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 Email: info@searcs-web.com Searc's Web Guide to Áine and Eibhlín Nic Giolla Easpaig (born 1949 and 1952 respectively) |
Áine and Eibhlín Nic Giolla Easpaig |
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Áine and Eibhlín Nic Giolla Easpaig were born in Bun Beag in the Donegal Gaeltacht.
They were educated locally until their family emigrated to England in 1962
where the sisters became a comptometer operator and a nurse respectively.
In Manchester they joined Sinn Féin and on April 12th, 1974 Áine was arrested
after a gun was found in her family home which she and her family claimed they knew nothing
about. She was released on bail and two weeks later both sisters were arrested at Holyhead
on route to Ireland. After several days interrogation they were charged with conspiracy to cause explosions and were remanded in Risley Remand Centre. On February 27th, 1975 they were sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment on charges of Conspiracy to cause explosions in Birmingham in November, 1972. The women were innocent of the charges to which others pleaded guilty. The Nic Giolla Easpaig sisters spent eight years in Durham High Security Prison where they were imprisoned alongside Judith Ward, Carole Richardson and Annie Maguire, all of whom were also innocent of the charges levelled against them. In 1982 the Nic Giolla Easpaig sisters were moved to Styal Prison. They were released in August, 1983. In 1986 they published Girseachai nGeibheann and in 1987 Sisters in Cells (translated from the Irish by Nollaig Ó Gadhra) from which the extract below is taken.© Long-term prisoners can lead a very lazy life if they wish. In fact we had to fight constantly against this temptation during our eight-year period in Durham Jail. And as this was the longest term we spent in any prison during our time inside we think a few words about some aspects of our life there might be of interest. We used to rise about seven o' clock each morning. The lights were put out about ten each evening. We had been a few years in Durham when somebody got the crazy idea that the lights should not be extinguished completely at night in the case of Category A prisoners. We protested about this to the security people and they made an alternative arrangement that involved checking each hour during the night to make sure we were still there. Some of the warders checked quietly but others banged the cells doors regularly during the night. The official position at all times was, of course, that there was no such thing as political prisoners or even 'special status' prisoners. And yet the very close supervision they mounted on us hour by hour, day by day, year by year definitely suggested that there was something very 'special' if not also 'political' about us. Certainly, prisoners who claim special status have a tougher time inside - if for no other reason than that an assumption is then made on the part of the staff that these special category people are more interested than others in trying to escape. That is one of the explanations - the only one that does not smack of more sinister prejudices at work - of why we were never left more than a month in the same cell during all our years in jail. You would just have got your cell neat and tidy, decked out with a few pictures or other personal touches, when all of a sudden, without warning or apparent reason, you would be ordered to collect your things and get ready for a move to some other cell in another corner of the prison building. We did, however, have permission to wear our own clothes, as long as our family bought them for us and brought them in for us. Women in general were allowed to wear their own clothes in British prisons at this stage. There seemed to be no steadfast rule about the matter. We were permitted to wear one simple ring - and we both wore a Claddagh ring, which has now practically become the symbol of all Irish political prisoners in Britain. We were allowed to buy some lipstick and a few simple cosmetics once a month, but we did not bother with them as a rule. We were allowed to spend a few pounds each month on toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc,. from our personal cash account. This account consisted of donations and presents from relatives and friends and from people who paid visits and left a few pounds for us on their way out. Money is by far the most convenient present whenever you visit a prisoner, as most other commodities are usually disputed by the authorities and in any case, even when they are harmless, it is much better to enable inmates to purchase for themselves what they want of whatever is allowed and approved by the prison authorities. But the fact that subscriptions are needed and that the very basics of a decent, hygienic life have still to be purchased from personal funds only goes to show the absolute duty on all of us to visit prisons and prisoners regularly. We were fortunate in all this as our parents and family stood by us. This does not always happen in the case of political prisoners, not to mention ordinary prisoners. There is a tradition in prison, however, whereby inmates help each other, and whereby you are normally expected to help somebody with a bigger problem than yourself. This is against the regulations; but it is likely that nobody imagines that people who are so evil in the eyes of the law would ever bother to come to the assistance of those less fortunate than themselves. But the spirit of mutual assistance and of helping others does survive behind bars and credit for this must go not to the unconcerned public or to the authorities but to the humanity that survives in the hearts even of those whom society has locked away as being unfit to live in its midst... An attempt was also made to encourage trouble and friction between us and any new girls. If, for example, a girl was caught with another girl and if she was punished for her lesbian activity, the warder would be sure to say, 'Of course, you know who reported you!' It would always be the two Irish lassies - something which did not help us in the dining-room or on any of the limited number of other occasions when inmates mixed generally. But gradually the lies caught up with those who used them to stir up trouble and ill-will. At first the majority of the prisoners could not understand how we happened to finish up in the harsh high-security regime in which we found ourselves but, for all that, some of them had great respect for us, which increased over the years as they realised the reason why we were in jail in the first place. As time progressed the majority of the prisoners - and the majority of the staff as well perhaps? - came to realise that we were just another part of England's 'Irish problem' and then they did not wonder any more. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008 |
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