Learning behind Bars: How IRA Prisoners Shaped the Peace Process in Ireland

by Dieter Reinisch

Overview

Learning behind Bars is an oral history of former Irish republican prisoners in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland between 1971, the year internment was introduced, and 2000, when the high-security Long Kesh Detention Centre/HM Prison Maze closed. Dieter Reinisch outlines the role of politically motivated prisoners in ending armed conflicts as well as the personal and political development of these radical activists during their imprisonment.

Based on extensive life-story interviews with Irish Republican Army (IRA) ex-prisoners, the book examines how political prisoners developed their intellectual positions through the interplay of political education and resistance. It sheds light on how prisoners used this experience to initiate the debates that eventually led to acceptance of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Politically relevant and instructive, Learning behind Bars illuminates the value of education, politics, and resistance in the harshest of social environments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487545826
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	10/27/2022
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dieter Reinisch is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Preface
Abbreviations

Introduction

1. The Irish Prison Arena: Republican Prisoners and the Northern Ireland Conflict
2. “Portlaoise is an example for this”: Portlaoise Prison Protests, 1973–7
3. “No prisoner has the right to advance the education of another”: Education in Portlaoise Prison
4. The Harvey/McCaughey/Smith Cumann: Sinn Féin in Portlaoise Prison, 1978–86
5. “He was just rhyming off pages of it”: Internment and the Brownie Papers, 1971–7
6. Marxist Esperanto and Socialism in Cell 26: Reading, Thinking, and Writing in the H-Blocks, 1983–9
7. “It's only when you look back …”: The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Peace Process in the 1990s

Conclusion: An Irish Century of Camps

Interview Partners
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Luisa Passerini

"Methodologically thoughtful, historically rigorous -— combining memories of Irish prisoners with British official documents, letters, and journalistic accounts —- and deeply humane, this book brings us a unique understanding of the history of Ireland: a testimony of the daily life of incarcerated people as embodied subjects who in spite of reclusion influenced a political process of struggle and finally peace."

Richard English

"The rich and vivid interview material in Dieter Reinisch's book will be of great interest and value to all those wanting to understand this complex, important phenomenon."

Lorenzo Bosi

"Learning behind　Bars offers a thoughtful historical reconstruction of how, on both sides of the Irish border, republican prisoners' processes of political self-education shaped first the republican movement and then brought to an end the conflict in the nNorth. An essential read for those seeking to better understand recent Irish history and how republican militants behind bars lived and became political subjects inside and outside the prisons."

Editorial Reviews

" Learning behind Bars is an interesting, informative and scholarly work."

—Gerry Moriarty, Irish Times

"..with its chronological panorama, and the geographical and organisational range of its interview partners, Reinisch’s book offers a valuable perspective on the experiences of republican prisoners at the periphery of the movement… his book is of undoubted value for scholars of the Northern Ireland conflict and, more broadly, for analysts of incarceration and the internal dynamics of militant social movements."

—Jack Hepworth, St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Oral History Journal

"This is an important account of the role of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners who were imprisoned on both sides of the Irish border who were instrumental in starting the critical debate that ultimately contributed to resolving the Northern Ireland conflict through the 1994 Provisional (IRA) ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998."

—Joshua Sinai, Perspectives on Terrorism

"Drawing on the experience of learners and employing a framework which enables generalisations to be made from the particularities of Ireland, Dieter Reinisch makes a powerful case for the value of education in prisons for prisoners, prisons, and the wider society."

—Daniel Weinbren, Open University, Journal of Prison Education and Reentry
“An important contribution to the existing historiography of the conflict, Reinisch’s decision to discuss both the similarities and differences of Irish republican prisoners on both sides of the border makes for a compelling narrative.”—Robert Collins, University of Limerick, Irish Historical Studies

"This work excellently complements more conventional archival histories of Irish republicanism."

—Aidan Beatty, New Hibernia Review

"The rich and vivid interview material in Dieter Reinisch's book will be of great interest and value to all those wanting to understand this complex, important phenomenon."

—Richard English, author of Does Terrorism Work? A History

"Methodologically thoughtful, historically rigorous – combining memories of Irish prisoners with British official documents, letters, and journalistic accounts – and deeply humane, this book brings us a unique understanding of the history of Ireland: a testimony of the daily life of incarcerated people as embodied subjects who in spite of reclusion influenced a political process of struggle and finally peace."

—Luisa Passerini, Professor Emerita of History, European University Institute, Florence

" Learning behind Bars offers a thoughtful historical reconstruction of how, on both sides of the Irish border, republican prisoners’ processes of political self-education shaped first the republican movement and then brought to an end the conflict in the North. An essential read for those seeking to better understand recent Irish history and how republican militants behind bars lived and became political subjects inside and outside the prisons."

—Lorenzo Bosi, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social and Political Science, Scuola Normale Superiore

From the Publisher

"..with its chronological panorama, and the geographical and organisational range of its interview partners, Reinisch's book offers a valuable perspective on the experiences of republican prisoners at the periphery of the movement... his book is of undoubted value for scholars of the Northern Ireland conflict and, more broadly, for analysts of incarceration and the internal dynamics of militant social movements."

Oral History Journal - Jack Hepworth

"Learning behind Bars is an interesting, informative and scholarly work."

Irish Times - Gerry Moriarty