Human Rights in Irish Prisons

Ireland is bound by several international instruments in the area of prisoners’ rights and penal policy and the ongoing reform in the Irish prison system means that the time is opportune to consider the extent to which these legal obligations are currently met and to evaluate what needs to be done to ensure greater compliance. The aim of this article is thus to examine Ireland’s record in prisoners’ rights against international standards and to determine where reform needs to take place in order to ensure full respect for the rights of prisoners in Irish law, policy and practice.

Prisons Memory Archive

Between 2006 and 2007, the Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) filmed participants, including former prisoners, prison staff, teachers, chaplains, visitors, solicitors and welfare workers back inside the Maze/Long Kesh Prison and Armagh Gaol. They shared the memory of the time spent in these prisons during the period of political violence from 1970 - 2000 in Northern Ireland, commonly known as the Troubles. Underpinning the overall methodology is co-ownership of the material, which gives participants the right to veto as well as to participate in the processes of editing and exhibiting their stories, so prioritising the value of co-authorship of their stories. The PMA adopted life-story interviewing techniques with the empty sites stimulating participants’ memory while they walked and talked their way around the empty sites. A third feature is inclusivity: the archive holds stories from across the full spectrum of the prison experience. A selection of the material, with accompanying context and links is available online www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com

Further Information:

The protocols of inclusivity, co-ownership and life-story telling make this collection significant as an initiative that engages with contemporary problems of how to negotiate narratives about a conflicted past in a society emerging out of violence. Inclusivity means that prison staff, prisoners, governors, chaplains, tutors and visitors have participated, relating their individual and collective experiences, which sit side by side on the PMA website. Co-ownership addresses the issues of ethics and sensitivity, allowing key constituencies to be involved. Life-story telling, based on oral history methodologies allows participants to be the authors of their own stories, crucial when dealing with sensitive issues from a violent past. The website hosts a selection of excerpts, e.g. the Armagh Stories page shows excerpts from 15 participants, while the Maze and Long Kesh Prison page offers interactive access to 24 participants from that prison. Using an interactive documentary structure, the site offers users opportunities to navigate their own way through the material and encourages them to hear and see the ‘other’, central to attempts at encouraging dialogue in a divided society. Further, public discussions have been held after screening of excerpts with community groups in the following locations - Belfast, Newtownabbey, Derry, Armagh, Enniskillen, London, Cork, Maynooth, Clones, and Monaghan. Extracts have been screened at international academic conferences in Valencia, Australia, Tartu, Estonia, Prague, and York. A dataset of the content, with description and links, is available for REF purposes.

Who Tells What to Whom and How: The Prisons Memory Archive

This essay will consider the recording and exhibition of stories from a conflicted past in a contested present; who gets to tell what stories to whom and under what conditions? I will use the case study of the online Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) – a collection of filmed interviews at the locations of the Maze and Long Kesh Prison, which held male prisoners, and Armagh Gaol, which held female prisoners. Both operated during the period of political violence during the last third of the 20th century in the North of Ireland (www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com). As Director of the PMA, I was involved from research through production to exhibition.

Stories from the Inside:The Prisons Memory Archive

A close textual reading of the online-available recording of ex-prison officer, John Heatherington, who is filmed as he returns to the site of the Maze and Long Kesh Prison, which was the largest prison oeperating during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Using the empty site as stimulant for his memory, John recalls the tension, violence and dark humour of the period, while also showing exceptional empathy for all those, including prisoners, who passed through the prison system.The interview is taken from the Prisons Memory Archive (www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com) and, as director of the PMA, I have a particular insight to the recording process and John's special contribution to it.