February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Jack Holland
The Northern Ireland peace process has done more than liberate hundreds of loyalist and republican prisoners. It has now set free an entire library belonging to republican prisoners that was held in the Maze Prison.
"We’re not sure how many books there are," said Jackie McMullan, a former prisoner who has been involved in collecting the library from the prison. "The first batch was around 1,600 — possibly there could be another 1,600." But many of them, he says, will be duplicates.
The books were collected mainly by republican prisoners after 1981, though some date from earlier times.
McMullan, 44, who works in a republican prisoner rehabilitation center in West Belfast, has been arranging with Belfast’s Linen Hall Library to take the books for cataloguing. He says the first batch was transferred to the library in sacks about two months ago.
A member of staff at the library, which contains a collection specializing in works about the Northern Ireland Troubles, said that already about 17 sacks of books had arrived, and that it is expecting at least another 11 in the near future.
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"Each prison sack is about the size of a potato bag and stands about three or four feet off the ground," the Linen Hall’s Allan Leonard said.
The transfer of the books comes as the last group of loyalist paramilitary and republican prisoners was being released from the Maze this week. More than 80 are due out, leaving only 16, who will be moved to nearby Maghaberry Prison and are expected to be released within two years.
To those who are familiar with the history of the republican movement, the huge number of books does not come as a surprise. Nor does the subject matter. Many of the books deal with left-wing politics, Irish history and sociology. According to McMullan, there is also a large number of Irish-language texts.
"All republican wings had built up a library," said McMullan, who comes from Andersonstown in West Belfast. "Each wing had its own study group. The books are the remnants from the libraries from each wing." There were Irish-language classes as well as political education and history classes. Some prisoners, both republican and loyalist, studied Open University courses, a supervised home-study program that awarded degrees. According to a London Times report, about 50 prisoners finished their degrees, including five who took MAs and two who earned PhDs.
During the prison protests of the late 1970s, which culminated in the hunger strikes of 1981, prisoners were not allowed any books except the Bible and some religious works. Instead of reading, at night prisoners would retell stories from the books that they had read. The stories were told through the cell doors.
Gerard Burns, a former IRA man who served 12 years, many of them on the blanket — part of the protest when prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms and were naked except for prison blankets — recently recalled those occasions:
"We used to love it at night, snuggling down with the blanket around you, listening in the dark."
He said that prison officers also often listened in from the other end of the cellblock. Among the retellers of tales Burns remembers most was Bobby Sands — the first to die on the 1981 hunger strike — and Jackie McMullan.
According to McMullan, this ban on books gradually broke down.
"First they allowed in novels, and then political works," he said.
The library was gradually built up again.
Among the titles now in possession of the Linen Hall are "Politics and the Soviet Union: Speeches of Fidel Castro," "Teach Yourself Judo," "Home Wine-Making the Right Way," "Risky Living: Keys to Inner Healing," "Mao Ze Tung: Political Leaders of the 20th Century," and "Freedom the Wolfe Tone Way."
McMullan said that they were still uncertain as to what to do with all the books. One suggestion is that they create a lending library for ex-prisoners in Dublin and Belfast.
Asked what his favorite book was during his prison time, McMullan named "Borstal Boy" by Brendan Behan, "The Holocaust" by the English historian Martin Gilbert, and "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by the Brazilian writer Paolo Freire.
Loyalists prisoners had no equivalent library. According to reports, most preferred to watch television or learn a trade or practical skill.