Ciaran Quinn, Sinn Féin’s North American representative, reviews Laurence McKeown’s recently published memoir, And Flowers Grew Up Through the Concrete: A Prison Memoir 1981—1992.
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THERE is a t-shirt in the Sinn Féin Shop in Dublin with a silhouette of the walls and watch towers of Long Kesh prison. Emblazed across it is the slogan, ‘University of Freedom, est. 1971.’
The image and message seem incongruous. I was thinking of that graphic when I read, And Flowers Grew Up Through the Concrete: A Prison Memoir 1981—1992 by Laurence McKeown.
This is the second memoir by Laurence. The first covered his childhood in rural County Antrim, joining the IRA, his arrest, imprisonment, his protest on the blanket and seventy days spent on hunger strike in 1981. When he lapsed into a coma, his family intervened to save his life.
This memoir takes up the story following that medical intervention and returning from the hospital back to the jail, as the hunger strike continued. The protest ended a few weeks later with a limited number of the prisoners’ demands being met but which provided the springboard for the restoration of political status.
The 1981 hunger strike is held up as the time when the course of Irish history changed. This memoir is crucial reading for those who seek to understand the evolution of Irish republican strategy. Prisons have long been the crucible for revolutionary thinking.
In the recent documentary, A Ballymurphy Man, Gerry Adams remarks that in the 1972 peace talks, the republican leadership had a series of demands but no political strategy to achieve them. Admas had been released from Long Kesh to attend those talks and later found himself back in jail reflecting with others on the experience. Education, debate and discussion were central to devising a strategy and were facilitated by the prisoners having political status (conceded by the British as a result of an earlier hunger strike). That arrangment was unilaterally withdrawn by the British for anyone convicted of scheduled offences (armed actions) from 1 March 1976 on. This attempt at criminalisation was resisted and led to huge protests in the newly-opened H-Blocks of Long Kesh and in Armagh women’s prison.
In 1981, when the hunger strike ended the prison leadership was faced with the question of what to do next. Ten of their comrades had died. Uniting the prisoners and developing a programme to win the outstanding demands was the challenge, and education and discussion were the key.
Within a year, the prisoners had unified and gained control of their wings. Within two years, they led a mass prison escape. They had subverted the prison administration’s demand for compulsory work to plan and equip themselves for the escape. The prison regime closed down the workshops, and the prisoners achieved another demand.
Laurence McKeown and Dick Coleman in H-Block exercise yard after the return of political status
Laurence does not shy away from the challenges they faced and their need to maintain unity of purpose in a changing environment. He details splits within the camp and how these were managed through discussion, debate and education. There is always a healthy tension in an organisation which requires both discipline and decentralisation.
The greatest challenges to any revolutionary movement are dogma and ego. The memoir quotes Ernie O’Malley writing from prison during the Tan War, that the Irish make good rebels but not good revolutionaries.
Through the education process emerged a culture of critical thinking, or, fittingly for a jail memoir, described as the need for ‘a concrete analysis of a concrete situation’. A culture that was open to all tactics and strategies to meet the aims of the prison campaigns.
The prisoners drew on international experiences and Irish history to learn lessons on the way forward. They were always looking forward, working with a collective discipline, and looking to the next campaign until all their demands and more were made by the time the jail closed and all prisoners were released in the year 2000.
The evolution in thinking in the jail was matched by developments outside and on the streets with the rise of Sinn Féin. Many of the prisoners, when released, brought this critical thinking to the peace process and community building. It was into this revolutionary milieu that I became a Sinn Féin and community activist. Those former prisoners would offer encouragement and inclusion and would listen and challenge us younger activists with respect. It was a very exciting and optimistic time.
In his memoir, McKeown draws on interviews that he compiled as part of his doctoral thesis and later interviews with former prisoners. This not only places his own memories and analysis in context but also reflects the central tenet of the book, which is of an individual activist as part of a collective. The rebel as part of a revolutionary community.
We can learn from the past to understand the present and to plan for the future, but as McKeown reminds us in his Preface, the past is the past, and it is our duty to live in the present.
This memoir provides essential reading to understand the progress of republican strategy.
That culture of critical thinking, developed over decades in jails, is the mark of today’s Sinn Féin leadership and activist base.
The power of education, discussion, strategic thinking and disciplined action is the legacy of the University of Freedom.
And Flowers Grew Up Through the Concrete: A Prison Memoir 1981—1992 by Laurence McKeown is published by Beyond the Pale Books and is available from:
An Fhuiseog/The Lark Store, 51/53 Falls Road, Belfast – www.thelarkstore.ie
Sinn Fein Bookshop, 58 Parnell Square, Dublin – www.sinnfeinbookshop.com
An Ceathrú Póilí, An Chulturlann, 216 Falls Road, Belfast – www.anceathrupoili.com/en
