SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - Hugh Feeney (born 1952)

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Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Hugh Feeney (born 1952)

Hugh Feeney was born in Belfast and educated at St. Joseph's Teacher Training College where he joined People's Democracy. On November 15th, 1973 Feeney, together with eight other Provisional IRA members, including Delores Price and Gerry Kelly, was sentenced to double life plus twenty years imprisonment at Winchester Court for causing explosions at the Old Bailey Court and Great Scotland Yard Police Headquarters in London in March, 1973 in which 216 people were injured. Feeney and Kelly were imprisoned in Winchester Gaol where they refused to wear prison clothes and went 'on the blanket'. They immediately commenced a hunger-strike for political status and their transfer to prison in Northern Ireland. In January, 1974 they also went on thirst strike and were force-fed for almost a year. In November, 1976 Feeney was transferred to Long Kesh and was released in 1986. This extract is from Feeney's pamphlet In The Care of Her Majesty's Prisons (1976) in which he describes the treatment of Irish political prisoners in English gaols in the 1970's. ©

Sitting in Solitary you are never free from the searches. Searches of you and the cell can be carried out at any time of the day or night. You are ordered out by them when they come to search and are put into a cell identical to the one you have left; a cold damp cell that always has its windows broken. Sometimes the Screws smash the windows deliberately to add to the coldness. Sometimes those in Solitary smash them in frustration or to use the glass slivers to slash their own wrists...
In the cell you have been moved to you have the same mattress base of concrete. In one corner sits a jug of drinking water and in the opposite corner lies a small po to urinate and defecate in. The cell may contain a dirty greasy table which always has one leg shorter than the others. The chair is more often than not a concrete block set in the wall. they search this cell when they take you back to your own. Here you are searched standing on the dirty floor surrounded by Screws. You take off your shirt, your vest, your boots, your socks and the Prison overalls that are dirty and too big for you. In jail they never give you anything that fits.
'Why do you search me?' 'Fuck up.' One of them will tell you it is to ensure that you have no weapons concealed. 'We must protect you.' 'Is tobacco a weapon? Why take it?'
They unbandaged my thumb to see if I was concealing anything in the dressing. They had put on the dressing two hours before the search.
They search your mouth and they search your cheeks with their fingers. The palm of your hands, the soles of your feet and beneath your arms are searched.
Then they spread you over the greasy table, the same as the one next door and while some hold your arms and others your ankles your buttocks are pulled apart and one wearing a rubber glove forces his hand up your rectum.
You are left then to get dressed, left with your anger, your humiliation and helplessness. What they have just done is illegal. They have physically assaulted you. The Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has ruled that a prisoner should have access to all due processes of the law. An Irish POW has no way of exercising his right from a Solitary Confinement cell or any cell for that matter in an English jail...
When the POW's time in Solitary has ended he is told that he is being put in one of the main Prison wings. If there are other Irish POW's in the Jail he will not be put into the same wing as them. They must be kept apart as much as possible...
In solitary the authorities had justified their treatment of him by saying that it was all part of his punishment. They continue to treat him in this way only now they justify it by saying he is a Category A prisoner. This justification does not stand up to criticism because other Category A prisoners who are non-political are treated much better than he.
However one thing that he does have in common with them is that he is held in a Security Cell. This cell is 7 feet long, 6 feet broad and 8 feet high. The bed frame is cemented into the floor and the door has three bolts instead of one. The red light is turned on at night and those who control the cameras which line the perimeter wall turn them to his cell window at night. Always he is aware of being watched. During the day when he is not in the cell it is searched. He is searched often. He is given one ½ hour exercise a day and it is during this period that they will take him away to be searched. The lost exercise time is seldom given back...
When the POW has a visit he is taken from his cell to a room beside the visits where he is searched. His visitors are also searched and their belongings taken from them, small children are also searched. The prisoner and the visitor enter the room by separate doors on opposite sides of the [glass and steel] partition. All conversations are recorded. The assistant governor and screws who sit behind the visitors watching them also watch the prisoner in case he tries to mouth a message. The visitors are also watched for the same reason from the prisoners side of the partition. If the pitch of the voices should drop the visit is immediately stopped... Clearly the closed visit which Irish POWs have been having over the last three years do not justify the degrading searches which are made on his person after his visit. He is strip-searched and maybe subjected to an internal body search.
Because they are classed as Category A prisoners POWs are never allowed to remain long in one jail. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are exceptions. You are never told when you are being moved and these 'Shanghais' or 'Ghostings' as they are called are deeply resented by all prisoners. Moves are usually made late at night or in the early morning. You are rudely awakened and told to get dressed. Handcuffed, you are led through the sleeping prison wing, past all the cell doors each with its little card pinned to the door telling you the number, then the name of the prisoner, his sentence and his religion; red ones for Catholics, and blue ones for Jews.
Church of England, atheists and all the otherists have white ones. It's like one great big filing system with the subject, or the object as he's called in prison terms, lying sleeping behind the door. The police escort of motor cars and cyclists are already assembled at the main gate and once again you are put in the Category A van. You move off in convoy into the darkness and you can't help but hope that this time you might be moved to an Irish jail. Every signpost that you pass you take a quick glance at it. London may mean Heathrow Airport and 'Home'. Manchester may mean its airport and Home to Long Kesh. Unfortunately these Ghostings for the Irish prisoners mean another Maximum Security jail where he is immediately put in solitary. They always introduce you to the punishment block first and when you eventually reach the main wing the harassment begins again with the same sickening regularity. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008

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