of prison used for solitary confinement
Scéal: Irish for ‘story’, i.e. news.
Scotland Yard: Headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police
Screw: Slang for prison officer
Shank: See ‘Chiv’
Sinn Féin: Legal republican political party supporting the objectives of the IRA. ‘Official’ prefix denotes affiliation with pre-December 1969 Republican Movement. ‘Provisional’ prefix indicates association with breakaway Republican Movement. Generally used in relation to the non ‘Official’ party from the mid-1970s
Six Counties: Northern Ireland (aka the ‘North’/ ‘Ulster’/ the ‘Province’ [sic])
Slopping Out: Emptying portable toilet receptacles
Social Democratic and Labour Party: Moderate nationalist party in the Six Counties from 1970
Special Branch: Detective units dealing with political offences
Special Category A: Unofficial term for IRA prisoner in England (aka ‘Irish Category A’)
Special Criminal Court: Juryless court in Dublin used to try political offences
Special Secure Unit/ Block: A small cellblock area or building for long-term segregation of prisoners
Split: Schism within the IRA in December 1969 and Sinn Féin in January 1970 creating rival Provisional and Official Republican Movements
Spring: External assistance in a prison escape
Spin: Cell search
Spur: A small section of a wing
Stiff: Written message or letter smuggled out of prison
Stormont: Devolved regional assembly outside Belfast administering the Six Counties (prorogued in 1972)
Strangeways: Manchester prison
Strip cells: Spartan cells for temporary confinement of prisoners
Strongbox: Double-gated small cells used for punishment
Submarine: Leicester Special Unit
Sunningdale: Failed power-sharing initiative in the Six Counties which excluded the Republican Movement and Loyalists in 1973-4
Supergrass: Person who gives evidence in court against multiple former associates
Swapping: Replacement of an IRA prisoner with another in a wing or prison
Sympathizer: Person supportive of the general aims of a political organization
Tanáiste: Irish Deputy Prime Minister
Taoiseach: Irish Prime Minister
Tariff: The minimum number of years to be served of a sentence
Tossed: See ‘spin’
Tout: Slang for informer
Troops Out Movement: British non-violent, pro-republican campaigning organization
Twenty-Six Counties: Republic of Ireland (aka the ‘South’ [sic])
Ulster Defence Association: Loyalist paramilitary organization (aka Ulster Freedom Fighters)
Unaligned: Activist who endeavours to support the objectives of a political organization or grouping to which they do not belong
Uninvolved: Person of no political connection
UK: United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland
Ulster Volunteer Force: Illegal Loyalist paramilitary organization
Uxbridge Eight: An IRA unit in London
Verbals: Interview notes concocted by police (aka ‘verballed’ and ‘verballing’)
Visiting Order: Document authorizing prison visits
Volunteer: Member of the IRA or INLA
Walton: Liverpool prison
Westminster: British imperial parliament in London; House of Commons/ House of Lords
Wing: Section of a prison
Winson Green: Birmingham prison
Young Prisoner: Prisoner under 21 years of age
Introduction
By the late 1970s it was evident that Irish Republican Army members would continue to accumulate in the prisons of Ireland and England. This was a direct result of the violent conflict in the North of Ireland which displayed no signs of short-term abatement. The most deadly, extensive and persistent insurgency in Western Europe after the Second World War seemed interminable. Neither the IRA nor the British Government credibly reaffirmed rival and incompatible predictions of imminent military victory. The leading Belfast republican Gerry Adams used the prescient phrase ‘long war’ to describe ongoing events in September 1976, when his pamphlet, Peace in Ireland? A broad analysis of the present situation was released into what State censorship rendered a select group of avid supporters within Sinn Féin’s private distribution net, mortal enemies who monitored such communications, and persons capable of vicarious access. Written in the penal compounds of Long Kesh, County Antrim, under author-noted ‘prison restrictions’, Adams argued that the underlying causes of the late-twentieth century variant of the perennial Anglo-Irish crisis encompassed a British imperialist interest in Ireland as well as an untenable reactionary mentality in the Twenty-Six County Establishment in Dublin.1
Covert British strategists, meanwhile, manoeuvred night and day to defeat the IRA using a combination of greatly enhanced intelligence gathered since the ‘ceasefire’ of 1974–75 and focused responses to the republican challenge. Tactics included assassination of known opposing activists by Special Forces supplemented by malleable pro-Unionist ‘death squads’, who aimed to intimidate prospective republican supporters by seemingly random killings of socially ambitious nationalists. Others were simultaneously and indiscriminately shot and bombed in an apparent bid to induce paranoia, inertia and communal distress, in tandem with generally unsuccessful efforts to provoke republicans into diverting their scant resources towards politically compromising acts of retaliation. Severe interrogation of detained IRA suspects complemented the utility of ‘special legislation’ which not only generated greater numbers of confession-predicted convictions in the total absence of physical evidence, but also imposed maximal psychological pressure on those held for up to seven days. Republicans referred to this crudely effective process as the ‘conveyor belt’. Persons convicted by juryless ‘Diplock’ courts in Belfast were pitched into the ultra-modern ‘H-Blocks’ where, from March 1976, former benefits of ‘political status’ were not extended.2
Armed IRA activity in Britain was confined by tradition and modus operandi to the territory of England where analogous forms of counter-insurgency
