the far more frequent and deadly attacks in the North of Ireland. This incentivised the Republican Movement to provide the logistics necessary to underwrite hazardous activity in England. If the highly trained British Military reinforcements deployed to the North of Ireland in August 1969 could not defeat the IRA, it was equally clear in 1978 that republicans waging unilateral and illegal ‘armed struggle’ would not triumph by the intensity of their insurgency alone. ‘Operation Banner’ proved to be the longest and one of the least decisive campaigns in the history of the British Army, a professional North Atlantic Treaty Organization constituent that had waged wars across the globe. In seeking to widen the political discussion, Adams addressed the fluctuating republican campaign in England from various perspectives:
IRA violence has spilled over into England … many people have died or been seriously injured as a result. This recent overspill fits the pattern which has evolved over the decades. English people should be interested in what their country’s army is doing in Ireland. Sadly, this interest has only come when the problem has involved them directly … British soldiers are dying on Irish streets and there are periodic bombings in England itself. Two Irishmen, Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg, have died on hunger strike within the last two years, in English gaols, and Irishmen and women are still being brutalized in prisons in England.3
He claimed that ‘revolutionary violence’ should be ‘controlled and disciplined’; a strategic caution which, he implied, included an IRA front in England alongside far-sighted ambitions to mobilize progressive allies in Britain.4 The mid-term objective of evolving a variant of ‘armed struggle’ in England, however, was complicated by the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which simplified the harassment of legal pro-republicans, as well as anti-war advocates in Britain. During the heyday of the PTA, the most tenuous UK-located population were Irish-born permanent residents and migrants who comprised Britain’s main ‘foreign’ population. Entitled by birth to ‘British’ passports if born on the island of Ireland prior to the declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1949, all who eschewed this option still availed of reciprocal rights to free travel between the neighbouring islands. Introduced by the Labour Government in November 1974 amid the furore ignited by the IRA’s unintentional infliction of heavy civilian casualties in Birmingham, the draconian PTA had been prepared by the previous Conservative administration and was primed for promulgation whenever the republican campaign in England attained momentum.5 At this crucial and parliamentary moment, following the October 1974 casualties sustained in bomb attacks on ‘soldiers pubs’ in Guildford and Woolwich, the British public were not advised that the PTA contingency was inherently discriminatory and of limited value in apprehending IRA ASUs.
Upper echelons of the British Military, contrary to vacuous assertions of imminent victory over the IRA by Roy Mason, knew the Republican Movement was too embedded in Irish communities to be readily destroyed. This was the assessment of a secret dossier entitled ‘Northern Ireland: Future Terrorist Trends’ complied by Brigadier James Glover of the Ministry of Defence’s Intelligence Staff on 2 November 1978. Under unusual circumstances, the IRA obtained a copy from an unoccupied vehicle and published it in full in An Phoblacht on 10 May 1979. Brigadier Glover claimed that having adopted a more functional cellular structure in the course of 1977, ‘The Provisional IRA (PIRA) has the dedication and the sinews of war to raise violence intermittently to at least the level of early 1978, certainly for the foreseeable future’.6 While Glover’s possibly disingenuous overview expressly excluded consideration of IRA attacks in Britain, which had garnered disproportionate media attention since the 1920s, it was implicit that such operations would continue. Further prison losses in England were consequently assured, even though it was obvious that many IRA Volunteers temporarily active in the country were never arrested. The MOD document recognized that the IRA leadership intended to maintain attacks until Britain made a ‘declaration of intent … to withdraw from Northern Ireland’ and had instituted ‘an amnesty for all “political” prisoners, including the release of all PIRA prisoners in goal on the mainland [sic]’.7
The Dispersal System
Sentenced and remanded prisoners in the common jurisdiction of England and Wales were held in accordance with policies developed by the Mountbatten Committee in 1966, and revised by an expert panel headed by Sir Leon Radzinowicz in 1968. This entailed the segregation of prisoners deemed a danger to the public within the ‘Dispersal System’ of maximum-security prisons. From 1970, the network included Gartree, Long Lartin, Wakefield, Hull, Parkhurst, Albany and D Wing of Wormwood Scrubs. Prisoners were also allocated to the Special Security Units (aka ‘Blocks’) of Leicester and Parkhurst and, if undergoing punitive segregation, F Wing of Wakefield. H-Wing in Durham was used for actual and presumed female IRA prisoners, the only facility deemed suitable for sentenced Category A women in England. Most Irish republicans had previously been remanded in custody ahead of trial in Brixton and Wandsworth in London or, if detained in the Midlands or North of England, Walton in Liverpool and Winson Green in Birmingham.8 Whereas the notorious Control Unit in Wakefield was remodelled following a liberal backlash in 1974 as ‘F Wing’, the retention of ‘Special Wings’ repudiated the humane dimension to the Mountbatten Report and resulted in the use of the two modern SSUs in Parkhurst and Leicester. Maximum-security detached ‘prisons within prisons’ were largely preserved owing to the presence of IRA personnel in England. Penologists Roy D. King and Sandra Resondihardjo, following insights from Home Office specialist Roy Walmsley, noted that SSUs were ‘used primarily for the custody of Irish terrorist prisoners’.9
Mountbatten categorized prisoners in England and Wales on a scale of A, B, C and D. Persons accorded the most restrictive rating, Category A, could in theory progress to lower levels as their sentence elapsed and parole loomed.10 Security classifications of sentenced prisoners were determined by the Home Office after trial and prior to allocation to a Dispersal Prison. A ‘special Home Office committee’ met every three weeks in St. Anne’s Gate and was understood in 1987 to solely administer those presumed to be Category A men and women. According to Tim Owen, ‘classification into the other categories is made in the various regional administrations of the Prison Department’.11 Decisions of the ‘Category A Committee’ were communicated to prisoners via relevant prison authorities in the late 1980s.12 Suspected Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army members were generally rated ‘Provisional Category A’ prior to sentencing and were evidently earmarked for assessment by the ‘special’ Home Office committee in consequence. Ratings of Category A prisoners were annually reviewed in a process reputedly informed by governors and ‘other staff at the establishment’.13 Yet, the vast majority of IRA prisoners commenced and ended their sentences at the top security tier, contrary to the concept of incremental reclassification. In 1983, the Inspector of Prisons admitted there were ‘no standard procedures’ for changing a prisoner’s category, by which time Irish republicans demonstrably fell within the discretionary area.14 Until 1992, the specific criteria used to reach such decisions remained classified, even from governors made responsible for managing their long-term detention. It transpired that persons convicted of ‘murder (except of a family member), armed robbery, rape and terrorism’, as well as ‘any offence under the Official Secrets Act’ were liable to be allocated as Category A.15 They were accompanied when moving within prisons by teams of staff members, including dog-handlers and officers required to update journals which
