the repositioning of two staff members who usually sat in the corridor inside the small room when in use.182 McLaughlin apprised Logan that in addition to a loitering female ‘matron’ or WPC, ‘there are still at least four security employees listening in on every visit, two of these sit about three feet behind the prisoner and the other two behind the visitor’.183
This supposedly irenic-minded adjustment was deemed unsatisfactory by prisoners, especially when it was balanced by a new policy of strip-searching before and after sessions. According to Logan:
It is making it impossible for visits to take place. The Governor knows full well that the individuals concerned will not voluntarily submit to a strip search. Strip searching is normally only carried out accompanied by what is known as a “spin” when the prisoner’s cell is thoroughly searched by a team of Officers to find out if he have any unlawful material … If he is right and the prisoners decide not to accept visits under these conditions, he will have got over the problem which the visits have been causing by constant complaints.184
Lord Harris insisted on 11 July 1978 that this reform was ‘purely a security precaution and not, as the [George E Baker & Co] solicitors appear to be suggesting, a control or punishment measure’. Harris rejected calls to investigate what he believed to be baseless ‘allegations … that Irish Republican prisoners are discriminated against’.185 The FCO, which preferred questions on prison policy originating in the Irish Embassy to be redirected to the Home Office, viewed Maynard as ‘an active supporter of the “Troops Out Movement”’ and Logan as a solicitor who had ‘close connections with IRA prisoners in this country, and an active propagandist for them’.186
Refusing work in Albany entailed confinement in the Segregation Block for terms of fourteen to fifty-six days. All the republicans, baring the abstaining Fr. Pat Fell, and innocent ex-Official IRA man Sean Smyth, were confined in the Block by 25 April. On rejecting an invitation from the Governor to resume their ‘duties’ as normal after a twenty-four hour period of enforced reflection, the recalcitrant men were returned to cells set aside for the obdurate and disobedient.187 Tony Madigan favoured the option of taking to the roof, but the discovery of rope ladders in his cell, along with paint he intended to use to daub slogans once in situ, negated the plan: ‘The visits again were a bone of contention. The lads then said we’d all refuse work and again I disagreed … I thought you caused them more problems being up in the general population than you can be isolated in the Block. If you let them isolate you, you are not threatening them … We were down there for ten months’.188 Every effort was made to frustrate the efficient running of the unit by such means as banging doors, shouting, singing and making noise in contravention of regulations. This inspired English prisoners to join in and offer a united front of defiance to staff.189
Two focused bouts of agitation won a Derry criminal a light bulb in his cell and Busty Cunningham access to the weekly bath he was nominally permitted. Success, however, entailed repercussions from an establishment that could not be seen to weaken in the face of protesting prisoners. Beatings during future ‘lie downs’ were promised, and the core of the IRA group was disrupted by swopping Eddie O’Neill for Tipp Guilfoyle in Gartree, and Ray McLaughlin for Stephen Blake in Wakefield.190 Once delivered, Guilfoyle declined to wear prison uniform in Albany and spent fifteen months in segregation in consequence.191 Blake was initially located on a standard wing but became embroiled in a ‘fracas’ when he refused the demeaning job of sewing uniforms.192 Madigan did not believe much had been achieved in the Block by what he termed the ‘Terence MacSwiney Syndrome’, whereby republicans sought moral victory by endurance and self-sacrifice rather than mere infliction. The question of stepping up resistance by means of sabotage, however, had been raised as an alternate strategy.193
The May 1978 statement released by the Albany men to the Sinn Féin/ PAC Karl Marx commemoration in London evidenced their appreciation of the utility of political propaganda. A constant stream of publicity from the jails was necessary to ensure the refreshment and wide dissemination of the republican message. Rallies, commemorations and marches organized by their allies in England created regular audiences for communications addressing a wide range of topics. Latitude from Headquarters was in evidence given that General Order No 2 (c) of the IRA Constitution prohibited Volunteers from ‘promoting communist or capitalist literature’, and open identification with Marxist figureheads met with disapproval in traditional republican heartlands.194 GHQ and Sinn Féin Head Office understood that the political dynamic in England warranted a more ecumenical approach to republican assertion. Accordingly, ‘comrades’ at liberty in Britain were exhorted by the Albany prisoners to combine street agitation with educational work in order to advance the universal socialist agenda. Contemporary matters of specific and urgent concern within the Dispersal System were generally raised in such expansive addresses.195
Gartree’s IRA PRO published a notice in June 1978 which alleged that privileges were being extended to Loyalist prisoners beyond those normally available to Category A men. The Leicestershire prison had a strong cohort of republicans in the summer of 1978 which included Phil Sheridan, Eddie O’Neill, Martin Brady, Peter Short, Brian (aka Donal) McLaughlin, Paul Holmes, Jerry Mealy, Ronnie McCartney, John McCluskey and Paul Hill. Whereas the innocent Hill was included in the ‘Republican POW’ company due to his many acts of solidarity, IRA member Michael Sheehan was listed as simply an ‘other Irish political prisoner’ along with the wrongly convicted Pat Maguire and Gerry Hunter.196 Rolls were often inaccurate due to the constant shifting of Category A men and were open to misinterpretation. Although present in the jail, Brady had spent virtually all his time in segregation due to punishments imposed for the Hull Riot.197 Hill had also been subjected to lie-downs in Armley and a fractious induction to Gartree, where he spent three days in the ‘strong box’ for insisting that a razor found in his cell was not his own property.198
Brian McLaughlin hailed from the Claudy area of north County Derry and was jailed in October 1976 for conspiracy to cause explosions in Birmingham with the Pat Christie-led grouping of Peter Toal, David Owen and Mick Reilly.199 The men were among those who assumed prime responsibility for the Midlands sector following the arrest of the experienced IRA cluster headed by Dublin’s Martin Coughlan in November 1974. Republicans were reserved in detailing McLaughlin’s political background, which, according to printed sources after his release on 7 July 1982, stemmed from the experience of being attacked by the Parachute Regiment in Derry city on 30 January 1972. He had ran past Rossville flats on ‘Bloody Sunday’ when an unarmed man at his side was one of fourteen mortally wounded by British soldiers. According to McLaughlin: ‘That was the turning point for me … From that moment on I realised there was only one answer to British violence and occupation-unconditional British withdrawal’. A year on remand in Winson Green, Birmingham, was followed by temporary incarceration in Liverpool ahead of allocation to Gartree where other Irish republicans were held.200
