Irish Political Prisoner Culture, 1916-1923

Abstract

IntroductionI mprisonment holds a powerful place in the traditions and imagination of Irish nationalism. The revolutionary period in Ireland, 1916Ireland, -1923, saw this tradition upheld. During the Great War and post-war period, Defense of the Realm Act (DORA) legislation and Defense of the Realm Regulations (DRR), aimed to curb sedition and root out revolutionary activity. As a result, hundreds of Irishmen and women were imprisoned for crimes ranging from murder and possessing arms, to unlawful assembly, soliciting funds, or breaking curfew. Denied the status and ameliorative privileges of political prisoners, or the outright designation as prisoners of war, disorder and violence flourished in prisons as a continuation of the Irish independence movement.In addition to frustrating the Prison Commission in Britain and the General Prisons Board in Ireland, imprisonment also helped to forge loyalty between inmates. While political imprisonment furthered the Irish cause and contributed to the cohesion of prisoners, it also nurtured a long-standing culture of protest. Interpreting one's imprisonment as a religious trial of suffering contributed to this tradition. As Sean Kinsella has identified, the violence that accompanied daily prison existence possessed "redemptive and salvific qualities". 1 Irish political imprisonment also embodies a strong literary tradition. This, too, was resurrected and advanced during the revolutionary period, taking the form of reading, study of the Irish language, exchange of autograph books, staging plays, and amateur painting. 2

Rational and Emotional Tension Balances in the Organization of Political Hunger Strikes

“…The hunger strikes in 1917 occurred as the perceived legitimacy of British state control in Ireland weakened and the state’s control of the monopoly of violence began to disintegrate (Lee, 1989). According to Stover (2014), by 1920 hunger striking had surpassed all other forms of prison protest 2 in Ireland as the primarily means by which republican prisoners 3 sought to oppose the prison authorities and the British state. Imprisoned Irish militants (now operating as the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) regularly raised the prospect of initiating hunger strikes.…”