SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - Noel Gibson (Born 1955)

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Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Noel Gibson (b.1955)

Noel Gibson was born in County Laois and educated locally. He was imprisoned in Portlaoise Prison in 1974 for IRA membership and served one year before his release. Gibson was arrested in England in July, 1975 and sentenced in May, 1976 to two life sentences and 111 years for 'conspiracy to cause explosions and murder'. He was released in March, 1998 after 21 years in English gaols.
This article first appeared in An Phoblacht, April, 1998. ©

Myself and Paul Norney were arrested in Manchester on July 1st, 1975. Brendan Dowd, Stephen Nordone and Sean Kinsella were captured in Liverpool. This was a period just after Birmingham, Guildford, and the Dublin bombings. So our arrest came in a very emotive and charged atmosphere.
When I was arrested I had two teeth knocked out, my nose was broken. I was hospitalised afterwards, as were two or three of the others. This was par for the course in the '70s -- everyone got a hiding.
It was all part of the hysteria and excitement, and probably fear on their part as well. The trial was very high profile. The place was surrounded by police and there were hostile crowds outside. It didn't affect us as such, but it had an effect on the jury. It was all orchestrated. There was no chance of a fair trial. We refused to take part and stayed in the cells below for the duration. They had to carry us up the steps to the courtroom on the final day to sentence us. There was a bit of a fight on the way up with the screws. I remember the first prison I was sent to. I met the prison doctor at the reception.
'They can make a meatball out of you for all I care,' he said. It amused me at the time. There he was making threats, surrounded by about 30 or 40 screws. This hostile atmosphere was our initial introduction to prison. We knew no different, had nothing to compare it to and didn't expect anything less. That was the norm through most of the sentence.
We had been held until our trial in complete isolation and were afterwards shunted into the dispersal system. We were always split up among various prisons. I was moved about 50 times between eleven different prisons. It was a merry-go-round really. The initial ten years were spent trying to achieve reasonable visiting conditions and to assert our own position in prison. We were fighting for survival in that period. We were not going to be intimidated.
We got involved in a lot of protests, including rooftop riots. Most of those first ten years was spent in isolation units as a result. There were a lot of restrictions in those days. We were only allowed to write or receive letters from our immediate family and could have no contact with a solicitor unless we had an appeal pending. You had to rely on yourself and your own resources. They were always paranoid about us because any aggravation on their part was reciprocated. It was either that or they'd walk all over you. Eventually we came to a sort of an understanding with the authorities. We got a little leeway, including open visits.
Incidents outside tended to accentuate hostilities and we could normally rely on being shifted around the country as a consequence. I remember after the murders in Gibraltar [March, 1988] there was a lot of taunting, the screws in Wakefield Prison chanting "3 -- 0". Their hatred would really come out at times like that. When we were on hunger strike for 20 days in solidarity with Frank Stagg I remember the screws shouting 'there's going to be stag pie for dinner'. That hatred persists right up to the present day. There were countless incidents like that.
We were targeted by the authorities because they saw us as a threat to them. We wouldn't accept their punishment. Republicans were united against them and in time we organised other prisoners. The other prisoners came to see we weren't the ogres we had been painted and we became quite successful in organising protest action in prisons, which drew more hatred and attention on us in turn.
There were greater numbers of us in those days, even though we were more widely dispersed. Now POWs are isolated more into units and segregated from the main body of prisoners which curtails the opportunities for subversion.
At one period I went for four-and-a-half to five years without a visit, conditions were so bad. On a visit you'd have a screw sitting right beside you, with a massive table between you and your visitor. Even if you stretched your arms out you couldn't make contact. There were also the strip-searches. You wouldn't put your family through those conditions. In 1982, when my mother came over for a visit they refused to let her in. It was only after Sr. Sarah intervened that we got 25 minutes from behind a glass screen. She died a few weeks later. My father had died in 1979. I never got to see him.
There was no distinction made between a prisoner and relatives. They were seen as one group and treated with great hostility. There were so many arrests in the '70s that you were terrified to bring people over from Ireland for a visit. Look at what happened to Giuseppe Conlon. You were worried for their safety. There was also never a guarantee that you would be there when they arrived. I was ghosted to other prisons several times when I had visits organised.
It seems at the moment that we are actually accelerating backwards with the reintroduction of closed visits. Over the last 12 months [1997-98] in Whitemoor and Belmarsh we have been moving back to a situation we thought had been left behind in the 1970s, despite of the change in political circumstances.
Michael Howard is on a buzz. He takes delight in a harsh regime, with the Home Office people happy to implement the policies. The screws haven't changed. What is happening now is that other, non-political prisoners are being dragged into the net and are starting to get hassled as well.
I was lucky in prison in that I was always relatively fit. Medical treatment was non-existent. The whole medical thing in prison was geared on paracetamol, it was supposed to be the cure for everything.
I remember Sean O'Conaill for two years was complaining of stomach pains and was given only paracetamol. It turned out he had stomach cancer. I saw him in Parkhurst Prison Hospital a couple of days before he died. They only released him to an outside hospital with seven hours to live. They moved him to St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight. They actually timed it. You can compare it to what they are doing to Pat Kelly today. Regardless of the seriousness of the complaint prisoners were not taken to a hospital.
Sean Kinsella suffered from kidney stones the entire time he was in prison in England. He was often in severe pain. It was only a few months ago that he finally got treated. Medical negligence has gone on to the present day.
On a personal basis, Pat Kelly and I were in school together so I am a bit more emotional about his situation. I remember when Pat came in I wondered was he the same Pat Kelly I knew. When I found out it was I wrote to him and we exchanged a bit of craic. I would very much link Pat's case with Sean O Conaill's, Giuseppe Conlon's and Noel Jenkinson's, all of whom died of neglect over the years. All the republican prisoners are anxious about Pat's condition and are hoping something can be done about it. I see it from a humanitarian and a personal point of view. He needs to be repatriated.
The parole board hearing was very much like a retrial. It was up to you to prove you were 'safe' to be released. We were the first five republicans ever to have gone before it and the first three Category A High Risk prisoners ever released by a parole board. That set a few precedents. We had to go through all that despite having served over our 20-year tariff. The Lord Chief Justice accepted we should be released in February 1995 but the Home Secretary hadn't accepted his findings. Our release was completely marred. I couldn't feel like celebrating. The others must have thought I was being anti-social. But I just wanted to slip out. I hated leaving people behind, including people who have done 20 years and others facing 20 years. I was leaving friendships and solidarity behind, an affinity you build up with people over the years.
There were always differences of opinion among republican prisoners but the over-riding fact was that we were there as one unit -- that was a tremendous feeling -- leaving them behind was very painful. I still feel very guilty. We were always happy to see people get out but when it's your turn, and you are leaving your comrades behind, that is hard.
We were brought to the gate with dogs and screws as High Risk Category A prisoners. In the reception area I was locked in a cell with no windows for what I was told were 'security reasons'. They couldn't allow me and Sean [Kinsella] out at the same time on security grounds, they said. I was released ten minutes later. It makes a nonsense of categorisation.
They released three High Risk IRA prisoners into the community. The newer prisoners are classed Exceptional High Risk. I don't know what they are a risk to. Maybe the universe, certainly the globe.
They gave us 46.50 and we were thrown onto the street, no transport or anything. We had been given two days notice� The pressure on us in prison was stepped up because of the peace process. They felt that we might be constrained in the degree of our retaliation because of the cessation. Any incident that occurred afterwards was blown out of proportion and portrayed by them as a breach of the cessation. This was a cynical manipulation of events. Republican prisoners are quite conscious of their responsibility to the Republican Movement, not to place it in any embarrassing situation. There was a lot of discipline shown in protests but at Whitemoor and Belmarsh the authorities just went too far.
The peace process provided a window of opportunity and the republican movement took it. All the ingredients were there. It would have been criminal not to take that opportunity. At the end of the day that is how things will have to go. The war will have to stop and we will enter negotiations.
But the British didn't take it seriously, leading to the unfortunate situation where the IRA was forced to restart its campaign. Everyone is behind the process in prison and actively encouraged people to get involved. Sadly, after 18 months, we became aware that it was not going as well as people had hoped at the beginning. It was inevitable that it would collapse at some stage, especially with all the British preconditions.
In my view the peace process is still going on. It didn't stop because the cessation ended. We have had a peace strategy for the past 25 years but others didn't want to go along with it. In 1994 everybody participated but the British still put down preconditions which have led to the present road block. But people should still push the process because at the end of the day we still have to go through a process of negotiation down the line and it can't go forward without republicans. The republican movement carries the aspirations of thousands of people North and South and Sinn Fein has an elected mandate. The main priority now has to be to get the other main protagonists back involved in the peace process. This is the big issue facing all of us.
I am optimistic. The peace strategy is irreversible. I don't believe the Brits can continue to thwart or subvert the whole process. But while Major is dependent on the unionists it is always going to be a difficult task. But people can't just get into a mood of militarism and push what is a very effective strategy into second place. You have to stay in the peace strategy mode and not lose sight of where we're going and not be going round in circles. Within the prisons and within the movement there are diverse views, especially given the complete intransigence of the British and 18 months of ups and downs. But the movement is very solid. Regardless of tactics, the objectives remain the same. Everyone has to hold their nerve, as Gerry says, and not get panicked.
There will be unpalatable things to be faced in a talks situation but the leadership has done a tremendous job up to now. It is one of the most difficult periods for them and I think they've handled it terrifically. Brendan Dowd has got his papers back from the Home Office, the first prisoner to do so, which should leave the door open for his repatriation, but you never know. He should have been released with us but was rejected by the parole board. The law has been there since November. All the prisoners in England should be repatriated but the Home Office is being obstructive. Just look at their unwillingness to move Pat Kelly. The way conditions are deteriorating in England it is essential that we bring all our prisoners home. Some prisoners in Belmarsh have not seen their relatives for months because of the harsh visiting conditions. The main point is that the legislation was designed to help families. The relatives suffered great hardship over the years travelling to England in very difficult circumstances. The prisoner is still in prison after all.
I have no regrets. Prison wasn't all doom and gloom. It was an experience. I've learned a lot about myself and I've grown educationally. You learn a lot about your own strengths and weaknesses and to respect other people's views. I met some great people. It's like a weeding ground. It sorts the strong from the weak. Whatever the problems in prison, the bottom line is the British are to blame. Even if a prisoner is wrong, he's right, because all the problems related to being in prison, including the break-up of families, can be laid at the door of the British. � An Phoblacht 1998.

20th Century Ireland (1947-2000) Irish History Index
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