Abstract
This chapter establishes the context for the changing contours of women’s experiences of imprisonment, outlining the history and layout of Armagh Prison and the way that conditions there developed as British government policy towards politically motivated prisoners went through a series of changes, and as the population of political prisoners rose during the period known as the Troubles. It examines the women’s initial reactions to imprisonment and their early struggle for political status, establishing their resistance to the prison regime as a continuation of the wider political struggle of which events behind the prison walls were to become a key component.
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Notes
- 1.
The Six Counties of Northern Ireland are Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Derry and Tyrone.
- 2.
Eileen Hickey was the first Officer in Command at Armagh prison and served in this role for the period between 1973 and 1977.
- 3.
One of the Interrogation Centres in Belfast.
- 4.
Mairéad Farrell was the IRA Officer in Command in Armagh Prison from December 1979–1986.
- 5.
Craic: Irish word for fun/enjoyment.
- 6.
The sharp division in the great numbers of men interned in 1972 compared with what may seem to be a small number of women is actually somewhat misleading. During the height of the Anglo-Irish war in 1920–1921, although there were 4,000 men interned throughout the whole of Ireland, according to Challis, ‘The Government felt it unnecessary to intern women, as they felt it was sufficient to curb terrorist activity [sic] by the internment of males’ (1999). The proportionately small area and population of the Six Counties (as opposed to all 32 in 1920–1921) must be taken into account.
- 7.
HM Prison Maghaberry opened on 18 March, six years later and 11 years after the Murray Commission was set up to draw out the recommendations by the Gardiner Report.
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Wahidin, A. (2016). Sites of Confinement: The Stories of Armagh and Maghaberry Prison. In: Ex-Combatants, Gender and Peace in Northern Ireland. Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36330-5_6
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