The Gartree statement also referenced the halt in the repatriation of IRA prisoners following the April 1975 movement of Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly and, in the context of more frequent facilitation of Loyalist prisoners, suggested that the special negotiated circumstances arising from the 1973–4 hunger strike had lapsed.214 It appeared as if the renewed fight for political status in Long Kesh encouraged pro-activity in England where, despite William Whitelaw’s misleading statement on ‘special category’ in the Commons in 1972, no comparable privileges had ever existed. The Home Office could be forgiven for viewing the airing of such points in Gartree as the mere reflexive and obvious declamations of Irish republicans. However, the newly assertive and aggressive tone of the message was soon manifested in terms that demanded attention, if not also redress. Those monitoring expressions of discontent by the IRA in Gartree knew that Tipp Guilfoyle and Martin Coughlan had been at the centre of controversies in 1977–8.215
Significantly, the Gartree protest was the most dramatic manifestation of an unprecedented and concerted effort to highlight grievances in English prisons. IRA prisoners in Albany, Long Lartin, Parkhurst, Wormwood Scrubs and Wakefield all participated in planned actions on 5–7 July 1978.216 Ironically, prison shifts authorised by the Home Office and implemented in the name of security assisted IRA strategizing in the advent of the protests. While no great motivation was required to spur the active engagement of republicans, the ghosting of particular prisoners spread and accentuated their sense of persecution. Lifer Vince Donnelly had been fasting in Long Lartin from 19 May to press his claim a line of work pursued by a number of his Tyrone-born siblings. His move to Wakefield on 4 June, however, reprised a trajectory which had fatal consequences for Frank Stagg in February 1976. This was viewed as a virtual death threat and served to harden rather than weaken resolve in the spatially fractured republican jail complement.217
The timing of the new strategy placed the Wakefield IRA men in a quandary as they were assembling a cache of escape equipment that was neither readily utilisable nor, in all probability, securable from discovery if major protests commenced. IRA comrades asked Donnelly upon arrival to abandon his hunger strike owing to such ‘other developments’. The jail contained Ray McLaughlin, Tony Clarke, Michael Reilly, Sean Hayes and the innocent Paddy Armstrong on C Wing. Paul Norney, Jimmy Ashe and Mick Murray were on D Wing while Joe Duffy (aka Michael/ Joe Mooney) and Billy Armstrong were on A Wing. Murray had just emerged from sixty days in F Wing for allegedly assaulting a prison officer whom he deemed had been unacceptably confrontational. The Dubliner had difficulty speaking after spending two months in silence.218 F Wing windows comprised eighteen three-inch square blocks of semi-opaque glass set two feet into the wall at a height of seven feet. Two sets of bars covered the interior of the window and a wire mesh its exterior.219
Much of the escape kit, including two ‘shank’ knives and lengths of roping made from cloth material, was discovered in the jail on 2 July. Six of the ten IRA prisoners were punished with one month’s loss of privileges and loss of pay. The search was inspired by the discovery of wax traces on a ‘pass key’ belonging to a Prison Officer who had been on holiday, a find of enormous significance in that the bearer of a complete key could move between different parts of the complex.220 On 3 July, Armstrong and Donnelly were ghosted to Strangeways and Reilly and Hayes to Armley, Leeds. Reilly’s wife and family had travelled that day from Birmingham to see him in Wakefield. Donnelly had recently been prevented from receiving a visit from Frank Maguire MP and thereby lost an opportunity to confer on the wider situation.221 McLaughlin and Clarke were sent to Durham. The other IRA men did what they could to participate in events they knew to be imminent, but their contribution was necessarily minimal due to close confinement. Murray was returned to F Wing where, despite an initial sentence of fifty-six days’ segregation, he was still held seventeen months later.222 Ashe and Norney, who was already in ‘patches’ due to his escape attempt from Wormwood Scrubs, remained in solitary.223 Donnelly, Hayes and Armstrong received their own E List designations arising from the incident.224 Visitors to republican prisoners in several jails on 5 July were informed that a co-ordinated protest was planned in support of political status, repatriation and improved visiting conditions. The demands were restated in a statement from the Gartree PRO in the aftermath of the protest.225 News from the prisons prompted the creation of an ad hoc Irish Political Prisoners Support Group to spearhead demonstrations in London. The anticipated incidents commenced that night in Albany when republicans vandalized cell furniture.226
On 6 July, IRA prisoners in Long Lartin, Wakefield, Wormwood Scrubs and Parkhurst refused meals, although it was evident despite this impressive co-ordination that no major hunger strike had been initiated.227 Seven prisoners in Albany, who were already being held in the Segregation Unit, aka ‘Punishment Block’, were charged with ‘smashing their cells’.228 This entailed throwing chamber pots into the corridor, breaking furniture and, in some cases, gouging plaster from the walls. Loyalist Alex Brown, one of the group who attempted to bomb ‘Biddy Mulligan’s’ pub, joined the IRA - led strike and was beaten by staff for this courageous act of identification.229 Subjected to further restrictions on access to sanitation, attendance at religious services and visits, the republicans progressed along a path of confrontation that resulted in a full blown ‘blanket protest’ in October.230 The Prison Department disdained the ‘demonstration’, which was officially regarded in a cold, decontextualized manner as a refusal ‘to use the normal sanitary facilities’ resulting in the fouling of the landing floor and several staff members. Those responsible were reported as ‘choosing not to wear prison clothes for part of the time’.231
While there was ongoing concern for those subjected to the F Wing regime, it was the ‘no wash’ of Long Kesh which inspired the selected mode and rhetoric of the 6 July fracas in the House of Commons. Two Socialist Worker’s Party activists threw bags of horse