the fact that two of the four Loyalists were given assignments as trustees despite being Category A prisoners. One, John Gadd, worked as an assistant to a Church of England chaplain and was accused of having viewed files pertaining to the IRA prisoners. Another, Harry James, cleaned the special visiting area set aside for the republicans and was deemed to pose a risk to the well-being of their relatives by virtue of being present when they arrived. Sammy Carson, serving fifteen years for attempting a no - warning bomb attack on ‘Biddy Mulligan’s’ pub in Kilburn on 20 December 1975 received the prized job of wing orderly and, according to the PRO, was permitted to take Open University classes and receive normal ‘open’ visits. The fourth Loyalist, Norman Skinner, was evidently not as well situated as his comrades but his relative lack of patronage, consideration or progression within the complex was typical of all republicans.201
The thrust of the republican argument was that Loyalists were treated as if they were classified as Category B and by virtue of receiving enviable conditions of employment in the jail, were seen as gifted opportunities to jeopardize the personal security of the IRA prisoners and their families. The IRA did not, however, advance specific allegations, and relations with Loyalists were far better than would have been the case in contemporary Crumlin Road prison. The disparity of work allocation substantiated republican allegations of being persecuted. The PRO was highly explicit when citing unfavourable comparisons between the privileges bestowed on Loyalists and their concurrent denial to republicans serving similar sentences for similar offences. Sheridan and Short were named as men who had been, for all intents and purposes, wronged by the Governor for failing to take account of their relatively short sentences.202 For most prisoners, the ongoing IRA campaigns in Ireland and England ensured that they were unlikely to be reclassified as Category B in the foreseeable future. The process of re-categorization, moreover, was secret, as a test case taken against the Home Office confirmed in May 1977.203 Justice Cantley, who presided at several major IRA trials, including that of Brendan Dowd, had made the negative ruling arising from a challenge by a man classified as Category A in 1968. Cantley upheld the right of the Home Office to prevent prisoners making ‘representations against their classification’ and the authority of staff to withhold pertinent information on file. The general lack of standardized policy regarding security classification was tackled by a Prison Department working party in 1981 without immediate impact.204
Questions posed by Joan Maynard in the Commons on 21 June 1978 revealed that two unidentified Loyalist prisoners had benefited from special, temporary and permanent transfer arrangements between 1974 and 1976.205 Home Secretary Merlyn Rees also divulged an extraordinary statistic when he confirmed that of eighty-four prisoners in England subject to having ‘visits in closely supervised conditions in the interests of security’, no less than seventy-one were ‘thought to have Republican links’. This represented a vast over-representation of IRA prisoners within the population, a fact played down by referencing ‘security’ fears to mask outright discrimination.206 Rees also detailed the manner in which furniture, partitions and staff positioning was used to create a ‘closely supervised’ visit in Wakefield. In June 1978, a mere thirteen non-IRA Category A prisoners were obliged to endure ‘closed’ visits in the entire maximum security network. This offered strong evidence that republicans were genuine in describing their real position in the Dispersal System as ‘Special Category A’, a term with no official Home Office recognition.207
It was also clearly relevant that no IRA prisoner qualified for short-term relocation in order to receive accumulated visits. The criteria for temporary transfers within the UK consisted of the agreement of the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. In Whitehall, the NIO assumed full responsibility for ‘permanent’ transfers.208 Only those born in the Six Counties or those who had spent ‘a very long time’ living there could be considered, and only then if the authorities were satisfied that suitable and secure accommodation was available. Those regarded as ‘badly behaved’ by a prison governor or persons deemed ‘likely’ to misbehave during transfer were ineligible. All applicants had to have served two years since allocation following sentence.209 The case of Billy Armstrong was specifically considered following private high-level representations from Joan Maynard and Martin Wright, who had attempted to enlist the aid of veteran progressive Lord Fenner Brockway. Lord Harris was ‘not persuaded’ that the Belfastman should be facilitated, ‘having regard to all the factors’.210 Wright’s commendation of the ‘adoption of Christian pacifism’ by Shane Paul O’Doherty, which he evidently interpreted as a positive sign of personal reformation, did not alter the equation.211 Wright, Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, acknowledged the multiple negative provisos, as well as NIO claims of overcrowding, in his 16 May 1978 overture to Brockway. Wright assured Brockway that the ‘Howard League has no wish to become involved in the complexities of the Northern Ireland situation’ while urging that the five remaining ‘Belfast Ten’ prisoners in England should be repatriated. Sensing official objections, Wright argued that ‘humanitarian grounds’ pertained and implied the Home Office was being ‘unfair’.212 He later advised Sr. Clarke to consider legal proceedings in cases where IRA prisoners in England were being held ‘for long periods in special “cooling off” local cells’ for more than the maximum twenty-eight days.213
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
