39.PAC News, August/ September 1977
40.Hibernia, 16 December 1977.
41.John Kilbracken to Fr. [Denis] Faul, 23 January 1978 Clarke Papers (COFLA). See also Disturbance in D Wing, p. 15.
42.Kilbracken to Faul, 23 January 1978 Clarke Papers (COFLA). Longford had been disconcerted by the IRA attempt on the life of his son-in-law, Hugh Fraser MP on 22 October 1975. Fraser supported the death penalty and narrowly missed being killed on the day that the Guildford Four were wrongly convicted. See Clarke, No faith, pp. 93–4 and Moysey, Balcombe Street, pp. 108–9.
43.See Lieutenant-Colonel HEC Willoughby, ‘Family life in Northern Ireland’, Typescript (Victoria Barracks, Windsor, 12 November 1975). The document was endorsed: ‘This leaflet contains information on various aspects of family life in Northern Ireland as it is expected to apply to the 2nd B[attalio]n Coldstream Guards which will start an 18 month tour in September 1976 at Ebrington Barracks, London[d]erry [sic]’. Ibid.
44.Clarke to Kilbracken, 28 January 1978, MS draft letter Clarke Papers (COFLA). See also Merlyn Rees, Northern Ireland, A Personal perspective (London, 1985).
45.HL Deb 7 February 1978, cc922–3.
46.Gerry Cunningham, 25 September 2007.
47.AP/RN, 29 July 1982. McLaughlin commented: ‘When we explained to the English prisoners the nature of British imperialism in Ireland and that we were not-as the British gutter press daubed us- “mindless terrorists” out to kill innocent British civilians, they were able to see for themselves the victimization of republican prisoners by the prison administration’. Ibid.
48.Hugh Doherty, 23 June 2006.
49.Alison Liebling, ‘Prison Officers, Policing and the Use of Discretion’ in Theoretical Criminology, 2000, Vol. 4, p. 341.
50.Eddie O’Neill, 23 June 2006.
51.Republican News, 28 January and 4 February 1978. Niall Fagan, who had been present on Bloody Sunday, addressed the Sinn Féin parade at Hyde Park. Ibid. For an analysis of ideological ‘sectarian’ divisions between elements of the British left on Ireland, including differences between the allied PAC/ RCG and IMG/ SWP/ UTOM, see Hands off Ireland!, No. 6, January 1979, pp. 3–4.
52.An Phoblacht, 18 February 1978. UTOM split from TOM on 2 July 1977. Fight Racism! / Fight Imperialism!, September 1982, p. 11. For an RCG account see Diane Fox, ‘Building an anti-imperialist movement, resonant declarations v revolutionary propaganda’ in Hands off Ireland!, No. 3, November 1977, pp. 13–15.
53.An Phoblacht, 15 February 1978.
54.Republican News, 4 February 1978.
55.An Phoblacht, 8 February 1978.
56.Karen McElrath, Unsafe haven, The United States, The IRA and Political Prisoners (London, 2000), pp. 70–1 and Francie Broderick, Gerry Coleman, Peter Hegarty and Jack Kilroy (eds.) Where is Liberty?, The prosecution of Irish Republicans in the United States, Pamphlet (Ohio, 1995), p. 30.
57.Sr. Sarah Clarke, ‘Hugh Doherty’, Sr. Sarah Clarke Papers O Fiaich Library, Armagh (COFLA). Twenty-five charges against the Balcombe Street group were rejected by the jury and a murder charge in relation to the bombing of the Hilton Hotel was reduced to manslaughter when it was accepted that ‘police had failed to clear the hotel after 20 min[ute]s warning’. Ibid.
58.See Jackie Kaye, ‘Irish political prisoners in England’ in AP/RN, 26 May 1979 and John Higgins et al, Irish political prisoners in England, Special Category ‘A’, An account of prison life in England based on the experiences of Irish Republican John Higgins imprisoned between 1976 and 1979 (Dublin, 1980), pp. 70–1 and AP/RN, 13 May 1980. Hugh Doherty was in Leicester in January 1978 when solidarity notices were published in Belfast. Republican News, 7 January 1978. He had his books in Durham by July 1978 when Ray McLaughlin was sent in on a ‘lie down’ from Wakefield. Doherty left reading material in the recess area for McLaughlin to collect, including Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. Ray McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, The prison diary of the IRA Volunteer Raymond McLaughlin (Dublin, 1987), p. 44. Eddie Butler was moved to solitary confinement in Manchester prison in February 1978. IRIS, 12 January 1979.
59.Irish political prisoners, p. 71. Scotland’s only Special Unit at Barlinnie, Glasgow, was generally not used for the few IRA prisoners held in the separate jurisdiction during the Troubles. Ibid. Belfast republican Matthew ‘Gerry’ Ward, who received five years for IRA activities in Scotland, was released on 24 October 1975 having passed through Peterhead and Perth. Sr. Clarke, ‘Mathew ‘Gerry’ Ward’, Clarke Papers (COFLA).
60.Joe O’Connell, 7 June 2008.
61.Joe O’Connell, 7 June 2008.
62.Republican News, 24 March 1979 and AP/RN, 26 May 1979.
63.Irish political prisoners, p. 71.
64.Sr. Clarke, ‘Brendan Dowd’, Clarke Papers (COFLA). See also Jackie Kaye, ‘Irish political trials in England’ in Hands off Ireland!, No. 2, June 1977, pp. 2–4.
65.Michael Herbert, The wearing of the green, A political history of the Irish in Manchester (London, 2001), p. 164.
66.Hugh Doherty, 23 June 2006.
67.See ‘List of names found after IRA terrorist siege at Balcom[b]e Street’, December 1975, NAE, PREM 16/ 676. The Prison Department headquarters at 89 Eccleston Square was also listed. Ibid.
68.Eddie Butler, 21 December 2007.