on 8 December 1974 ensured that TOM received briefings on their political outlook. INLA Chief of Staff Seamus Costello addressed the TOM convention in the Mansion House, Dublin, on 18 September 1976. See Seamus Costello, 1939–1977, Irish Republican Socialist (Dublin, [1979]), pp. 65–9. For Drumm see Maire Drumm Commemoration Committee, A rebel heart, Maire Bn. Ui Dhroma, pamphlet, October 2001. On 8 August 1980 leading IRSP and INLA member Ronnie Bunting was arrested in Belfast with TOM member Francis Barry. Both were released without charge. Holland and McDonald, INLA, Deadly Divisions (Dublin, 1994) p. 157.
176.See McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, pp. 34–8. Other IRA prisoners moving in and out of Albany in late 1977 and early 1978 included Liam Baker, Paddy Mulryan, Fr. Pat Fell, Pat Christie and Sean Kinsella. Hugh Callaghan of the ‘Birmingham Six’ was also in the prison but did not participate in the IRA protests. Ibid. See also Sr. Clarke, ‘Anthony Cunningham’, Clarke Papers (COFLA).
177.Sr. Clarke, ‘Albany’, Clarke Papers (COFLA).
178.IRIS, 12 January 1979.
179.Report of the work of the Prison Department, 1978, p. 12.
180.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, pp. 38–9. The Chairman of the Albany Board of Visitors was a retired Royal Navy Admiral whom the IRA believed to be a member of the Conservative ‘Monday Club’. Ibid., p. 39.
181.See HC Deb 21 June 1978 vol 952 cc205–6W.
182.Alastair Logan to Joan Maynard, 5 May 1978, NAE, FCO 87/ 763.
183.Ray McLaughlin to Alastair Logan, 28 April 1978, NAE, FCO 87/ 763.
184.Logan to Maynard, 5 May 1978, NAE, FCO 87/ 763.
185.Lord Harris to Joan Maynard, 11 July 1978, NAE, FCO 87/ 763. The republicans claimed that their visitors were also required to undergo strip-searching and as this was untypical of Category A men such policies constituted ‘discrimination’. [David] Blunt to [Brian] Gange, 10 October 1978, Ibid. Maynard was also in contact with the NIO regarding IRA prisoners in the H-Blocks. See Joan Maynard to Don Concannon, 22 February 1979 in Faul and Murray, H Block, p. 93.
186.PLV Mallet (RID, FCO), ‘Letter from Miss Joan Maynard MP’, Memo, 2 June 1978, NAE, FCO 87/ 763.
187.PAC News, August/ September 1978.
188.Tony Madigan, 7 March 2008.
189.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, p. 40.
190.McLaughlin, Inside an English jail, pp. 40–41. McLaughlin arrived in Wakefield in May 1978. Irish News, 13 November 1979.
191.AP/RN, 17 October 1985.
192.Sr. Clarke, ‘Albany Notes’, Clarke Papers (COFLA).
193.Tony Madigan, 7 March 2008. Terence MacSwiney, a senior member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin, died on hunger strike in Brixton on 25 October 1920 when asserting his status as a political prisoner. He famously declared on taking office as Lord Mayor of Cork: ‘It is not they who can inflict most but they who can suffer most will conquer’. Quoted in Dave Hannigan, Terence MacSwiney, The Hunger Strike that rocked an Empire (Dublin, 2010), p. 11.
194.See Brendan O’Brien, The Long War, The IRA and Sinn Féin, 1985 to today (Dublin, 1993), p. 294.
195.‘Albany POW Statement’, Hands off Ireland!, No. 5, September 1978, p. 24 and PAC News, June 1978.
196.Gartree PRO in Republican News, 10 June 1978.
197.Republican News, 21 January 1979.
198.Hill, Stolen years, pp. 195–7. Hill, following the privations of Hull, regarded Gartree as ‘a liberal establishment. I wear a sweat shirt and trainers. The screws are not so aggressive. But it’s no good. I can’t settle in. I should not be in prison, I am innocent. I argue and demonstrate’. Ibid., p. 197.
199.AP/RN, 29 July 1982. See also O’Donnell, Special Category, I, p. 428.
200.AP/RN, 29 July 1982.
201.Republican News, 10 June 1978 and Irish political prisoners, p. 13. Noel Moore Boyd was also named in connection to the Kilburn attack while associates Alexander Brown and Archibald Brown were charged with related offences. Boyd and Carson appeared in court on 4 March 1976. They were convicted on 12 October 1976, receiving terms of between ten and fifteen years. Sr. Clarke, ‘Biddy Mulligan’s Explosion’, Clarke Papers (COFLA). Boyd was on good terms with Gerry Conlon and several IRA prisoners in Long Lartin. Conlon, Proved Innocent, p. 199. Three members of the ‘Manchester Loyalist Association’ were charged with possession of firearms on 26 February; David Anderton, Robert Watson and Malcolm Rough. PAC Bulletin, March 1976.
202.Republican News, 10 June 1978. The person referred to as ‘Gudd’ in the published account was convicted English Loyalist John Gadd. Sr. Clarke received information that Tommy Thompson, regarded as a leading Loyalist in England, was one of the very few on the Category A list yet even then received ‘preferential treatment’ when in Hull. See Clarke to Kilbracken, 26 January 1978, MS letter draft, Clarke Papers (COFLA).
203.Cohen and Taylor, Prison secrets, p. 56.
204.Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, 1983, p. 17.
205.In 1974 two Loyalists jailed in England were granted temporary transfers to the North of Ireland ‘to receive visits’ over a period of twenty-three to twenty-seven days. One was granted a permanent transfer in 1975 and the second was downgraded to Category B in 1976. The Category B Loyalist received a second temporary transfer of twenty-nine days in 1978. See HC Deb 21 June 1978 vol 952 c205W.
