xx



Out Of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners, Long Kesh 1972-2000 by Laurence McKeown PDF



Laurence McKeown was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1977. In 1981 he joined the hunger strike led by Bobby Sands and refused food for 70 days until he fell into a coma. He went on to spend a total of 16 years in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. During that time he was at the centre of protest and struggle against the British government's attempts to criminalise republicanism and destroy commitment to the republican ideal.



Here, Laurence recounts the experience of himself and twenty four other leading rebulicans. The prisoners span the period from the early 1970s until the closing of the H-Blocks at Long Kesh in 2000, following the provisions for the release of political prisoners which formed part of the historic Good Friday Agreement 1998. The book is based on McKeown's doctorial thesis, 'Unrepentant Fenian Bastards: The Social Construction Of An Irish Republican Prisoner Community'.



In the early 1970s, the repulican prisoner community was militaristic and hierarchical, reflecting the nature of a conventional army. All that begun to change when the British decided to withdraw political status with the effect that prisoners were no longer placed in autonomous collective compounds but in individual cells with strict prison discipline. The prisoners resisted and embarked upon what turned into the longest prison protest ever waged in the history of republicanism. The protest culminated in the 1981 Hunger Strike. Thereafter, a different political culture emerged among the prisoners based on collective leadership combined with communal responsibility, unput and accountability.



Through the interviews Laurence reveals the inside story of collective success and setback, individual trauma, political idealism and pragmatism, and of human strength and weakness. Far from being the demonic one dimensional psychopathic 'terrorists' beloved of the popular press, the Irish republican prisoner community emerges as richly diverse, while retaining its cohesive commitment to the ideals of Irish republicanism.



xx