- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Article: found
Male Republican Prisoners in Northern Ireland: Resistance, Emotions and Homosociality
Abstract
The literature on male imprisonment consistently reveals a particular form of hegemonic masculinity based on competition, dominance and violence, actual or threatened. This article seeks to examine this standard view via the experience of republican politically motivated prisoners in Northern Ireland. It finds evidence of elements of hegemonic masculinity as in other prisons, but alongside this there was an alternative form of hegemonic masculinity, one based on the ability to endure rather than inflict violence. The article also examines the way in which homosociality – male fraternity without homosexual desire – was an integral part of the prison experience and was enhanced by the solidarity among the prisoners; this solidarity was based on both initial political ideology and the collective resistance against the prison system's attempts to break their solidarity. Finally, it also examines the space for emotions and emotional support in the difficult circumstances of violence inflicted by prison officers, an extended “blanket protest” and a harrowing hunger strike.
Content
Author and article information
Notes
Despite the gender neutrality in Lipman-Blumen's definition, it is clear she is referring only to men when she expands the concept. The logic is that bonding between women is of a different order because it is not constructed from a dominant patriarchal position and is thus not equally at pains to dispel any semblance of homosexual attraction.
As the subtitle of her book indicates, White (2015) has no difficulty labelling their experience as “torture”.
“Hypermasculinity refers to sets of behaviours and beliefs characterized by unusually highly developed masculine forms as defined by existing cultural values” – in particular, “dominance, violence, physical strength and compulsive heterosexuality” ( Schroeder 2004: 418).
Although most of our interviewees said that they did not think of the mirror searches at the time as sexual assault, they are convinced in retrospect that that was what was involved. We were told of one prisoner who was raped during a search by having a wooden stick thrust into his anus. Another instance is that of Ciaran McGillicuddy, 16 years of age when arrested and later sentenced. He was suspected of having internally hidden something when attending mass. He was held by six prison guards, turned upside down, and had pliers inserted into his anus (see Campbell, McKeown and O'Hagan 1994: 90– 92).
The key exception is White (2015), in particular chapter 5.
On the loyalist experience of imprisonment, see Crawford ( 1999) and Smith ( 2014).
Such confrontations were most likely at points where prisoners from both groups were agitating for segregation ( McKeown 2001: 87– 98). Overall, while there were casual encounters between republican and loyalist prisoners, for example during visits, there was no evidence of any deeper bonding.
As White ( 2015: 97) points out, this is a colloquial expression for serving prison time without complaining.
A colloquial expression meaning to wise up.
A letter from a partner or wife ending the relationship.
During the blanket protest, the main form of communication was through shouting through broken windows or spaces between heating pipes or doors and the walls.
Despite the collective nature of republican prisoner ideology, Sands is one individual who stands out from the group, not least as the first of the ten hunger strikers to die. O'Hearn (2006) insists that as a writer, a poet, a community activist and a strategist, Sands was as important in life as in the manner of his death.
Irish for The Captive Voice.