Abandoning Historical Conflict?: Former Political Prisoners and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

206 Pages·2010·1.354 MB·English

by  Peter Shirlow, Jon Tonge, James Mcauley, Catherine McGlynn

Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page i
Abandoning historical conflict?
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page ii
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page iii
Abandoning historical conflict?
Former political prisoners and
reconciliation in Northern Ireland
Peter Shirlow, Jonathan Tonge, James McAuley
and Catherine McGlynn
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Macmillan
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page iv
Copyright © Peter Shirlow, Jonathan Tonge, James McAuley and Catherine McGlynn 2010
The right of Peter Shirlow, Jonathan Tonge, James McAuley and Catherine McGlynn to be
identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published byManchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
andRoom 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Distributed exclusively in the USA by
Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, USA
Distributed exclusively in Canada by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 0 7190 8011 1 hardback
First published 2010
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or any
third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not gurantee that any content
on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset
by Helen Skelton, Brighton, UK
Printed in Great Britain
by the MPG Books Group
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page v
Contents
Acknowledgements pagevii
List of abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 Politically motivated prisoners in Northern Ireland 4
2 Former prisoners in a global context 23
3 Political views and understandings 45
4 Imprisonment, ideological development and change 69
5 Political and tactical change among former prisoners 91
6 Conflict transformation and changing perceptions of the ‘other’ 119
7 Former prisoners and societal reconstruction 142
Conclusion 164
Bibliography 173
Index 190
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page vi
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page vii
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge with grateful thanks the generous financial assis-
tance for this research project provided by the Leverhulme Trust. Weare also
very grateful for the hard work and diligence of the project’s research assistants,
Michael Culbert and Dawn Purvis MLA, in organising and conducting inter-
views with republican and loyalist former prisoners respectively. The facilita-
tion of the research by various former prisoners’ organisations, Coiste, EPIC,
Charter and Teach na Failte, is also acknowledged with thanks. We pay tribute
to the late Noel Gilzean, whose posthumous PhD, awarded in 2008, was richly
earned. We thank all our families for tolerating our long absences during the
research for this project. Finally,we offer our thanks to all the former prisoners
whoparticipated, for their time and frankness in the articulation of their ideas.
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page viii
Shirlow 00 28/9/09 01:26 Page ix
List of abbreviations
AMODEG Mozambican Association of the War Demobilised
ANC African National Congress
AVT Association of Victims of Terrorism
CIRA Continuity IRA
CRJ Community Restorative Justice
CTI Conflict Transformation Initiative
DDR Demilitarisation, Demobilisation and Re-integration
DUP Democratic Unionist Party
EACTP East Antrim Conflict Transformation Process
EPIC Ex-Prisoners’ Interpretive Centre
ETA Euskadi TaAskatasuna
EXPAC Ex-Prisoners Action Committee
GAL Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion
IICD Independent International Commission on Decommissioning
INLA Irish National Liberation Army
IPLO Irish People’sLiberation Organisation
IRA Irish Republican Army
IRSP Irish Republican Socialist Party
LVF Loyalist Volunteer Force
MLA Northern Ireland Assembly member
NGO non-governmental organisation
NIACRO Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement
of Offenders
NIO Northern Ireland Office
NUPRG New Ulster Political Research Group
ODC ‘Ordinary Decent Criminal’
OIRA Official IRA
PIRA Provisional Irish Republican Army
PNV Partido Nacionalista Vasco