.

At about ten that night I was taken back up for another interrogation. I was again asked my name and continued to use the name I had provided; the RUC continued to insist that I was lying. They then told me they had gone to the address on the licence on the pretence that the licence holder had been involved in a serious road accident. They also insisted that the woman at the address had told them she had no idea who the person in the photo was. I told them it was an old photo and my mother has bad eyesight so wouldn’t have recognised me.

This process continued until I was eventually told I was being transferred to Ballykelly. At Ballykelly I was interrogated for two days but I stuck to my cover story. At around one o’clock I was told my father was there to see me. I was taken to another room and found he actually was there. I was glad to see a friendly face but realised my cover was well and truly broken and finally I told them my name. Later that day I was told I would be going to Long Kesh. On departing Ballykelly the next day I discovered my father had left a food parcel which I was allowed to take with me. That night I was held in the hospital wing and on 24 September I was moved into Cage 7. The Derrymen were waiting 28

to welcome me and to hear the news from home. I was assigned to a hut and shown to a bunk by the hut OC. He also informed me the camp was on protest and my food parcel would have to be given to the cage QM (Quartermaster) who would take some of it and return the rest. I informed him I would have no problem with what was asked of me.

Long Kesh was really two prisons in one; the internees were held at the bottom end and sentenced prisoners at the top end. Each group had their own staff structures but there was also a camp staff. They were in constant conflict with the prison authority over conditions in both ends of the camp. Compassionate parole was a very emotive issue, but there were every day issues that also created problems including living conditions, food and visiting rights. All caused tensions. These tensions came to a dramatic head in 1974 when the camp was burned to the ground.

The burning did not happen by accident nor was it spontaneous; it had been planned for months. As internment entered its fourth year and the prison authorities continued to ignore the concerns of the camp staff over conditions and parole, the staff drew up a point-by-point document of their complaints.

Hildrich, the head governor, was totally dismissive and made no attempt to address the issues raised. The laundering of bed linen was one of the points raised but not resolved. As a result the internees were instructed to throw their sheets onto the barbed wire around the cages. Food was another issue, so prisoners began refusing to accept it. The screws continued to leave it inside the cages so the prisoners began to throw it over the wire. Hildrich responded by stopping the weekly food parcels left in by families, meaning the prisoners were now surviving on four slices of bread a day. This protest continued for several months.

During the protest plans to burn the camp were developed. The prisoners formed into six-man units and were given instructions on their specific roles if the burning was to go ahead. The prisoners were also instructed to send out most of their possessions so that they would not be lost during the burning. This probably alerted the authorities of a possible escalation of the protest and negotiations began to resolve the concerns of the prisoners. At the start of October the camp staff were satisfied with the changes that were promised; the bed linen was laundered weekly, the quality of food had improved and there was a general feel-good factor about the camp. The protest was brought to an end.

The morning of 15 October was just a normal one with the men settled into their normal routines. By mid-afternoon prisoners walking around the yard noticed an abnormal amount of communication between the top and bottom ends of the camp. Contact between the internees and the sentenced prisoners 29

was by coded semaphore. The men operating the flags were up and down the roof all afternoon exchanging messages. Speculation was rife but those in the know refused to say what it was about. The rumour mill was in full swing and all manner of wild theories were being discussed.

Shortly after tea-time the prisoners were called to meetings in their cages and briefed. There had been an incident around lunch time during which two prisoners coming back from their visits had got into an argument with a screw.

Hildrich was insisting the two prisoners had to go to the punishment cells. The camp OC did not believe such action was warranted and told Hildrich that he would discipline the men instead. Hildrich refused to accept this and said if they were not handed over he would send the Brits in. He was informed if any attempt to send in the Brits was made the camp would be burnt. It soon became clear Hildrich intended to carry out his threat and the order to burn was given.

As the units assigned to burn the huts set about their preparations others began building a platform of tables which would be used to break through the gates.

Internees were instructed to burn their cages at their end and then to move up to the top end to meet with the sentenced prisoners who were burning everything from their side. As the internees began moving towards the top end they met no opposition; the screws had withdrawn and the Brits were around the perimeter but were making no attempt to stop the burning. Old friends and comrades met after years of separation, new friendships were struck up and conversations were had on what would happen next. It was a given the Brits would move in; the question now was: when and how?

The Brits moved in just after dawn. They moved in cautiously at first as if they weren’t sure what to expect but battle lines were soon drawn and a fullscale riot ensued. It was a riot like no other; soldiers in full riot gear fought men wearing jeans and two or three layers of clothing to give some little protection.

It wasn’t a fair fight but the men held their line as they had nowhere to go. The Brits fired CS gas and rubber bullets whilst the prisoners threw anything they could find. The Brits began to move forward and soon there was hand-to-hand fighting. Prisoners began falling like flies many due to the savage nature of the beatings; at least one man was hit in the face with a gas canister fired at pointblank range which caused massive injury. The fighting went on for hours but eventually the prisoners who hadn’t been rearrested were forced back onto the football pitch. They were totally surrounded and vastly outnumbered and so were preparing themselves for their own arrest. Instead helicopters appeared overhead and began to drop gas canisters. These exploded in the air and dispersed clusters of gas which caused a burning sensation on the prisoners’ skin 30

and a sensation that their throats were on fire; as a result many dropped to the ground in agony. This was not CS gas but a far more toxic CR gas. The canisters were clearly marked. The British Government continue to deny using it to this day yet no other country uses it so how could prisoners in Long Kesh have known of its existence unless they had seen it for themselves?

Eventually loyalist prisoners helped to negotiate an end to the siege and the prisoners were returned to their cages without any further beatings. The cages were totally destroyed and the huts lay in ruins, but the prisoners had to stay on site for nearly a month before being moved down to Cages 3, 4 and 5, which were already housing other internees. Each hut now had to accommodate 80 men.

In the immediate aftermath of the burning, the internees in Cage 5 decided it was unlikely there would be a raid by the Brits any time soon so they began digging a tunnel. It was ready by early November and on the sixth an escape attempt went ahead.

As Volunteer Hugh Coney came out of the tunnel, British soldiers shot him dead.

Thirty-two others escaped but 29 were recaptured almost immediately; the remaining three escapees were caught 24 hours later on the outskirts of Twin- Above and below: images of the burning of brook in West Belfast. the cages, subsequent riot and the aftermath.

31

The internees were moved back to their refurbished cages around Christmas. On 24 July, Merlyn Rees, the British Secretary of State, announced that internment would be phased out by Christmas 1975. It certainly wasn’t a case of the Brits having a change of heart or thinking internment was wrong; they were simply coming under political pressure and had decided on a new strategy. Releases were made sporadically in an attempt to break the spirit of those interned and to cause dissent.

We were all delighted when Rees announced he would end internment by Christmas; it also gave a boost to the sentenced prisoners. Those of us who had staff positions assumed we would be among the last to leave the camp and so contented ourselves with the knowledge of being home for Christmas. The first batch of releases happened very shortly after the announcement. Everyone was happy and handshakes and promises to keep in touch were made. After about four batches of prisoners were released the mood changed; people who expected to be among the first to go were still being held and some who expected to be among the last to be released were already gone. The Brits were playing mind games again.

From the top of the huts we could see construction going on; the rumour mill had it that this was new accommodation for sentenced prisoners. When we enquired about it we were told that the camp OC was being kept informed and was happy that this wasn’t the case. We weren’t really concerned to be honest as we were thinking of release for ourselves and didn’t pursue it too much; in general we felt that if the camp OC was happy then it must be okay.

These were actually the new H-Blocks.

More releases gradually took place but again there was puzzlement on how people were chosen. Tension began to mount as gate fever set in. The Brits were using an age-old tactic; divide and conquer. Outside the IRA carried out an operation and the releases stopped. This led to a herculean effort by the camp staff to maintain discipline as there were still civilian internees being held who couldn’t understand why the IRA would endanger their release.

After six weeks the releases resumed and the last batch of internees walked through the gates on 5 December 1975. On the morning of that last day I was lying in bed when Martin Meehan, the OC, entered the hut. He told us to get up and pack our gear as internment was over and we were all being released.

Martin was a wind-up merchant and as releases tended to be in batches of six to ten we told him we didn’t believe him. Nevertheless, he swore it was the truth and everyone was getting out. I looked at my watch and as it was approaching eleven o’clock I told him to turn on the radio to check if the news was carrying 32

the story, but the power had been turned off so the radio wouldn’t work. We decided he was telling the truth and so got up and began to pack.

Obviously we were delighted at going home. I was in the last batch of prisoners who were released along with Martin Meehan. As we waited we said our farewells to the only internee left behind; he was on remand for an attempted escape and so was being transferred to a different part of the prison when we went.

The Ending of Internment

Internment officially came to an end on Friday 5 December 1975 when the last 46 detainees were released. The most commonly used figures claim that a total of 1,981 people were interned through the policy. Of these 1,874 were from the nationalist community. Only 107 of those detained were loyalist despite the fact that the UVF and UDA had been involved in large-scale murder campaigns since the beginning of the conflict. (Readers should note that in a written answer to the Westminster Parliament in May 1977, the British Secretary of State reported that a total of 2,257 people had been interned between the introduction of internment on 9 August 1971 and its ending on 31 December 1975 – the fact that two separate figures are in the public domain indicates the difficulties in establishing what the ‘true’ figures are.)

It was clear that the policy had been an attempt to break nationalist resistance to the state and its policies through repression; the response showed that it had failed miserably. The measure was finally removed from the British Government statute book in 1998.

As already detailed, special category status had been permitted by the British Government in an effort to secure an IRA ceasefire in June 1972. When the ceasefire collapsed and the conflict resumed the British decided to introduce further repressive measures which would see the prison population remain at a high level. One such measure was the Diplock court system.

The Diplock court system was based on a report by Lord Diplock which recommended that trials for political prisoners should be juryless based on the excuse that jurors could be intimidated into finding defendants not guilty.

The Diplock courts became part of the conveyor belt system whereby nationalists were beaten into confessions, found guilty regardless of lack of evidence by a single judge and then confined in prison.

33

A wall mural illustrating various stages of the republican struggle: arrest, interrogation, sentencing through non-jury Diplock courts and the Blanket Protest.

Escapes

There were literally scores of attempted break outs from Long Kesh since its opening in 1971 which would form a separate publication in their own right.

Some examples include the following: December 1972: The authorities claimed to have foiled an escape attempt from the prison when parts of a prison officer’s uniform and other unauthorised articles were uncovered during one of the constant searches by the army.

September 1973: John Francis Greene escaped from Long Kesh dressed in priest’s clothing.

September 1973: Six republicans overpowered two doctors and six warders in the prison hospital after producing what appeared to be handguns, only to be recaptured before reaching the main gate of the prison.

December 1973: Brendan Hughes escaped concealed in a mattress dumped in a refuse lorry.

December 1973: James Burns swapped clothes with a visitor and walked to freedom.

Christmas Eve 1973: Gerry Adams was one of three prisoners who were apprehended by warders while trying to cut their way through the perimeter fencing.

34

January 1974: A young man had been approached the night before visiting a friend at Long Kesh. When he got to the prison, he was wearing clothes identical to the prisoner and changed places. At the end of the visit, the prisoner headed for the exit while the real visitor was being escorted back to the compound. The ruse was quickly exposed by routine checks and the prisoner was apprehended again while sitting on a bus waiting to leave the visitors’ area.

February 1974: A republican took captive one of the 40 part-time lecturers who visited the prison every week, and tried to get free by impersonating him, but was stopped at the tally lodge at the main gate of the prison and detected.

April 1974: Ivor Bell escaped by impersonating another prisoner being paroled to get married.

June 1974: Six prisoners dressed as soldiers and marching in formation were challenged by a warder and halted when they tried to leave their compound.

They were wearing false uniforms fashioned from blankets and firearms modelled from wood permitted into the prison to make handicrafts, such as shields, statues and harps.

July 1974: Gerry Adams was involved in a carefully planned escape plot to switch places with a look-alike visitor. He was discovered and arrested.

November 1974: A group of republican prisoners set about completing work on a partly finished tunnel. In the early hours of 6 November the prisoners made their move when 33 crawled along the completed 134-foot tunnel, which ran under several layers of security fencing and the two tarmac roads which encircled the prison, and made a run for the M1 motorway along the southern edge of the complex. They were spotted by three soldiers and one of the escapees, Hugh Coney, was shot dead about 20 yards from the perimeter wire.

May 1975: Nine prisoners escaped from the Kesh by crawling along a 15-yard tunnel, cutting through a security fence and climbing over the newly-built 20-foot perimeter wall, using ropes made from sheets and blankets. The men were only discovered missing the next morning. They were later recaptured.

June 1975: Another prisoner impersonating a priest escaped. Patrick Joseph Campbell, who was only 20, got to the main tally lodge at the front gate wearing the priest’s outer garments and brazenly asked prison officers to call a taxi to take him to Belfast. When he reached Belfast, Campbell made his way off into the city.

35

A group of INLA prisoners made a daring escape from Long Kesh in 1976.

The first mass escape from Long Kesh in 1976 occurred on 5 May, a date that ironically doubly ties it to Irish republican penal history, as by grim coincidence Bobby Sands died on Hunger Strike on the same date in 1981.

Nine INLA prisoners successfully escaped from the Nissen huts by tunnelling as far as the perimeter wall before scaling it with grappling hooks.

Although two were captured the remaining seven made good their escape.

Like all the escapes listed above, this operation was launched from the Nissen huts which formed the original section of the Long Kesh site. A number of other escapes took place in the 1980s from the infamous H-Blocks which were built in the mid-1970s in preparation for the removal of political status.

One of these escapes would go down in history as the largest ever from a penal institution controlled by the British Government and is covered in detail on pages 78-81 and in the accompanying exhibition in the Gasyard Centre.

In 1975 the IRA called an open-ended ceasefire which they believed would lead to substantial negotiations and an eventual British withdrawal. However, it became apparent very quickly that the British establishment, and especially elements of its security services, were only intent on using the ceasefire to regroup and to modify their tactics against the IRA. Whilst the ceasefire was in place a new set of prison blocks were being constructed in the grounds of Long Kesh. The IRA leadership in the gaol was told that these H-Blocks (so called because they each resembled the letter ‘H’ from the air) were for new prisoners. Little did they realise that the new prisoners would include those republicans sentenced after the removal of special category status in March 1976. The scene was now set for phase two of the prison story: the struggle against ‘criminalisation’ and the Hunger Strikes.

36

Hunger Strike – A History of Protest and Sacrifice There are numerous examples of the use of Hunger Strike as a weapon of protest in Irish history, especially with regard to republican prisoners demand for political status whilst being held in captivity. The H-Block monument located beside Free Derry Corner in the Bogside also houses two headstones with the names of a number of prisoners who have died on Hunger Strike in the modern historical period.

In simple terms, these men went on protest to demand that they be recognised not as common criminals but as political prisoners who had been imprisoned as a result of the abnormal political conditions pertaining at the time of their incarceration.

The twentieth century saw frequent resort to the Hunger Strike tactic and other forms of protest aimed at achieving political status:

JAMES CONNOLLY

THOMAS ASHE

TERENCE MacSWINEY

1913: James Connolly, future leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, imprisoned for attending meetings organised in support of a trade union dispute. Connolly goes on Hunger Strike only to be released a week later.

1917: Thomas Ashe, the president of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, sentenced to two years for speaking out against conscription to the British army. On entry to the prison he refuses to do prison work or wear a prison uniform. A Hunger Strike, organised in support of free association, sees Ashe being force fed and eventually dying five days into the strike.

Some 40,000 mourners follow his coffin through the streets of Dublin.

JOSEPH MURPHY

Michael Gaughan

April 1920: Political status consolidated by a mass Hunger Strike by IRA prisoners.

October 1920: Political status again removed. New strikes see Michael Fitzgerald, Joseph Murphy and Terence MacSwiney (Lord Mayor of Cork City) dying.

FRANK STAGG

37

1923: Hunger Strikes organised by anti-Treaty IRA prisoners see up to 7,000 prisoners on strike at one point and four deaths between June-December 1923.

1940: IRA volunteers imprisoned by 26-county government determined that the IRA will not damage the government’s policy of World War II neutrality through contact with German forces. Two prisoners die on a protest Hunger Strike in April 1940 with a third losing his life six years later.

3 June 1974: Ballina man Michael Gaughan dies in Parkhurst Prison after 67 days on Hunger Strike as a result of force feeding. Michael had joined the IRA whilst in England looking for work. After sentencing for possession of firearms he was held in several prisons before arriving at Parkhurst where four IRA prisoners (Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney, Marion and Dolores Price) were already on a long-running Hunger Strike which saw them being force fed.

Force feeding involved a prisoner being dragged to the top of their bed by 6-8 guards. The prisoner’s neck would be bent over the bed rail and a block inserted forcibly between their teeth. A tube would then be forced through a hole in the block and pushed down the prisoner’s throat before liquidised food was passed through it. If the tube entered the prisoner’s lungs instead of their stomach, major internal injuries could result. Michael Gaughan died as a direct result of this procedure.

February 1976: Frank Stagg, also from Ballina in County Mayo, dies in Wakefield Prison after 62 days on strike. Frank had been on Hunger Strike on three separate occasions including the protest on which his friend Michael Gaughan had died. His fourth strike was based on his demand to be returned to an Irish prison. When his body was returned to Ireland it was deliberately flown into Shannon airport instead of Dublin airport where his family had gathered. He was then buried in concrete by the Garda on the orders of the Labour/Fine Gael coalition to prevent the IRA giving Frank a proper military funeral. Nine months later republicans tunnelled into the concrete and recovered Frank’s remains for reburial in the local republican plot.

Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg had died specifically because political status was not granted under the English prison regime. However, political status had been in place since June 1972 in the six-county state in the north of Ireland.

Republican prisoners incarcerated at the beginning of the conflict had not been granted political status. This changed on 19 June 1972; by that date, 38

Belfast IRA leader Billy McKee had been on a Hunger Strike since 15 May with the aim of securing a number of conditions: • The right for the prisoner to wear his/her own clothing • The right to free association (ie the ability to mix with other prisoners) • The right not to do prison work • The right to organise educational and recreational activities.

The British Government, keen to secure an IRA ceasefire at the time, granted these demands; to save face they used the term ‘special category’ as opposed to ‘political’ status. Although the ceasefire in question collapsed, special category status remained in place for almost four years. It was phased out as a result of the Gardiner report which recommended ending both internment and special category status. Implementing the latter tied in with the new British policy of ‘criminalisation’.

39

1976 – Criminalisation and the Creation of the H-Blocks Criminalisation was one of three major new policies introduced by the British Government in the wake of the collapse of the 1975 IRA ceasefire. Republicans, angry that the British had reneged on commitments given at the start of this cessation, had decided to go back to war. The British Government decided to abandon any political approach to resolving the conflict in favour of a security-led policy primarily based on trying to defeat the IRA and other armed republican organisations.

The British Government’s hard-line, security-led approach targeted republicans en masse via three key policies: 1 Criminalisation: Creating the perception that the IRA was a criminal gang with little public support as opposed to being a disciplined, politico/military organisation. Spreading this fiction to Irish-America and other international arenas would, in British Government eyes, reduce financial and political support for republicans.

2 Normalisation: Building new shops and factories and reducing troop numbers to create the impression that the six-county state was in reality ‘normal’ and that the IRA wasn’t making any impact with its campaign.

40

3 Ulsterisation: Reducing the uniformed British presence on the streets in favour of increased use of the local police. This meant less British troops dying on the streets (which would be welcomed by the British public), thereby creating a more normalised image of what was actually going on. Troops on the streets implied a war situation, so by using more police the British Government hoped to present an alternative impression, especially to the international community.

Ulsterisation also saw a number of new interrogation centres being built, including one at Strand Road RUC station in Derry. The brutal interrogation techniques in these centres were designed to obtain as many ‘confessions’ as possible from young nationalists with the sole aim of getting as many as possible into the prisons. Non-jury Diplock courts – headed by a single judge, always keen to accept RUC assurances that confessions were obtained voluntarily – were the final element of the policy. Again, this was based on the security-laden British policy of solving the conflict purely by defeating the IRA. The continuing existence of special category status was clearly at odds with these new policies; after all the British Government couldn’t expect people to believe the new fiction that republicans were now suddenly criminals on the outside if republican prisoners were still being accorded political status. Accordingly, the British Government announced that anybody convicted from 1 March

The Nissen huts at the disused RAF airfield that became the Long Kesh Detention Centre.

41

1976 would be treated as a common criminal on entry to the prison system, regardless of what they had been convicted of.

The key battlegrounds for the implementation of this new policy would be Long Kesh Prison outside Belfast (which had held large numbers of internees and special category prisoners since 1971) and Armagh Prison, where female special category prisoners had been held. At Long Kesh, a set of eight new prison blocks (known as the H-Blocks due to their shape) were constructed to hold the prisoners who had been convicted after 1 March 1976.

The whole idea of the structure of the H-Blocks was to isolate, confine and break the will of the prisoners. The very nature of the design of the new blocks meant that the prison administration would now treat the men detained there as individual prisoners who would be held in cells designed for one prisoner only. This differed greatly from the way the internees and political prisoners were held in the other part of Long Kesh. Now the administration planed to keep each prisoner on his own and at their mercy, introducing a system of punishment if the prisoners resisted or reward if they conformed to the new system.

On arrival in the H-Blocks, republican prisoners were told that they were obliged to wear a prison uniform, engage in prison work and accept a number of other punitive conditions.

An aerial view of the H-Blocks in the late 1980s.

42

Blanket Men, No Wash Protests and the 1980 Hunger Strike The First Blanket Man

On 14 September 1976, the Blanket Protest began. A young Belfast man, Kieran Nugent, had just become a victim of the special court system, the non-jury Diplock court.

Kieran had been sentenced to three years imprisonment. On reaching Long Kesh, he was taken to one of the newly constructed H-Blocks and there, surrounded by prison warders, he was told to remove his own clothes and put on a prison uniform.

Kieran flatly refused to wear any prison uniform. Unflinching, he said to the warders: ‘If you want me to wear that, you’ll have to nail it to my back.’

Thrown into a cell with nothing but a blanket to cover him, Kieran had just taken the first defiant step against this new attempt to break the prisoners – he had just become the first blanket man.

Over the following weeks and months, Kieran would be joined on the protest by more and more men. By Christmas 1976, about 40 men would be ‘on the blanket’.

Connolly Brady

On 22 November 1976 the first Derryman would join Kieran Nugent on the Blanket Protest; his name was Connolly Brady.

Women on the Protest

Like the men in the H-Blocks, the women in Armagh Prison convicted after 1 March 1976 were also told they would not be given special category status.

The female republican prisoners refused to conform to the new regime and were punished as a result. In February 1980 the situation escalated when the female prisoners began their own No Wash protest mirroring the protest in the H-Blocks. Many prisoners’ health was severely affected; Derry woman Pauline McLaughlin is a case in point.

43

Pauline McLaughlin

Pauline McLaughlin was charged in October 1976. During her 16 months in custody on remand, she developed a stomach complaint which meant that she became sick after she ate.

In February 1978 she was sentenced to indefinite detention and denied political status, although the action for which she was convicted occurred before 1 March 1976. Pauline joined her sisters on protest.

Loss of political status meant for Pauline loss of food parcels, and her complaint became more serious. She was now violently ill after each meal; nothing remained in her stomach.

Her weight began to drop alarmingly – from over 9st when she entered prison to under 7st. The prison doctor, Dr Cole, declared her unfit for punishment and prescribed medication. Although she slowly regained weight – being declared fit for punishment again at just over 7st – the medication did not stop her vomiting. As soon as she was declared fit for punishment, Pauline again lost her right to food parcels.

By July 1979, Pauline had been prescribed eight different medications and had been taken out for X-rays. But still her illness was not diagnosed. Local MP Frank Maguire expressed concern for her health. Pauline was now so ill she could not even retain fluids. Over these months Dr Cole maintained his tactic of declaring her unfit for punishment and restoring food parcels until her weight improved slightly; then declaring her fit and forbidding food parcels until her weight fell. When her weight went down to 6st 2ozs Pauline was removed to Craigavon Hospital for two weeks. At 6st 8ozs she was transferred back to Armagh. Her condition was still not diagnosed.

After the No Wash Protest began on 7 February 1980, lying in a cell amidst excreta and vomit, Pauline deteriorated quickly. On 17 March, Dr Cole informed her (in a taped conversation for his own protection) that she would die unless she accepted criminal status. Pauline by now was collapsing regularly.

Pauline was ordered off the protest by her comrades. But still she received no medical attention until she was transferred to hospital in July so dehydrated that she had to be drip fed large quantities of special fluid to stop her heart collapsing. Yet one week later Pauline was back in her cell in Armagh Prison.

Her condition was still undiagnosed and it seemed the prison authorities were determined to deny her proper treatment.

Pauline then spent a time back in Musgrave Park Hospital under military custody. At the age of 23 her hair was grey, her teeth rotting and falling out. She 44

was taking dizzy spells and blackouts if she tried to walk. Weighing just over 5st, she looked like a famine victim – too thin even to sit in one position for any length of time. Pauline’s family issued a statement saying that they feared for her life if she didn’t receive proper medical treatment and called for her release.

Fortunately, Pauline survived her ordeal and was released in January 1981.

Conditions in the Blocks

The blanket men in the H-Blocks were under strict solitary confinement, held 24 hours a day in their cells. As a punishment for refusing to wear the prison uniform and refusing to conform to prison rules, the prisoners would be ‘tried’ by a prison governor and found guilty of this offence.

The punishment would be a further spell of solitary confinement, 14 days loss of remission and 14 days loss of all ‘privileges’ which included loss of family visits and letters. The only time they would get to leave their cells was to attend Mass once a week in a canteen of the block, or to walk a few yards to wash, shower or use the toilet in the washroom. The prisoners used these all too brief excursions from their cells to meet each other and to communicate; this helped to keep morale high among the men.

The prison administration introduced measures to stop this by saying that the men now had to wear the prison uniform in order to go and have a shower or a wash, rather than a towel around their waist which the men had been doing until this point. Next, the warders stopped the men getting from their cells to wash by bringing basins of tepid or cold water to each cell and telling the prisoners to wash themselves in that.

This led to an escalation of the protest when the men refused to do as the warders had bid. The men refused to leave their cells to use the shower facilities for fear of attack. In addition when word spread among the men that a prisoner had been beaten by warders in a confrontation over the washing issue, the prisoners smashed the small items of furniture in their cells as a protest. They were now reduced to carrying out all toilet functions in their cells.

As the chamber pots overflowed, the men began to empty them by pouring them through the gaps in the steel cell doors, only for the warders to sweep it back into the men’s cells as they slept on foam mattresses on the cell floors.

The men battled to keep the stinking tide of urine out by using bread kneaded into a dough like putty to force into the gaps around the bottom of the cell doors. They eventually began to spread the waste on their cell walls as the protest escalated to a new level. This situation remained constant until the calling of the first Hunger Strike in October 1980.

45

In Our Footsteps...

By a Derry Republican Ex-Prisoner (1976-1987) Kieran Fleming and I were transferred from Crumlin Road Gaol to H-Block 5 on 8 July 1977. As we were brought into the control area of H5 we were separated to one side of each other with the screws standing about ten yards away.

The screws then presented us with a neatly folded grey denim prison uniform.

We told them that we would be joining the Blanket Protest; their reply was that we must put on the uniform in order to be taken to the wing in the HBlock where we were to be held. We refused to do this. I remember being told to take off my clothes and all we had to do was wear the prison trousers. I looked over at Kieran and shook my head to make sure he also refused to do this. Therefore we were stripped of our clothes; this would be the last time we would wear our own clothes for the next four and a half years.

As we walked naked from the control area of H5 to D Wing the only sound we could hear was the screws talking and shouting ‘Two streakers for you’ to the other screws in D Wing. We could also hear the jangle of keys and clang of gates closing behind us, but as we entered D Wing a shout went up from one of the prisoners telling the other blanket men that we were coming.

Suddenly the place erupted with cheering and all sorts of noises. It was such a relief to hear all this uproar. The fear of the unknown was lifted from my mind. I had feared we would get a beating for protesting but now we were among friends.

Within a few days of going on the Blanket Protest, Kieran and I were moved to C Wing in H5. This was a wing where most of the young prisoners that had joined the protest were held. When we arrived at C Wing in July 1977 the average age of the prisoners would have been 18 or 19.

The prison warders called us the yipees which stood for young prisoners.

They saw us as the most vulnerable group of the protesting prisoners on the Blanket Protest and wasted no time in setting about trying to break us.

All we had to fight back with was our collective determination that we would not be defeated. Almost without realising it we began to resist their attempts to break our protest. As protesting prisoners who were in effect defying the system by refusing to wear a prison uniform we attracted regular punishment from the screws. This involved attending a ‘kangaroo court’ where a prison governor would find us guilty of refusing to conform to prison regulations which led to a sentence of solitary confinement and the loss of all privileges which included a loss of visits and letters to and from our families.

Looking back now the punishment was ironic since the conditions we were 46

held in amounted to solitary confinement anyway so being sentenced to more of the same was nothing new.

As part of this punishment the screws tried to enforce a strict silence in the wings so of course that was the first thing that we challenged. Whenever possible we would talk to each other at the cell windows and even from cell door to cell door. Of course the screws would threaten us for not keeping quiet but it became a cat and mouse game and a sign of our defiance that we would no longer be silenced.

We had one blanket man on our wing in H5 that just seemed to live and breathe defiance; he was Kieran Nugent. Kieran was our OC in C Wing of H5.

He was also one of the oldest prisoners in our wing; should Kieran have heard any of the screws threatening a younger prisoner then he would let that screw know on no uncertain terms that he would have him to answer to! He showed no fear of the screws and his defiance soon spread to the rest of the boys in the wing which guaranteed there would be no enforced silence. We talked to each other, we sang and we encouraged each other to keep our morale up.

The screws usually left the wings for the day at 8.30pm, leaving only a night guard consisting of one or two screws to guard the entire H-Block. That was when the blanket prisoners really came alive. We organised sing-songs, storytelling and even the odd quiz to keep morale up. In our own wing we even organised bingo games where we could win apples as prizes. Saturday and Sunday were the only days of the week when we got fruit as part of our main meal. The apples would be gathered up and divided up equally as prizes for the bingo. Getting all the apples in the one place was the main problem.

Eventually we found a way to sneak them through by using the trousers which came with the prison uniform. By tying a knot at the bottom of one leg we could put all the apples inside and then hang the trousers out the window of the cell. By swinging the leg the man in the next cell could grab hold and extract the apples or pass them down the line.

Methods like this helped us to overcome the system that these cells had been designed for. The cells had been planned in such a way that contact between prisoners would be nonexistent and highly controlled. The challenge for us was to break down as much as we could of this system which was designed to break our protest. Moving apples was only the start of our new war; other ‘contraband’ material would be moved about the wing in secret including tobacco which was forbidden to anyone on the protest. Sometimes the priests that came to say Mass every Sunday in the H-Blocks would bring some packets of rolling tobacco for the prisoners. Again we had to find ways that 47

this could be moved from cell to cell without being detected by the screws.

At the bottom of the cell doors there was a gap of about 5mm. Outside the cell door was a flat highly polished floor with a width of just over two meters to the cell door opposite.

We discovered that by taking one of the buttons from the uniform trousers and tying it to threads which we had carefully pulled from a towel (using one of the plastic knives provided for the meals) we could scoot or shoot the line under the bottom of the door out into the corridor. The blanket man on the other side could now shoot his line to cross over the one thrown out from the opposite cell and then pull the line under his cell door.

Now a whole line of very thinly rolled cigarettes tied on to the line could be sent from one side of the wing to the other. Eventually, some of the blanket men became so expert at shooting a line that they were able to shoot the line directly across the floor and into the cell opposite. A lookout at the top of the wing would listen out for the screws on night guard so that the line would not be caught; in fact many screws would sneak about on their hands and knees to try and catch our lines.

A whole raft of other ingenious methods were found to break down the system by the blanket men. At the same time the screws and the prison administration also tried different methods to break the protest. At the beginning of the protest the prisoners had been allowed to walk to the shower/ wash area of the H-Block at the top of each wing. They could go with a towel wrapped around their waist to wash, shower or use the toilet. Suddenly the screws changed the system and wanted everyone to wear prison trousers to go to the wash area even though the distance involved might only be ten metres.

It was clearly an attempt to get prisoners to wear the uniform.

Next they began to bring basins containing about 5cms of tepid or lukewarm water which they sat inside the cell. This was how they now expected the men to wash and was also another way of keeping us in our cells and restricting our movement. The result was that the only time we left our cells was to go to Mass in the prison canteen every Sunday.

48

Some of the screws were particularly vindictive towards the blanket men.

They took great delight in locking the men up; sometimes you would also hear them gleefully announce ‘C Wing one off’ meaning that a blanket man had left the protest. One of the screws in H5 was called Peter Armourer. He was particularly vindictive so we decided we would break him instead. We had given many of the screws nick-names so we called him ‘Horse’, due to the fact that he had ginger hair, a long face and large front teeth – basically he looked just like a horse! Every time he came onto C Wing one of the blanket men would shout out ‘Horse on the wing!’ Next thing every blanket man was at their cell door making horse sounds and calling out ‘Horse! Horse!’ Eventually he simply refused to come onto C Wing for fear of the hounding he would get. Other screws actually told us that he would get other screws to take his place if he was supposed to be on C Wing.

We thought we had beaten him but things weren’t that simple. As more and more men joined the Blanket Protest, the NIO was forced to open up more H-Blocks. The Horse was now moved to H-Block 4 to run the block along with some other screws. These were the worst of the worst. The Horse acquired a new nick-name in H4 which struck fear into many blanket men: the ‘Red Rat’.

The Red Rat was responsible for some of the worst beatings handed out to blanket men in H4. To call it torture, inhumane or degrading treatment would not go far enough to describe what this man and his gang did to the prisoners in H4.

At one stage our entire wing was moved in a wing shift to A Wing of H5.

Our new position at the front of the H-Block meant we could see all the comings and goings from our cell windows. Minibuses transporting prisoners to and from visits with families would often call to pick up or drop off blanket men from different blocks which gave us an opportunity to catch a brief glimpse of friends from other blocks and give them a quick wave or a smile. One day a minibus came in through the gate and stopped close to my cell window. I spotted some blanket men that I knew; we waved and cheered at them but then we recognised the screw escorting them; it was the Red Rat. We jeered and hurled abuse at him for the beatings he had carried out. I then noticed that the two blanket men sitting in the minibus had the look of fear etched on their faces. They knew what awaited them when they were returned to H4 and the Red Rat set about his work. It was a dreadful feeling knowing what was going to happen; it’s a feeling that I have never forgotten.

The Blanket Protest grew larger and stronger as almost every day men were 49

joining the protest. We did what we could to keep our morale up in the face of wing shifts from one part of the H-Block to another. Wing shifts were something that we came to fear as they were an opportunity for the screws to attack us. Beatings and injury became a part of every one of these shifts and you always felt a relief if you got to a new cell without being beaten. We also began to hear regular accounts of the serious beatings that were being suffered by the prisoners in H3. The winter months of 1979 were dark in more ways than one.

Eventually it seemed that we had settled into a stalemate situation. The NIO and the prison authorities couldn’t break the protest, but neither were we making any progress. Although more and more men were joining the protest we were loosing men, too. Some men found it too much to cope with solitary confinement, the beatings, little or no contact with their family and denial of very basic things like exercise, fresh air and reading materials – the things that could stimulate the mind. The combined effect of this was driving men off the Blanket Protest. In a way this was all a form of sensory deprivation with the aim of breaking the will and determination of the men on protest.

We tried our best to keep together in the face of all that was thrown at us.

One of the lads in H5 began to deliver Irish classes. He even smuggled in lesson material so that he could do a better job of it. It was almost like being back at school again as we had to learn verbs, tenses and spellings. We did our lessons and homework by writing on the walls of the cells in the little patches that we had kept clear. Many of us had rosary beads and we discovered that the crucifix could be used just like a pencil to write on the white-painted walls of the cells. Being able to speak in Irish meant that we could now communicate with each other in secret as none of the screws could speak or understand what we were saying; the language became a valuable and important weapon for us.

The men on the protest were only permitted one visit per month with their family. These visits only lasted 30 minutes and sometimes even less if a screw took a dislike to you. We used these visits with our families to get news from the outside. We would hear about protest marches in support of the blanket men and the white-line pickets in Belfast and Derry where family and supporters would stand along the middle of main roads to highlight the conditions in the H-Blocks. We also learned about the organization of the Relatives Action Committees and later the National H-Block Committee. Through these visits we began to realise that there was growing support behind the protest.

50

We eventually began a campaign of writing to numerous groups urging support for the return of political status. The writing campaign widened with letters being sent to newspaper editors and columns, factories, community groups, schools, trade unions and just about anyone and everyone we could think of. Teachers, doctors, writers and artists all got letters. The list grew and grew as every night we continued the letter writing campaign and smuggled letter after letter out on visits.

Eventually word spread through the wings that a Hunger Strike was being considered. At that stage coming into the autumn of 1980 the feeling amongst the men on the protest was that we had to do something; we couldn’t simply wait and see what would happen. We decided that the only way to increase the pressure and achieve the goal of political status was a hungers strike.

Thus began a whole new chapter in the struggle...

1980 Hunger Strike The first Hunger Strike was called off after 53 days, primarily because the leader of the strike, Brendan Hughes, believed that a document was en route to the prison from the British Government, which would satisfy the prisoners’ demands.

Believing a deal was on the cards, and with one of the strikers (Sean McKenna) nearing death, Brendan called off the strike. The document that the prisoners eventually received fell well short of what they were expecting. Angered at the duplicity of the British Government, the prisoners decided that a second strike was the only option.

51

1976-81 – Relatives Take Action The Families

Because of the isolation in the H-Blocks, the design of the structure itself and the extent to which the prison administration and warders went to in order to break the determination of the blanket men, it was difficult for the protesting prisoners to realise what their families were also being put through.

For the mothers and wives in particular, the strain and pressure of trying to keep a family and home together, to feed and clothe children – while also trying to organise visits to their husbands and sons being held in the H-Blocks – was incredible. Letters from the blanket men smuggled out on visits gave detailed instructions to mothers on how to smuggle in pen refills, tobacco and cigarette papers, newspaper cuttings and lyrics to songs – all wrapped up in cling film. As the protests continued, the methods of cramming more and more things into this sausage-shaped package became more and more elaborate.

Much has been written of the protests within the prison camps of Armagh, Long Kesh and Magilligan, but less so in regards to the struggle to support the prisoners on the streets, in the towns and across the countryside.

Countless mothers, wives, sisters and daughters devoted many long hours and days to organise and plan protests in support of their loved ones.

While the protest escalated in the H-Blocks and Armagh Prison and more and more prisoners joined the Blanket Protest, the families of the prisoners would now find that once again it would be up to them, especially the mothers of the protesting prisoners, to organise and campaign on behalf of their sons and daughters.

In Derry it would fall to mothers like Mary Nelis to organise the protests.

Mary had gained experience over the years in organising protests around various community and political issues. This, combined with the fact that two of her sons were now on the Blanket Protest in the H-Blocks, made her a natural choice to develop protest strategies.

Mary was joined by other local ladies like Kathleen Gallagher in forming Relatives Action Committees (RACs) to formally organise a variety of protests. A whole range of innovative strategies were developed. In many cases during these protests, the mothers of the prisoners would replicate their siblings’ plight by wearing nothing but a blanket.

52

A Derry Relatives Action Committee march in support of detainees in the H-Blocks makes its way past Free Derry Wall.

Tactics included: • Travelling exhibitions across Ireland, Britain and Europe highlighting the prisons issue • Gate-crashing the Mayor’s New Year Ball in the Guildhall • Vigils outside the parochial house of St Eugene’s Cathedral highlighting the lack of effort from the Catholic Church to resolve the prisons issue • Entering floats in the Mayor’s Parade to demonstrate the prisoners’ plight • Holding regular information sessions at the William Street entrance to the city centre about the situation in the gaols. Republican stalwarts like Barney McFadden and Sean Keenan (whose commemoration stone and cross both stand near Free Derry Corner) were particularly prominent in hosting these events. The efforts of these men and many other activists kept the prisons issue alive at a time when many of the Derry public had disengaged from attending demonstrations and paid less attention to the political situation of the time.

The work of the RACs eventually led to the establishment of a National Anti-H-Block/Armagh Committee. The membership of the Committee was broad-based and included trade unionists, relatives, the republican movement, community organisations and many other concerned individuals and groups. The prisons issue now had increased publicity and support.

53

An anti-H-Block vigil outside St Eugene’s Cathedral parochial house in Derry.

The parents of Tom McElwee delivering a letter of protest to 10 Downing Street describing the illtreatment of their son, who would eventually die during the 1981 Hunger Strike.

Nevertheless, by October 1980 it was clear that the Conservative government, and particularly the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, had no desire to resolve the prisons issue in a sensible manner. Instead, Thatcher insisted publicly that she had no intention of restoring political status. Her militant attitude persuaded many prisoners in the gaols that the No Wash Protest was not going to affect the British Government’s stance. Despite being advised to the contrary by the republican leadership on the outside, the prisoners decided there was only one option left to them – Hunger Strike.

54

Above and below: international protests highlighting the plight of the prisoners and the deteriorating conditions in the H-Blocks.

Mary Nelis leads a protest against the Criminalisation Policy outside Armagh Prison.

55

56

Sunday 30 July 1978 Tomás Ó Fiaich, Catholic Primate of Ireland, visits H-Blocks

18 January 1978 European Court decides that treatment of internees is inhumane

2 September 1976 European Commission on Human Rights says Britain has case to answer

1978

1976

Chronology of Key Events Leading Up to the 1980 Hunger Strike

13 June 1978 Amnesty International Report confirms illtreatment of prisoners

14 September 1976 ‘Blanket Protest’ begins

1 March 1976 The ending of political status

57

17 December 1980 TomĂĄs Ă“ Fiaich calls on Hunger Strikers to end fast

1 December 1980 Three female prisoners join Hunger Strike in Armagh

20 November 1980 Margaret Thatcher affirms British stance of criminalisation

1981

1980

1979

18 December 1980 Hunger Strike ends, prompted by draft agreement

15 December 1980 23 other prisoners join Hunger Strike

27 October 1980 Hunger Strike begins with seven prisoners refusing food

16 March 1979 Bennett Report finds cases of detainees with non-self-inflicted injuries

58

5 May 1981 First Hunger Striker, Bobby Sands MP (27), dies after 66 days fast

22 March 1981 Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara join the Hunger Strike

2 March 1981 Blanket Protest ended so as not to detract from Hunger Strike

May

April

March 1 March 1981 Hunger Strike begins with Bobby Sands refusing food

9 April 1981 Bobby Sands elected to Westminster

15 March 1981 Francis Hughes joins Hunger Strike

Chronology of the 1981 Hunger Strike

59

21 May 1981 Kieran Doherty joins Hunger Strike

14 May 1981 Brendan McLaughlin joins Hunger Strike

8 May 1981 Joe McDonnell joins Hunger Strike

23 May 1981 Kevin Lynch joins Hunger Strike

21 May 1981 Third & fourth Hunger Strikers, Raymond McCreesh (24) & Patsy O’Hara (23), die after 61 days fast

12 May 1981 Second Hunger Striker, Francis Hughes (25), dies after 59 days fast

7 May 1981 100,000 people attend funeral of Bobby Sands

60

29 June 1981 Laurence McKeown joins Hunger Strike

15 June 1981 Paddy Quinn first of ‘weekly’ volunteers to join Hunger Strike

8 June 1981 Tom McElwee joins Hunger Strike

26 May 1981 Brendan McLaughlin is removed from strike requiring urgent treatment

June

May

22 June 1981 Michael Devine joins Hunger Strike

11 June 1981 Two H-Block prisoners were elected to the Dáil in Irish elections

29 May 1981 Martin Hurson joins Hunger Strike

61

1 August 1981 Seventh Hunger Striker, Kevin Lynch (25), dies after 71 days fast

14 July 1981 Matt Devlin joins Hunger Strike

9 July 1981 Patrick McGeown joins Hunger Strike

August

July

2 August 1981 Eighth Hunger Striker, Kieran Doherty TD (25), dies after 73 days fast

31 July 1981 Paddy Quinn’s family intervene to save his life after 47 days fast

13 July 1981 Sixth Hunger Striker, Martin Hurson (24), dies after 46 days fast

8 July 1981 Fifth Hunger Striker, Joe McDonnell (30), dies after 61 days fast

62

20 August 1981 Patrick McGeown’s family intervene to save his life after 42 days fast

20 August 1981 Tenth Hunger Striker, Michael Devine (27), dies after 60 days fast

10 August 1981 Patrick Sheehan joins Hunger Strike

3 August 1981 Liam McCloskey joins Hunger Strike

August

20 August 1981 Owen Carron wins vacant Fermanagh/ South Tyrone seat

17 August 1981 Jackie McMullan joins Hunger Strike

8 August 1981 Ninth Hunger Striker, Thomas McElwee (23), dies after 62 days fast

63

7 September 1981 John Pickering joins Hunger Strike

4 September 1981 Matt Devlin’s family intervene to save his life after 52 days fast

24 August 1981 Bernard Fox joins Hunger Strike

Sept

14 September 1981 Gerard Hodgkins joins Hunger Strike

6 September 1981 Laurence McKeown’s family intervene to save his life after 70 days fast

31 August 1981 Gerry Carville joins Hunger Strike

23 August 1981 Sinn Féin announces that it would contest future six-county elections

64

3 October 1981 Republican Hunger Strike ends

24 September 1981 Bernard Fox’s health fails rapidly and he ends his fast

17 September 1981 Secretary of State James Prior meets with Hunger Strikers’ families

Oct

Sept

26 September 1981 Liam McCloskey ends fast before forced medical intervention

21 September 1981 James Devine joins Hunger Strike

Implications of the 1981 Hunger Strike Street protests and rioting became daily events during the period of the second Hunger Strike. Billboards in the Bogside counted the number of days each prisoner was on strike. Their deaths saw massive reactions in nationalist areas of Derry. A number of people were injured during the period of the second Hunger Strike in Derry and several people were killed. These included: • Two teenagers who were knocked down by a British army Land Rover which then reversed over them near St Eugene’s Cathedral at the edge of the Bogside • Two civilians killed by plastic bullet injuries in the Bogside area • Two IRA men shot and killed by undercover troops in Creggan • One civilian shot and killed by the British army in Creggan • One civilian and one part-time member of the UDR killed by the IRA.

65

The Hunger Strikes had massive implications for everybody living in the six-counties. Firstly, the election of Bobby Sands and other prisoners saw many republicans come to the conclusion that the republican movement could broaden its support base and also challenge the British Government’s claim that republicans had little support in their communities by successfully contesting future elections. This led directly to Sinn Féin’s growth in Derry and across Ireland.

Secondly, despite her very public claims that she would never back down, Margaret Thatcher’s government was forced to meet the prisoners’ demands as a direct result of the Hunger Strike.

Thirdly, with a new generation of young Derry nationalists radicalised by the strikes, the IRA gained a new wave of recruits, which undoubtedly served to prolong the political conflict. Clearly, if Thatcher had quietly met the prisoners’ demands when she came to power in 1979 instead of taking her public stance of defiance then the strikes would never have taken place and the lives of numerous people, including the British troops who Thatcher so publicly lauded, would have been spared.

Continuing protests marked the death of each Hunger Striker.

66

The Final Sacrifice of Derry Hunger Strikers Courage and Loss

Five of the ten men who died during the 1981 Hunger Strike were from County Derry. Three were from the south of the county – Francis Hughes, Tom McElwee and Kevin Lynch. Plans are in development to create an exhibition on their lives and sacrifice at the Gulladuff Centre in South Derry.

The two men hailing from Derry City who sacrificed their lives during the 1981 Hunger Strike were Patsy O’Hara and Mickey Devine.

Patsy O’Hara

Twenty-three-year-old Patsy O’Hara from Derry City was the former leader of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners in the HBlocks. He joined IRA Volunteer Raymond McCreesh on Hunger Strike on 22 March, three weeks after Bobby Sands and one week after Francis Hughes.

Shortly after Bloody Sunday, Patsy joined the Republican Clubs and was active until 1973. From this time onwards he was continually harassed, taken in for interrogation and assaulted.

After his seventeenth birthday he was taken to the notorious interrogation centre at Ballykelly. He was interrogated for three days and then interned with three others who had been held for nine days. Shortly after his release in April 1975, Patsy joined the ranks of the fledgling Irish Republican Socialist Party. He was free for only two months when he was stopped at the permanent checkpoint on the Letterkenny Road while driving his father’s car from County INLA Guard of Honour at the wake of Donegal. The British army planted a Patsy O’Hara.

67

stick of gelignite in the car (such practice was commonplace) and he was charged with possession of explosives. Remanded in custody for six months, the first trial was stopped due to unusual RUC ineptitude at framing him.

At the end of the second trial he was acquitted and released after spending six months in jail.

In September 1976, he was again arrested in the north and, along with four others, charged with possession of a weapon. During the remand hearings he protested against the withdrawal of political status. The charge was withdrawn after four months, indicating how the law was manipulated to intern people by remanding them in custody and dropping the charges before the case came to trial.

In June 1977, he was imprisoned for the fourth time. On this occasion, after a seven-day detention in Dublin’s Bridewell, he was charged with holding a Garda at gunpoint. He was released on bail six weeks later and was eventually acquitted in January 1978. In January 1979, he moved back to Derry but was arrested on 14 May 1979 and charged with possessing a hand grenade. In January 1980, he was sentenced to eight years in jail and went on the blanket.

Patsy O’Hara died at 11.29pm on Thursday 21 May 1981 – on the same day as Raymond McCreesh with whom he had embarked on the Hunger Strike 61 days earlier. Even in death his torturers would not let him rest.

When the O’Hara family received his corpse it bore several burn marks inflicted after his death.

Michael Devine

Mickey Devine, 27, from Creggan in Derry City was the third INLA Volunteer to join the H-Block Hunger Strike. Mickey took over as OC of the INLA blanket men in March when the then OC, Patsy O’Hara, joined the strike. Mickey, however, retained his leadership post when he joined the Hunger Strike himself.

During 1970 and 1971, Mickey became involved in the civil rights movement and with the local Labour Party and the Young Socialists.

68

He became a member of the James Connolly Republican Club and then, shortly after internment, a member of the Derry Brigade of the Official IRA. In late 1974, Mickey joined the newly formed IRSP and became a founder member of the Irish National Liberation Army in 1975. Mickey was eventually arrested in Creggan on the evening of 20 September 1976, after an arms raid earlier that day on a private weaponry in Lifford, County Donegal, from which the INLA commandeered several rifles and shotguns, and 3,000 rounds of ammunition. Mickey was held and interThe family of Mickey Devine beside rogated for three days in Derry’s Strand his coffin.

Road Barracks before being transported to Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast where he spent nine months on remand. He was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment on 20 June 1977, and immediately embarked on the Blanket Protest.

On Sunday 21 June 1981 he completed his fourth year on the blanket, and the following day he joined Joe McDonnell, Kieran Doherty, Kevin Lynch, Martin Hurson, Thomas McElwee and Paddy Quinn on Hunger Strike. He was moved to the prison hospital on Wednesday 15 July, his 24th day on Hunger Strike. With the 50% remission available to conforming prisoners, Mickey would have been due out of jail the following September. As it was, because of his principled republican rejection of the criminal tag, he chose to fight and face death.

Mickey died at 7.50am on Thursday 20 August 1981, as nationalist voters in Fermanagh/South Tyrone were beginning to make their way to the polling booths to elect Owen Carron, Bobby Sands’ campaign manager, as a Member of Parliament for the constituency.

69

Crumlin Road Gaol, 1980-1996 The Next Steps

Following the Hunger Strikes the British Government gradually conceded on the five elements which formed the core of the demand for political status.

Having achieved this victory, the republican prisoners in the north’s gaols now began a number of other initiatives. The first was the securing of segregation from loyalist prisoners, a campaign which would run for many years.

The second was the preparation of escape bids, the largest of which brought the republican movement massive publicity. The final initiative involving the prisoners in the late 1980s and 1990s was perhaps the most important of all; the development and endorsement of a peace strategy which would eventually see the republican movement adopt a purely political strategy.

Segregation

Following the 1972 Hunger Strike by Billy McKee and Proinsias McArt and the granting of political status, all sentenced prisoners were moved from Crumlin Road Gaol to the other prisons. From this point onwards, the Crum became essentially a remand prison. The key problem which resulted from this was the issue of segregation between republican and loyalist prisoners. Although at war on the outside, anyone caught and placed on remand was expected to stay in the same wing as their sworn enemy which led to inevitable confrontation.

Main landing and gantry of Crumlin Road Gaol.

70

The frequency of these confrontations saw an unofficial segregation policy emerge in the Crum throughout the 1980s with republicans and loyalists exercising and associating at alternate times. This changed in 1990 when a number of confrontations took place between warders and prisoners from both sides. Tensions between republicans and loyalists increased further when a bus carrying republican relatives of prisoners was attacked in Armagh. Attacks between both sides inside the Crum increased and culminated with two loyalists being killed in 1991 by an IRA bomb concealed behind a radiator in the gaol. Although the British Government maintained that they would not allow segregation as it would facilitate escape bids, by July 1994 the remaining remand prisoners were transferred to the H-Blocks and in March 1996 the Crum closed its doors for the last time. It now lies derelict following several fires over the last decade.

Escapes

There were numerous escape attempts from the Crum throughout the 1980s.

The most famous was the break out by the ‘M-60 Squad’ in 1981.

The M60 Squad was so called because of their use of the powerful M60 machine gun during planned ambushes of the crown forces. Eventually, they were captured in premises at the junction of the Antrim and Limestone Roads in May 1980. As their IRA active service unit were about to open fire on the nearby, heavily fortified, Antrim Road RUC Barracks, they were surprised by undercover SAS troopers. In the ensuing gun battle, an SAS Captain, Herbert Westmacott, was fatally wounded and the M60 Squad were captured, following a stand-off where a priest negotiated their surrender.

On 10 June, when the M60 Squad and an eighth prisoner, Pete Ryan from Ardboe, in Tyrone, were attending pre-trial consultations in the legal visiting area of the prison, they produced handguns and relieved the prison guards and lawyers present of their clothing. Despite bluffing their way through the inner gate, a prison guard on the outer gate recognised one of the prisoners and raised the alarm. Nevertheless, he was unable to stop the fleeing republican prisoners who stormed past him onto the Crumlin Road.

By this stage, sirens were sounding in the gaol and security forces guarding the gaol and courthouse were alerted. On first glance it must have appeared that two prison guards were chasing six well-dressed men up the Crumlin Road! Despite coming under fire from undercover RUC officers, the men were able to escape, in some cases through the loyalist Shankill estate.

Eventually, all the M60 Squad escapees made their way to the republican 71

heartland of nearby West Belfast, and were subsequently moved further south.

The 1981 Crumlin Road escapees enjoyed mixed fortunes during their periods on the run. Of the escapees, Pete Ryan was tragically gunned down in an SAS attack, Paul ‘Dingus’ Magee was arrested on active service in Britain and Joe Doherty fought a lengthy extradition battle from the USA. He was eventually deported in 1992 and remained in Long Kesh Prison until 1998, when he was freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Another notable escape attempt occurred in 1989. The IRA placed a digger containing explosives outside the gaol with the aim of blowing a hole in the exterior wall to facilitate an escape. The 76 prisoners in the exercise yard also had a small amount of explosives ready to blast a smaller hole in the interior wall of the gaol. Once the two walls were breached the prisoners were to use the six cars which had been left behind the prison with the keys in the ignition to make good their escape. Unknown to the prisoners, however, members of British Intelligence had found out about the plot and the bid was foiled.

The Supergrass Era

The Crum continued to act as a remand prison throughout the 1980s and early ’90s. The largest single intake of Derry prisoners took place in the summer of 1982 when over 50 republicans were arrested on the word of paid perjurer Raymond Gilmour. Gilmour was one of a number of supergrasses who had infiltrated the INLA and later the IRA to gather information on other republicans.

Once arrested, 35 republicans were forced to stand trial and watch Gilmour give false testimony against them in the witness box of Crumlin Road courthouse. The key aim of the tactic was to take as many republicans off the streets as possible to avoid the surge in activity that was inevitable after the Hunger Strikes and the new wave of IRA recruitment.

From July 1982 to December 1984 the prisoners were held in Crumlin Road and would be brought across the road to the courthouse every week to listen to Gilmour giving evidence. So exaggerated was his testimony that even the unionist trial judge was forced to tell Gilmour that he was a man ‘entirely unworthy of belief ... a selfish and self-regarding man, to whose lips a lie comes more naturally than the truth’ and in December 1984 the case collapsed. The use of the supergrass tactic against a number of other republicans and loyalists from across the north swelled the population of the Crum substantially since, as remand prisoners, the only place they could be held was Crumlin Road Gaol. By 1985-6 the tactic was gradually phased out as one by one the cases were being thrown out by judges due to the ridiculous nature of the informer’s testimony.

72

In Our Footsteps...

By a Derry Republican Ex-Prisoner (1984-1988) It was 7 July 1984 when I arrived in Crumlin Road Gaol. It was late in the afternoon and I had to go through the whole process of being admitted in to the jail system. By the time I was processed it was too late for me to be moved up into the wings of the jail itself so I had to spend the first night in the basement of the prison. I was led down to the cell where I would spend the night and the screw that was leading me took great delight in making sure the door was shut behind me. I can still hear that sound as clear as day and will always remember the thought of that steel door closed behind me. I had no idea of what to expect and what lay ahead of me. The cell had a set of beds, a table and a chair. On the table lay a holy bible.

I remember sitting on the bed in wonderment of what would happen next. An hour or so had passed and I heard a sudden commotion from the hallway. Voices were shouting out and the sound of screws hurrying about, cell doors were opening and closing and I could hear panic in the screws voices. There were other voices calling out but these seemed a lot calmer and relaxed. After approximately 30 minutes the noise had died down when out of the blue a voice called out from a cell, the guy in question was calling out to his commander in Irish and the response was replied in the same tongue.

Next the bells started to ring outside the cells and again I could hear the sound of the screws running to each of the cells and asking what they wanted. I pressed my ear to the cell door and could just about make out that they were requesting to use the toilets and have a shower. These requests were refused and the shouting in Gaelic recommenced when an order came out in English: ‘If they don’t let you use the toilets, put the shite on the walls,’ to which the screws seemed to have a rethink and spent the next few hours letting the prisoners out of their cells to use the toilets two at a time.

The next morning the cell door opened and I went and got breakfast and took it back to my cell. About an hour after I finished the breakfast I was moved up to the wings. I had a fair idea that I was going to be in either A or C Wing as I heard the screws discussing it.

I was taken to A Wing and on arrival was taken straight to the class office.

This was where the screws would sit and used it to run the ‘Ones’. A Wing was made up of three landings, the ‘Ones’, ‘Twos’ and ‘Threes’, one on top of the other. The ‘Threes’ housed what they deemed high-risk prisoners; these were men that they thought were the most dangerous.

73

Once in the class office the PO (principal officer) set about informing me on how the prison worked and that if I wanted writing materials, ie paper and envelopes, I would have to be standing at the door when the screws came around and asked if you had any ‘requests’, this included if you needed to see a doctor or dentist.

After I was informed of the rules and do’s and don’ts I was taken to my cell.

My name, prison number and religion were written on a card and placed outside my cell – ‘E Coyle, 1978, RC (Roman Catholic)’.

This was the start of my time on remand in Crumlin Road Gaol.

I was sitting in the cell thinking, here we go, what happens now? when the door opened and there was this man standing in front of me who said: ‘Are you going out tae the yard?’ I hadn’t a clue who he was. ‘Naw,’ I replied, ‘I’m staying here.’ He laughed and said, ‘De ye not recognise me, Euge?’ I was amazed that he knew my name. ‘It’s Joe Doherty.’ I was still none the wiser.

‘Wuzz Doherty’s brother.’ The penny dropped. ‘Jesus, Joe,’ I said, ‘I thought you were a loyalist.’

He was laughing his head off at this. ‘C’mon, ya mad man, let’s take a walk to the yard.’

Joe told me the in’s and out’s of the jail and luckily enough for me he also told me some of the jokes the prisoners used to play on new prisoners coming in. To be honest if he hadn’t told me the craic I’m sure I could have fallen victim to some of the pranks.

One of the favoured pranks was to approach a new prisoner in the yard and tell him that they were planning an escape and needed him to act as a decoy.

He was to walk around the yard a few times then walk to the centre and drop to the floor as if taking a heart attack, this would divert the screws’ attentions and the prisoners could make their escape. The prison yard was heavily surveyed by watch towers and cameras. When the prisoner walked to the centre and dropped to the ground wriggling around in pain, the whole yard would bust into hysterics laughing at him. You can imagine how embarrassed the poor fella must have felt when he opened his eyes to see everyone in stitches telling him to catch himself on and get up.

Some of the guys could have been in the running for an Oscar for the performance they put on.

On a more serious note, when you first arrived on the wing you were walked around the yard with an IO (Intelligence Officer) and he would ask you if you had a rough time at the interrogation centre and if you gave any information to the RUC and any names, and if you did you would tell him and he would 74

send out the names and information to the relevant people outside. After my chat with the IO, I was back with Joe and by this time a few more familiar faces started to emerge in the yard.

I told Joe about the goings-on in the basement the night before and he told me that they were already sentenced prisoners who had come down from the H-Blocks and were on trial again on the evidence of a supergrass, namely Raymond Gilmour.

At that time the prison was full of men, like Joe, who were held under the allegations of paid informers such as Gilmour and Black. These people were paid money by the Special Branch to turn informer on people they believed to be members of the IRA and INLA and who were involved in what they called ‘terrorist activities’. Most of these men were in Crumlin Road since 1982 and were awaiting trial on the evidence supplied by these people.

It was another way for Britain to illegally hold prisoners for longer periods of time and keep what they called ‘active terrorists’ off the streets. They were hoping the evidence supplied by the supergrasses would put away as many of these men as possible.

The jail was full of men from Derry and Belfast, and there was always a great sense of camaraderie. As well as the supergrass trials there was a power struggle going on in the jail among the INLA prisoners.

I was in the prison when Dominic McGlinchey was extradited from the 26 counties and handed over to the RUC at the border. McGlinchey was at that time regarded as the head of the INLA and was also the most wanted man in Ireland. I remember it was like being star struck the first time he came into the yard as before I was lifted there was so much media coverage and hype around him and what type of person he really was. I didn’t get to speak to him much but when I did he just seemed like any other prisoner and very softly spoken.

Dominic came into the jail at the height of the split within the INLA and although nothing happened inside there was a lot of tension between the two groups vying for the leadership of the INLA. A Wing also housed a lot of loyalist prisoners at the same time and they also had their fair share of supergrasses within their ranks.

We had a jail that was bursting with republican and loyalist prisoners and little recreational time, so we had to take it in turns to use the canteen and yard. When we were getting showered they would be locked up and vice versa.

When one set was in the yard the other would be locked up, that was how the prison worked.

75

The screws were always trying to stir up tension and implement petty rules.

The strip-search policy was always a contentious one and the leadership within the jail always opposed this policy. I remember like yesterday my first visit and was so looking forward to seeing someone from home to catch up on what had been going on and just that half hour break from the regular schedule.

Before getting to the waiting area we were taken into a cubicle and given a strip search. I remember the two screws that gave me the search as probably the two most unfriendly people I have ever had the misfortune to come across.

‘Strip your top half,’ one of them called. So I took off my coat, jumper and shirt which they set about searching with a fine-tooth comb.

When they finished I was ordered to strip the bottom half. So I handed over my socks, shoes, jeans and right down to my very under pants. It was both embarrassing and humiliating to see those grown-men go through and search your clothes in the way they did and to make matters worse they didn’t even wear gloves and God only knows where their hands had been. Some of the screws got great enjoyment from these type of actions as it was a way of them trying to break the resolve and republican morale.

I think it was around October or November of that year that the whole Gilmour case collapsed. We were locked up in the cells but heard it come over the radio. To be honest it was one of the worst days in there for me, but great for all the lads who got out. After that there wasn’t the same old banter and slagging in the yard and it was a lot quieter, but life went on and I just had to make the most of it.

It was around this time that I got a new cell mate ‘Winkle’ O’Reilly. We had a bit of craic, always slagging each other off, which seemed to pass the time rightly.

We looked forward to getting the Derry Journal on Tuesdays and Fridays to see what was happening in the town. I remember my mum coming up and me asking her ‘what happened to such and such?’ and being able to tell her things she hadn’t even heard about.

She always said that we knew more about what was happening on the outside than they did.

That’s how prison life was, a constant struggle between the screws and the republican prisoners. It was very, very much different from the time I spent In Long Kesh but that is another story altogether!

76

Long Kesh and The Great Escape Long Kesh and the 1981 Hunger Strike Aftermath

The Hunger Strikes had an enormous impact on the prisoners in Long Kesh in a number of ways. The psychological impact of being brutalised during the protest led many prisoners to develop mental problems and issues with alcohol on their release. In addition many had ‘survivor guilt’ due to the fact that they were able to serve out their sentences and be released whilst ten of their comrades had died.

There were also undoubtedly positive aspects for the prisoners. Firstly, the election of Bobby Sands, Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew during the strikes had proved to the world that popular support existed for the prisoners’ demands despite the British Government’s claims that the men were common criminals. This provided a platform for the reorganisation of Sinn Féin into a vehicle that could contest elections with the result that it is the biggest party in Ireland today.

The most direct consequence was that Margaret Thatcher was forced to gradually concede all five of the prisoners’ demands during the remainder of her premiership. Just a few days after the strike ended the prisoners were allowed to receive their own clothing and gradually all other demands were phased in. One in particular, the right to proper educational facilities, would have a major impact on the prisoners.

When the Hunger Strikes ended the prison regime initially tried to impose penal and menial work on the prisoners which was met with resistance from the prisoners. Gradually the work regime was replaced with the provision of extra educational facilities which the republican prisoners availed of with relish. The direct result was the emergence of numerous prisoners from gaol with HNDs, degrees and, as in the case of prisoners like former Hunger Striker Laurence McKeown, with doctorates. Many of the prisoners were also able to improve their Irish language skills to a high level of fluency which later enabled them to establish Irish language centres and schools including Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin and Gaelscoil Eadain Mhoir in Derry.

In addition to this formal academic education the prisoners also organised classes where they learned about other revolutionary struggles around the world. Many of these prisoners then worked with Sinn Féin on their release and used this expertise to develop the party’s policies and strategies.

Although segregation was not one of the five demands of the Hunger Strikers, in 1982 it became another campaign issue for both republican and loyalist 77

prisoners. In October 1982 a major riot broke out in the H-Blocks and over 200 cells were damaged. The riot had been conducted by loyalists but as a result both sides were able to secure segregation. By early 1983 republicans occupied 15 of the 28 wings within the Kesh whilst loyalists occupied six (the others being occupied by ordinary prisoners). The segregation remained in place until Long Kesh closed in 2000.

The segregation of the prisoners allowed increased contact between republicans and therefore much better opportunities to plan potential escapes. The result was the ‘Great Escape’ of 1983.

The Great Escape

The end of the Hunger Strike saw the republican prisoners in Long Kesh getting more control of their environment and as a result more opportunity to assess where the flaws lay in the security system within the gaol. The end of the strikes and the relaxing of the regime also saw many prison warders dropping their guard which allowed prisoners to smuggle in a range of weapons which could be used in an escape attempt.

One other flaw that was noticed in the system was the lorry used to deliver food to the H-Blocks. Prisoners became aware that the lorry would be waved through by prison guards at the main exit gate without a full check being made of the occupants or lorry contents (partly because some of the guards were using the lorry for ‘homers’ to move furniture from their houses and other purposes). The prisoners thus decided that this was the best way of escaping from the gaol.

On the afternoon of 25 September 1983, Brendan McFarlane, who had been OC of the prisoners during the 1981 Hunger Strike, asked a prison warder for a ‘bumper’ (an electric floor polisher) to clean the floor of H7.

Hearing the word ‘bumper’ the other prisoners in the vicinity knew it was time for the meticulous escape plan to kick in. Five guns had been smuggled into H7 in the weeks before the escape and another replica had been made out of wood. On hearing the signal six key points inside H7 were taken by the armed prisoners who forced the guards into submission. Nine of these guards were then stripped and their uniforms donned by some of the prisoners. The other guards in H7 were subdued by prisoners holding chisels and hammers.

Seven prison guards were injured in this first stage of the operation with one being shot as he tried to resist. This gave the prisoners concern that their escape would be foiled if the shots had been heard. Nevertheless, it looked like they had been successful in taking over the wing.

78

79

The next stage was to get the 38 escapees to the tally lodge at the front of the prison. When the food lorry arrived at 2.30pm the 38 prisoners clambered in with Gerry Kelly (later a minister in the Executive) holding the lorry driver at gunpoint and telling him to drive to the tally lodge and to stay quiet. The van was able to get through the main administration area and approached the tally lodge where it was parked up. All the prisoners now had to do was take over the tally lodge and they would be on the home straight. The tally lodge was taken by eight of the escapees in prison-warder uniforms whilst Gerry Kelly, the other uniformed prisoner, waited in the lorry with the other escapees crammed in the back. One prison guard who tried to resist the takeover was stabbed in a struggle and died of a heart attack.

There was one major problem; the escape was now coinciding with the arrival of 20 prison guards who were arriving to start their shift. The guards were admitted inside by an IRA volunteer in prison-warder uniform and then forced to lie on the floor. The same applied to the warders leaving their shift; the result was that almost 40 warders were now being held captive by a small number of prisoners holding guns. A number of fights now began to break out and Gerry Kelly started to get nervous. He knew that the only obstacle was getting through the main gate which was manned by the British army but he also realised that the alarm was going to be raised very soon and the soldiers would try to foil the escape. Instead, a shout went up and all 29 prisoners poured out of the back of the lorry and made a run for the main gate, all the time being chased by prison warders who were either in uniform or in civilian clothes as they had just arrived for their shift. Nine of the prisoners were also in uniform so the British soldiers on the main gate didn’t know who to help and who to attack. The result was that the prisoners were able to run into the main car park.

By this stage the original escape plan was a thing of the past. Some prisoners attempted to hijack the cars of some of the prison guards. Others followed Gerry Kelly who had made a run for the wire fence surrounding the compound. On scaling the fence he fell down and the other prisoners behind used him as a human bridge to make their escape. Eventually shots were fired which resulted in a prisoner, Harry Murray, being shot by a soldier after he had shot a warder in the leg. Both Harry and the warder ended up in Lagan Valley Hospital laying beside each other on stretchers exchanging insults.

Throughout the escape a heavily armed IRA active service unit from South Armagh was waiting in a Ford van in the village of Scarva to collect the prisoners on their escape. Using their radio scanner they were able to hear messages 80

being sent by the British army alerting other troops about the escape. They eventually decided that the bid must have failed and they made their way home. As a result, the only way for the 23 escapees to make their getaway was to hijack other vehicles. After a series of incidents where cars and vans were taken, 19 prisoners were able to make their escape with four others being caught by the RUC. One of these 19 men was Kieran Fleming from the Gobnascale area of Derry. On entering the blocks in 1977, Kieran went on the blanket and stayed on the protest until the end of the Hunger Strikes. On his escape, he returned to active service with the IRA. On Sunday morning, 2 December 1984, Kieran was involved in an operation at the Drumrush Lodge Restaurant just outside Kesh in County Fermanagh.

During the operation, Fermanagh IRA volunteer Antoin Mac Giolla Bhrighde and SAS soldier Alistair Slater were both killed during an exchange of gunfire. Kieran and the remainder of the ASU (Active Service Unit) then came under fire from other SAS troops and retreated. Kieran, unable to swim, became trapped between the SAS units in the swollen River Bannagh and was swept away and drowned.

Two of the other escapees, Jim Clarke and Paddy McIntyre, were from Letterkenny in County Donegal, just 20 miles from Derry.

For the next 14 years, Long Kesh remained escape free. This was to change in 1997. In March of that year an escape was foiled when a tunnel was discovered half-way between one of the blocks and the outer perimeter wall. Regardless of this setback, another attempt was made. On 10 December 1997, prisoner Liam Averill, who had served two years of a life sentence, escaped under cover of a children’s party organised for the prisoners and their relatives.

Aware that there would be a large crowd of women and children at the party, Liam donned a wig, make-up and a woman’s dress and walked out of the gaol amongst the throngs of party-goers. He has never been recaptured.

81

In Our Footsteps...

By a Derry Republican Ex-Prisoner (1986-1987) I entered Long Kesh at the end of 1986, almost five years after the Hunger Strikes had ended. By this time conditions had improved considerably and relations with prison staff had become a lot more relaxed and amicable.

On entering H7 I was met by the SO and another prison officer. The SO asked me whether I intended to stay in the mixed conforming wings or go to the republican wings. I told him that I was a republican and wished to go to the republican wings; he then told me that to do that I would need to make a protest and request to be moved off the conforming wing and on to a republican wing. The protest involved throwing some water onto the wing and telling the prison officer that I wanted to be moved to a republican wing. After doing this I was sent to the ‘boards’ or solitary confinement. Eventually I was taken before the governor who sent me for three days solitary and seven days punishment, after which I was sent to a republican wing on H2.

On arrival at H2 I was greeted by fellow republican prisoners and shown to my cell. I was instructed about the running of the wing, who the OC (Officer Commanding) was and what time the cells were locked and unlocked.

Although the prison guards had the keys the men effectively ran the wing. The screws would unlock the cell doors at 8.00am so you could have access to the wing. There was no regime enforced on the men; if they wanted to stay in bed they could. There were no orderlies on the wing as such; the men took care of everything themselves, including the breakfast, dinner, tea and the cleaning of the wing.

Men who had been given the job of orderlies got a very small wage. This money (usually about £4 a week) was used by the cumann to buy things for the wing such as tea, coffee, sugar and cereal. These items were needed because the prison didn’t supply enough of these items. The money also paid for little luxuries like chocolate biscuits, crisps and tobacco.

Men were always encouraged to get involved in education. Classes were delivered by our comrades covering Irish, Irish history, politics and other subjects. There were also education programs such as the Open University which were very popular. As a result, a lot of men who went to Long Kesh with very little education left with degrees, diplomas and other useful qualifications.

Many of these men ended up in influential community positions when they left Long Kesh due to the additional expertise and knowledge they gained as a result of their qualifications.

82

Physical training such as running and weight training was also available.

There was no proper equipment available for this type of training so we had to improvise. For example dumb dumbbells were made out of brush shafts and gallon water containers.

There was a lot of time on the wing for all of this activity as political prisoners were not allowed to do work outside the wing meaning you had plenty of time on your hands. This was due to the Great Escape in 1983 when 38 republican prisoners escaped from the H-Blocks. The escape was helped by the fact that republicans had access to other parts of the prison through work schemes. This allowed them to monitor the movements of the screws and the layout of the prison with a view to planning an escape. After the escape all work schemes involving political prisoners were stopped to ensure that it couldn’t happen again.

During my time on H2 there was a protest about the heating system. The noise it made at night would keep the men awake and over a period of time some men were cracking up due to a lack of sleep. When the prison regime showed a lack of concern about the prisoners’ complaints we began a campaign of sabotage. Radiators were pulled off the walls or had holes drilled in them. The electrical appliances were also tampered with to ensure they shorted out. On one occasion we managed to short out the electricity on the whole block; shortly after this all republican prisoners were moved off the block until the heating system was fixed. This was another victory in our wider campaign to undermine the regime and improve conditions.

The men were also encouraged to develop friendships with the screws. One reason was that it would be harder for them to attack us if they had some kind of emotional friendship or connection with us. By gaining their confidence we could also get information from them; who was fighting with who, who was going where, what was happening here or there. All of this information helped us to formulate new strategies to use against the regime. At the same time, no matter what friendship you developed with the screws, you always had to remember that if there was a confrontation with the prison staff you could get badly hurt or worse.

Communicating with family and comrades on the outside was extremely important. The main way we got messages out was by writing on toilet or cigarette paper, rolling up the script into a ball and sneaking the ‘comm’ (short for communication) out during visits which usually took place once a week.

It was amazing to discover how much information you could get onto a small piece of cigarette paper. A comm might contain a letter to your partner or 83

information for the republican leadership or other comrades on the outside.

They were a lifeline for the men and you always looked forward to receiving new letters during your weekly visit. The comms allowed us to write much more freely as the screws would automatically read our official letters meaning we didn’t like putting personal information on them.

Although I would much have preferred to avoid spending time in Long Kesh, being there changed my life and also my outlook on life. I met some of the best men you could ever meet in prison; men who would be demonised by the British Government and the media, men who upon their release would become community leaders, pillars of their community and politicians who would help lead us to build a lasting peace in our country and try to unify our people. All my best friends are ex-prisoners and I am proud of that fact.

You will also notice I have always referred to the ‘men’ in the blocks as opposed to the ‘prisoners’; men who were held in the gaol by a foreign government. Their crime? To fight for their people, to defend their communities and to try and bring about a just society in the north of Ireland. These men, as well as the women in Armagh Prison, refused to be put down. They also refused to stand by and watch as their communities were being terrorised and their people murdered by agents of that foreign government. They were Irish Freedom Fighters.

The entrance to the Long Kesh exercise yard near the compound.

84

Armagh, Magilligan and Maghaberry Armagh Prison

Following the Hunger Strikes conclusion the female prisoners in Armagh Prison were able to regain de facto political status. Nevertheless, the Armagh regime sought to impose other repressive measures. The most obvious of these was the increase in the number of strip searches being inflicted on both prisoners and visitors to the gaol.

Originally prisoners were subjected to a strip search on entry and departure from Armagh Prison. However, in 1982 strip searching became a regular tactic used by the warders in Armagh which was seen as a deliberate weapon to brutalise the prisoners and their families. The sustained searches continued for several years until a major publicity campaign by republicans forced their abandonment. In the whole time that strip searches were enforced as a sustained policy the only items found were a phial of perfume, a ÂŁ5 note, one letter and some medical tablets.

Gradually the regime that emerged after the abandonment of the policy began to mirror that in Long Kesh where the prisoners were able to exert more control over their conditions.

Armagh eventually closed in March 1986 and all prisoners were transferred to the newly opened Maghaberry. The prison still stands in the centre of Armagh today as a memorial to the struggle of Mairead Farrell, Pauline McLaughlin and the many female republican prisoners who have passed through its gates.

Armagh Prison housed many female republicans over the years until it closed its doors in 1986. The remaining prisoners were moved to Maghaberry.

85

Magilligan

Due to the protests in Long Kesh and Armagh, Magilligan had remained outside the spotlight during the late 1970s, mainly due to the fact that it didn’t hold political prisoners during that time. This changed in 1981 after the transfer of a number of prisoners from Crumlin Road Gaol due to overcrowding. Many of these prisoners were loyalist and, given the fact that there was no segregation of any sort in Magilligan, it was inevitable that there would be confrontation with republicans. The situation was compounded by the fact that a number of Derry republicans had been moved to Magilligan after the end of the Hunger Strikes.

A number of incidents took place from 1982 onwards. In some cases the prison guards, who had clear loyalist sympathies themselves, would gang up with the loyalist prisoners to attack the republicans in the gaol. Many of these incidents remained unreported due to Magilligan’s lower level of publicity.

What was also unreported was the fact that many prisoners still felt that the conditions in Magilligan were worse than the other gaols. Such was the illfeeling over the issue that two hunger strikes were held by loyalists in 1984 and 1986 to demand both segregation and an improvement in facilities.

The situation gradually changed after a number of riots in the gaol and eventually a form of unofficial segregation was introduced.

Magilligan prison is still open today but has not held political prisoners since 1998 when the last POW was released. It now acts as a low-to-medium security gaol.

These Magilligan prisoners below are, at back, L-R: Kevin Daly, Stephen Fitzpatrick, Philip Coyle and Seamus Quigley. Front: John Clarke, Michael McNaught and Willie Doherty.

86

Magilligan detainees include – Peter McGowan (Derry), Peter McCallion (Derry), Pius McNaught (Derry), Martin McClery (Derry), Ned Tennyson (Belfast), Martin McKeown (Newry) and Brendan McGaughey (Belfast).

Hugh ‘Monga’ McMonagle with a group of Belfast and Newry men in Long Kesh in 1977.

Eamon O’Donnell, Joe Gillen, Davy McNutt and Tony Millar playing football in the yard in Magilligan, 1982.

Capturing the moment – Magilligan, 1976. Back, L-R: Tony Millar, Johnny Lockheart, Mousey Gallagher, Pat Lynch, Malachy O’Kane (mid-Ulster), Larry McFadden, Shorty Hampson, Seamus Friel, Nick Nash and Denis McFeely. Front, L-R: Richie Harkin, Billy Brady, Michael Gallagher and Brian Powers.

87

Maghaberry

By 1982 the British Government decided that another prison was required for the north owing to the massive numbers in prison, a situation caused mainly by the British Government’s cynical handling of the north’s political problems. The site chosen was Maghaberry, which, like Long Kesh, was a former World War II RAF base and then a storage area for aircraft. Work began on the site in 1982 and the first prisoners were admitted on 18 March 1986.

These were all female prisoners from the now-closed Armagh Prison; the first male prisoners arrived in 1988. When Crumlin Road Gaol closed in 1996 it also became the main remand prison in the north for those facing charges for non-political offences (with those charged with political actions being remanded to Long Kesh); since the closure of Long Kesh it has become the only remand prison in the north.

In Easter 2010 dissident republican prisoners in Maghaberry, complaining about the use of strip searching, lock downs and the right to wear Easter lilies, embarked on a No Wash Protest. This initial protest ended in August 2010 when agreement was reached between the prisoners and the Prison Service. This was facilitated by a number of intermediaries including ICTU, Creggan Enterprises and the Dialogue Advisory Group. The protest later resumed when prisoners accused the regime of not fulfilling the agreement.

Although a number of prisoners left the protest in 2012, for some prisoners the campaign continues.

88

The Bombing Campaign and English Prisons In addition to those incarcerated in the gaols in the north, a large number of Derry republicans ended up in prisons in England and in the 26 counties.

Republicans had long believed that bringing the war to the door of the British Government was much more effective than launching attacks in the north. Attacks had been taking place since the Fenians had launched attacks in 1867. These continued through the twentieth century intermittently, especially during World War II. In October 1971 the IRA began a bombing campaign in England which would continue throughout the conflict. On 21 November 1974, bombs went off in two Birmingham pubs which caused the death of 21 people (the biggest single loss of life during the IRA’s campaign in England). Following the incident, six Irishmen, including Johnny Walker from the Bogside area of Derry, were arrested. After a number of days being tortured by West Midlands police the men signed false confessions and ended up serving 16 years in prison despite the fact that the IRA had stated publicly that the men were not involved in the attack (a fact that was known to the British police soon after the incident).

Above: ‘The Birmingham Six’, pictured with injuries sustained during their interrogation.

Right: the wrongly convicted men are freed in 1991 after 16 years in prison.

89

During 1975 one particular IRA unit was responsible for numerous attacks around the West End and other areas of London. On 7 December 1975, four of the six-man unit were intercepted after an attack on Scotts restaurant and were chased to a flat in Balcombe Street. After a six-day siege the men eventually surrendered and ended up serving 23 years in various English prisons before being transferred to Portlaoise Prison in 1998. The men were temporarily released to attend the Sinn FĂŠin special conference on the Good Friday Agreement where their endorsement of the agreement was seen as crucial in securing grass roots republican support for the deal. They were finally released a year later. One member of the unit, Hugh Doherty, was from Carrigart in Donegal. His brother Pat is currently the Sinn FĂŠin MP and MLA for West Tyrone.

The IRA campaign continued into the 1980s. Undoubtedly the most famous operation was the attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton in October 1984 during which the British Prime Minister narrowly escaped with her life. Following the attack, a massive surveillance operation was launched on Patrick Magee, whose fingerprints had been found on the hotel register. Police eventually tracked him to a flat in Glasgow on 24 June 1985 where he was arrested with a number of other Irish people. Amongst them was Derry woman Martina Anderson. Martina spent 13 years in gaol before being released through the Good Friday Agreement. Along with former Hunger Striker Raymond McCartney, she now represents the Foyle constituency in the Belfast power-sharing assembly.

Right: The Balcombe Street unit after their arrest. Below: scenes from the six-day siege.

90

The Grand Hotel, Brighton.

Martina Anderson: My Time in English Prisons

By the time my comrade Ella O’Dwyer and I arrived at Brixton, after ten days’ interrogation, I was shattered, tired and couldn’t care less about my new surroundings. I needed sleep without expecting the door to open for more questioning. So while Ella was on a full-scale operation trying to get fags through her window, I was out for the count.

We spent most of the next 13 months with no clothes on, with all the strip searches we were getting. By way of protest we were refusing to put the clothes back on after each strip search and just wore dressing gowns. But the wise intervention of Mitchel McLaughlin, more often than once, helped us see the light during the many visits he made to us in jail.

In the middle of the constant bombardment with strip searches, cellsearches and ongoing harassment we found a friend, a woman called Nina Hutchinson, who has sadly died since. Nina visited us regularly and was the instigator of a strong campaign around prison conditions in Brixton and later in Durham.

As for Durham! It took me a whole week to realise I wasn’t in a hospital.

In fact it took me a week to even talk. But that wasn’t too bad. There was a woman who’d been there for years and she never spoke at all. Another used to burn herself with fags. There were so many unwell women in H Wing who, instead of being sent to jail, should have been sent for psychiatric care.

Both Ella and I had jail weddings. Ella’s was a nice day but my wedding in 91

1989 [to IRA POW Paul Kavanagh] was more like an obstacle course. By the time I’d been driven a mile a minute on the four-hour journey to Full Sutton Prison, near York, vomiting all the way and given a couple of brief hours to get the business done and rushed back to H Wing again, I was totally bewildered and upset. Ella jumped to the wrong conclusion at the sight of me. ‘Don’t worry, all’s not lost – we’ll get you a divorce!’ That really did it and I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

We didn’t just celebrate weddings. We made a big thing of Christmases and birthdays. In fact, I remember Ella’s first mid-life crisis – she was 30 and was utterly miserable. On such occasions we’d exchange gifts and get spoilt by our families when they’d come on visits. If one of us got something, the other one did too. The Andersons to this day will never forget traipsing around the streets looking for prawns for Ella. Prawns! You can imagine the searching the screws did on the big basin of prawns that was enough to feed an army.

My mother, Betty, was the rock in our household right throughout my sentence. I will always love her.

But it wasn’t all partying and we spent the first six months of our time in Durham on ‘lock-up’, meaning everything, including the mattress, would be taken out of the cell and you saw nobody except the screw who came to let you ‘slop out’. We didn’t even get to see each other.

If you needed a lesson on the inhumanity and brutality at the core of imperialism you only had to look at the way prisoners were treated – even the sick and vulnerable ones we saw in Durham. We wanted to change it all, change the world we were living in, and in a way we did just that.

By the time we’d been transferred from H Wing, the jail had been refurbished to a relatively habitable state with toilets and hand-basins in each cell.

After threatening to wreck these pristine abodes if we weren’t allowed to inhabit the ones on the upper floors, they agreed to let us onto the top landing. So, for the first time in about eight years, we had a view of normal daylight from our cells.

I remember waking up the first morning and banging on the door, shouting to the women to look out the window. It was a great big beautiful orange ball – the sun was risMartina and Ella. ing. It was magic!

92

View of Curragh Camp, looking South East.

Gaols in the 26 Counties Curragh Camp The Curragh is based in County Kildare and was originally built for the British army. There were numerous training camps organised on the Curragh in the nineteenth century including the training of militia to defend the country during the Napoleonic Wars. However, the first permanent military structures were built in 1855 by British soldiers preparing for the Crimean War. In 1879, the first of the modern barracks (Beresford Barracks) was built at the camp, and six new barracks were subsequently constructed through the turn of the century. By the end of the century the camp became a divisional headquarters of the British army and soldiers were trained there for fighting in the Boer War. At the time of the passage of the Home Rule Act in 1914, the camp became the scene of the ‘Curragh Incident’, where a number of officers proposed to resign rather than enforce Home Rule against the will of the unionist population.

After the 1919-21 Irish War of Independence the British army handed over the Curragh Camp to the Irish Free State army.

In December 1922, seven anti-Treaty republicans were executed in the Curragh Military Prison. They were: Patrick Nolan (34) Rathbride, Kildare; Stephen White (18) Abbey Street, Kildare; Brian Moore (37) Rathbride, Kildare; Joseph Johnston (18) Station Road, Kildare; Patrick Bagnall (19) Fair Green, Kildare; Patrick Mangan (22) Fair Green, Kildare; James O’Connor (24) Bansha, County Tipperary.

A memorial to the executed men can be found in Kildare Town.

93

During World War II, internment of republicans was reinstated by the Fianna Fáil Government of Éamonn de Valera. As a result, IRA members who were arrested by the Garda Siochana were interned in the Curragh for the duration of hostilities. An estimated 2,000 IRA men were held in the internment camp during the war years.

Gaeltachts, peopled entirely by Irish-speaking internees, were set up and Máirtín Ó Cadhain ran highly successful language classes. Other prisoners gave tutorials in their own special subjects meaning many young men left with a much better education than would have been possible in a normal school.

According to Tim Pat Coogan, the years in internment left a great mark on the IRA veterans who remained there long term.

‘Most men, on leaving the internment camp, were so unable to deal with ordinary life that it took upwards of six weeks before any of them could screw up their courage to do normal things such as signing on at the Labour Exchange to draw unemployment benefits or applying for jobs. Even to cross the road was a terrible effort, the traffic, thin enough after the war, seemed fantastic after the years in the Curragh. The difference in women’s fashion frightened them and added to the general air of unfamiliarity. After years in confinement with adult men, children seemed fragile and small-scale. Most remained republicans in sympathy, but had no means of solving the border problem. Some were broken and turned to drink or had nervous breakdowns.’

The Curragh was also used to intern Allied and Axis personnel who had found themselves in Ireland during World War II. There were three sections in the camp at the time: one each for the IRA, Allied airmen and German mariners and airman.

In July 1957 the Irish Government reintroduced internment in response to Operation Harvest, the IRA’s border campaign which lasted from 1956-62 and the Curragh was again put to use.

When the modern conflict began in 1968 some members of the Irish Government were publicly supportive of northern republicans whilst others became more noticeably hostile as events escalated.

On 26 May 1972, the Irish Government used the 1939 Offences Against the State Act to initiate the juryless Special Criminal Court to deal with IRA activity south of the border. This involved suspects being arrested and accused of IRA membership by a superintendent in the Garda Síochána. The traditional IRA policy of not recognising the court resulted in a fait accompli as no defence was offered and IRA membership carried a minimum mandatory one-year sentence, resulting in internment in all but name.

94

As a result of a riot in Mountjoy Prison, the Curragh Camp was used for many of those arrested and convicted by the Special Criminal Court. The most well-known Derry republican to be held in the Curragh was the current deputy first minister of the Executive Martin McGuinness who was jailed in December 1972 and spent six months in the camp. The introduction of even more repressive measures in 1973 meant there was a four-fold increase in the numbers held under the order between 1973 and 1976, many of whom ended up in the Curragh. Following the introduction of de facto political status in 1977 the Curragh eventually ceased to be used for political prisoners.

Escapes

In September 1921 some 70 men escaped from the Curragh by tunnelling underneath the prison and escaping into the hills.

In 1958 there were three escapes from the camp. In May three prisoners had got out through a window in the Curragh Military Hospital where they had been patients although all were soon recaptured. The second escape was a more successful operation when two men cut through the wire fence and escaped. The two, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill, later became prominent republican leaders in the 1970s and 1980s. Despite extensive searching, roadblocks, and monitoring of ports by the security forces, they had not been recaptured by the time of the third escape in December when 14 men managed to get away.

On Sunday 29 October 1972, South Armagh republican icon Michael McVerry and six other comrades audaciously escaped from the Curragh through a tunnel and returned to IRA active service.

There were numerous other escape attempts from the camp before political prisoners were moved to other locations from 1977 onwards.

RuairÍ Ó BrÁdaigh

DÁithÍ Ó Conaill

MICHAEL McVERRY

95

Portlaoise

Portlaoise Prison was originally opened in 1830. When the modern conflict began it became the main high-security prison in the 26 counties and as such the main prison for convicted republican prisoners.

Following a mass break out in 1974, a judicial inquiry was set up by 26-county Justice Minister Patrick Cooney which led to an increased Garda and military presence being deployed in the prison and restrictions on food parcels and free association among the prisoners. The implementation of these measures was to have far-reaching consequences for republican prisoners, as conditions in the prison deteriorated rapidly over the following months, leading eventually to two hunger strikes in 1975 and 1977. The first strike, which began in 1975, involved 16 men including Pat Ward from Burtonport in Donegal. The strike was ended just as the men were at death’s door with promises that a more relaxed regime would be introduced.

Instead of conditions improving, the situation got worse. On 6 March 1977, Martin Ferris was one of 20 IRA prisoners who began refusing food.

Martin is now a Sinn FĂŠin TD and a key player in the peace process. The strike was eventually resolved when the prisoners were granted de facto political status by the 26-county government. This situation continued throughout the rest of the conflict.

Portlaoise Prison.

96

Numerous Derry and Donegal republicans ended up in Portlaoise. In 1997 four Derry republicans were arrested in Malin Head in Donegal. They were eventually imprisoned in Portlaoise but were given early release in an attempt by the Irish Government to bolster the peace process. They were among the last Derry prisoners released from Portlaoise before the end of the IRA campaign. Today the prison is the main gaol in the 26 counties holding dissident republicans opposed to the peace process.

Escapes

One of the most successful and spectacular escapes during the present struggle for freedom was the mass break out by 19 republican prisoners from Portlaoise Prison on 19 August 1974.

Shortly after noon on the Sunday of the escape, the prisoners overpowered warders in the main cell block, climbed out onto a low roof and quickly made their way across the prison grounds. As the general alert was sounded, during which soldiers opened fire, the men dashed seven yards to the Governor’s walled residence where they placed their first explosive charge at a gate leading to the prison walls. A second charge was then planted in an iron doorway and within seconds the republicans were outside the prison wall. After a 100-yard dash through fields and bushes outside the prison, the escapees reached the Borris Road where they commandeered cars and made their final dash to freedom.

The 19 who escaped were Michael and Seán Kinsella, Kevin and Martin McAllister, Oliver McKiernan, Brian Hearty, Tony Weldon, Tom McFeeley, Seán Morris, Pat Thornbury, Michael Nolan, Kevin Mallon, Ian Milne, Thomas McGinty, Eddie Gallagher, William Brown, Sammy O’Hare, Paddy Joe Devenney and Francis Bernard Hughes.

Within hours all were in safe houses throughout the 26 counties. Despite an intensive search by gardaí and troops, none of the escapees were immediately recaptured and 16 were still free at the end of the year.

In 1975 Tom Smith of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade was shot dead by the 26-county army during an attempted escape. The prisoners had blasted their way through a door in the recreation area into the prison yard. As the prisoners entered the yard, Irish soldiers opened fire on the unarmed inmates, shooting Smith in the head. His funeral in Dublin was attended by thousands of republicans.

In November 1985, an IRA mass break out failed when the bomb, which had been assembled within the prison itself, failed to detonate at the prison gates.

97

Mountjoy

Mountjoy was opened in 1850 to serve as the first stop for men sentenced for a period of ‘transportation’, where they would serve a brief time in separate confinement before being transported first to Spike Island, and then eventually, Van Diemen’s Land. Like Crumlin Road Gaol it was based on the design of Pentonville Prison.

A total of 46 prisoners (including one woman, Annie Walsh) were executed within the walls of the prison, prior to the abolition of capital punishment.

KEVIN BARRY The most famous execution was that of Kevin Barry, a medical student hanged for IRA activity during the War of Independence, an event later immortalised in song.

Like the Crum in Belfast, Mountjoy became the main remand prison in the 26 counties during the modern conflict. One well-known Derry republican who spent time in Mountjoy (as well as almost all the main prisons in the country) was Phil O’Donnell.

98

Phil had been a member of the British army and joined the republican movement in 1969 after the Battle of the Bogside. He used his military expertise to help run training camps in County Donegal for IRA volunteers. During one training camp he was arrested with a number of other volunteers by the Irish Army outside of Fahan. The group were remanded in Mountjoy Prison before their trial. During the trial O’Donnell stated that they were the ‘Defenders of the Bogside’ and following their acquittal he quipped: ‘If we are innocent, can we please have our guns back?’

Interned on 9 August 1971, he spent time in the Maidstone and Magilligan before finally being transferred to Long Kesh from where he was released after eight months.

Following his release, he returned to active service. He was eventually arrested in the 26 counties and charged with IRA membership and possession of weapons. After his release from Portlaoise he returned to the movement but died in Waterside Hospital of cancer in 1982.

Escapes

30 October 1921: Linda Kearns and three comrades escape from Mountjoy.

A nurse, she became involved with the republican movement during the War of Independence.

Whilst transporting arms in November 1920 she was captured by the Black and Tans and was subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison.

Linda spent the first six months of her sentence in Walton Prison in Liverpool. Her health began to deteriorate rapidly due to the adverse conditions in LINDA KEARNS AND COMRADES the prison there and she was eventually transferred to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

She was serving her sentence with Aileen Keogh from County Carlow, jailed for two years for possession of explosives, May Burke from County Limerick, serving two years for passing military ciphers to the IRA, and Annie Coyle from County Donegal, serving 12 months for possession of seditious documents.

Linda was the main organiser of the escape plot but was said to have received valuable assistance from the officers who were sympathetic to the IRA. Keys were often left on tables and she was able to make wax impressions which were smuggled out during a visit and the duplicate keys smuggled back in on another visit.

99

These keys gave the four access to the prison grounds. On the evening of 30 October 1921 they made their escape using a rope ladder that had been tossed over the wall by those outside assisting in the escape plan.

31 October 1973: Three IRA leaders, JB O’Hagan, Kevin Mallon and Seamus Twomey, escaped from Mountjoy Gaol using a hijacked helicopter which had briefly landed in the prison’s exercise yard. The escape made headlines around the world and was an acute embarrassment to the Irish Coalition Government of the time. A manhunt involving 20,000 members of the Irish Defence Forces and Garda Síochána was launched for the escapees, one of whom, Seamus Twomey, was not recaptured until December 1977. The Wolfe Tones wrote a song celebrating the escape called The Helicopter Song, which topped the Irish charts despite being banned by the government.

Prison Legacy and Exhibition

SEAMUS TWOMEY

Police helicopter, similar to the type hijacked by the Mountjoy escapees.

This publication is intended to provide some level of understanding about the endurance, courage and determination shown by Irish republican prisoners through the generations. We hope that the continuing advancement of the peace process will see the issue of political prisoners being a purely historic one in the not-too-distant future.

We would also encourage anyone who has been imprisoned or is related to a political ex-prisoner to contact Tar Abhaile or Coiste if they are still experiencing legacy issues as a result of the conflict.

We will also be reprinting updated versions of this book in the near future.

If the reader would like to have their story included in any subsequent publication please contact us at freederrytours@gmail.com.

The accompanying Prison Story Exhibition is open to public view in the Gasyard Centre, Lecky Road, Derry.

100

The modern political conflict in the north of Ireland was the longest in western Europe. As an inevitable result, the gaols in the north and further afield have seen thousands of political prisoners go through their gates. In this publication we have provided a chronological account of the history of the prisons and the republican political prisoners who spent time within the confines of Crumlin Road Gaol, the cages and blocks of Long Kesh, Armagh, Maghaberry and many other prisons in the 26 counties and England.

Developed by Tar Abhaile, an organisation dedicated to providing a voice for republican ex-prisoners, this book is a unique aid for visitors to Derry and students of the political conflict who may not be familiar with some aspects of the prison struggle. We hope that you find the publication informative and interesting. Ultimately we hope that the book conveys the determination of republicans during the struggle and shows that despite their incarceration, republican political prisoners would never accept the status of common criminal nor meekly serve their time.

Produced by Tar Abhaile / Gasyard Development Trust