Abstract
This chapter provides a theoretical discussion as to how women ex-combatants resisted and created spaces in prison to continue the struggle that they were committed to beyond the walls. It sets out to examine the contours of their prison experience and to chart key moments of the continuum of resistance from individual acts to collective resistance. Political resistance is a constituent of their identity as political freedom fighters and is reflected in the constant dialectic of resistance and institutional response that is mapped in this and subsequent chapters. Resistance is presented and understood as the collective assertion of the political status of prisoners and, by extension, the political character of the Conflict: it is argued that escape, the no-wash protest and the hunger strikes, violence and the use of law have been key elements of that assertion. The present chapter explores the complex interplay of power and resistance as both are shaped by and reconfigure the spacialities of the prison, focusing on the importance of political prisoners’ self-organising and military discipline in controlling space and in maintaining their collective identity as combatants. It goes on to describe the women’s escape attempt and the reprisals which set the stage for the heightening violence, which increasingly positioned the physical body of the female combatant as the focus of power and the site of resistance.
‘Nor Meekly Serve My Time’—a song written by Francie Brolly during the Hunger Strike protest to highlight the situation of the political prisoners.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Are prisoners convicted of non-scheduled offences.
- 2.
Comms/Teac: Abbreviation for ‘communication’; a note written on cigarette paper or prison-issue toilet paper and wrapped in cling-film. Information was carried within body orifices from one part of the prison to another as a means to communicate with the outside world.
- 3.
Julie Dougan was the first female to die on active service and was from Portadown. She died in August 1972. Vivienne Fitzsimmons died in a premature explosion whilst preparing a device and Ethel Lynch died in an explosion in her flat in what was described as a ‘bomb-making factory’((McKittrick et al.1999:330 1999, pp. 330, 505).
- 4.
Eileen Hickey was arrested in 1973 and sentenced to 9 years’ imprisonment. She was a Volunteer in Óglaigh na hÉireann (Irish Volunteers), 2nd Battalion Belfast Brigade, and was an active member of ‘D’ company. She was released in 1977.
- 5.
The Green Cross was a charitable trust for families of IRA members.
- 6.
In this context, the panopticon is used as a model to describe the disciplining and normalising discourses of the prison and, by extension, society in general. For a fuller exposition of the usefulness of the panopticon as a conceptual device, see Mathiesen (1997).
- 7.
The political prisoners were allowed to receive a parcel of food on a monthly basis.
- 8.
The example Frank uses to illustrate his point is that of fasting amongst medieval holy women. In that example, the institution is the medieval Church; the discourses include not only those doctrines of the Church which eulogise the virtues of fasting, but also discourses on medieval marriage and the role of women. The corporeality of the body poses the practical questions of how much self-starvation and so forth the body can endure (Frank 1991, 1990).
- 9.
Bettelheim also offers an instructive example of how the limits of endurance of the human body may become an instrument for the reversal of power, particularly when that power is applied disproportionately (see Bettelheim 1986).
References
Aretxaga, B. (1997). Shattering the silence: Women, nationalism and political subjectivity in Northern Ireland. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Benjamin, J. (1998). The bonds of love: Psychoanalysis, feminism and the problem of domination. New York: Pantheon Books.
Bettelheim, B. (1986). The informed heart: A study of the psychological consequences of living under extreme fear and terror. London: Peregrine Books.
Bhabba, H. (1990). Nation and narration. London: Taylor & Francis.
Bhabba, H. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
Brady, E., Patterson, E., McKinney, K., Hamill, R., & Jackson, P. (2011). The footsteps of Anne: Stories of republican women ex-prisoners. Belfast: Shanway Press.
Buntman, F. (2003). Robben Island and prisoner resistance to apartheid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matters: On the discursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge.
Campbell, B., McKeown, L., & O’Hagan, F. (1994). Nor meekly serve my time: The H-Block struggle, 1976-1981. Belfast: Beyond the Pale.
Carlton, B. (2007). Imprisoning resistance – life and death in an Australian Supermax. Sydney: Institute of Sydney Criminology Press.
Cohen, S., & Taylor, L. (1972). Psychological survival: The experiences of long-term imprisonment (1st ed. 1972). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
D’Arcy, M. (1981). Tell them everything: A sojourn in the prison of her majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Ard Macha (Armagh). London: Pluto.
Darragh, S. (2012). ‘John’s Lennon Dead’: Stories of protest, hunger strikes and resistance. Belfast: Beyond the Pale.
De Certeau, M. (1984). The practices of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Feldman, A. (1991). Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and Punish – The Birth of The Prison: Translated by A. Sheridan. New York: Vintage, Random House.
Frank, A. (1990). Review Article-Bringing Bodies Back in A Decade Review in Theory, Culture and Society 7, 131–162.
Frank, A. (1991). The body: Social processes and cultural theory. London: Sage.
Horgan, J., & Taylor, M. (1997). The provisional Irish Republican Army: Command and functional structure. Terrorism and Political Violence, 9(3), 1–32.
Mathiesen, T. (1965). The defences of the weak: A sociological study of a Norwegian correctional institution. London: Tavistock.
Mathiesen, T. (1997). The viewer society: Michel Foucault’s “Panopticon” revisited. Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 215–234.
McConville, S. (2003). Irish political prisoners 1848-1922: Theatres of war. London: Routledge.
McKeown, L. (1998). Unrepentant Fenian bastards: The social construction of an Irish Republican Prisoner Community. PhD thesis, Faculty of Arts, Queen’s University Belfast.
McKeown, L. (2001). Out of time: Irish republican prisoners Long Kesh 1972-2000. Belfast: Beyond the Pale.
McKittrick, D., Kelters, S., Feeney, B., & Thornton, C. (1999). Lost lives: The stories of the men and women that died as a result of the troubles. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.
Mohanty, T. C. (1996). Feminist encounters: Locating the politics of experience. In L. Nicholson & S. Seidman (Eds.), Social postmodernism: Beyond identity politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1968). The will to power. New York: Vintage Press.
Rhodes, L. (1998). Panoptical intimacies. Public Culture, 10(2), 285–311.
Scott, C. J. (1985). Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. Newhaven: Yale University Press.
Scott, C. J. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. Newhaven: Yale University Press.
Sparks, R., Bottoms, A. E., & Hay, W. (1996). Prisons and the problem of order. Oxford: Clarendon.
Sykes, G. M. (1958). The society of captives: A study of a maximum security prison. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tomlinson, M. (1985). Imprisoned Ireland. In V. Ruggiero, M. Ryan, & J. Sim (Eds.), Western European prisons systems: A critical anatonomy. London: Sage.
Turner, B. (1984). The body and society: Explorations in social theory. London: Sage.
Yuval-Davis, N., & Anthias, F. (Eds.). (1989). Women nation state. London: Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wahidin, A. (2016). Nor Meekly Serve My Time: ‘A’ Company Armagh. 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_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36330-5_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-36329-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-36330-5
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)