Loyalty in captivity: ideas and identity among Ulster Loyalist paramilitary prisoners, 1972 - 1988

Abstract

This study explores the prison experience of Ulster loyalist paramilitary prisoners during the 'Troubles' conflict, those belonging to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA), who waged an armed campaign declared in support of the Northern Ireland state and its union with Great Britain. Spanning the years in which the Special Category Status policy officially operated (1972 – 1988), UVF prisoners in the compounds of Long Kesh form its primary case study. The thesis defines imprisonment as a transformative encounter for many loyalists, deploying a range of primary and secondary evidence to offer a more complicated picture of the loyalist prison experience beyond perceptions of muscle-bound revanchism as its definitive element. It argues that prison’s impact changed and challenged pre-existing loyalist relationships with their movement, the British state and their Irish republican counterparts while allowing many loyalists to embrace new identities and ideas. The thesis expounds upon how Special Category Status, granting inmates enhanced rights as de facto political prisoners, facilitated the development of distinct paramilitary cultures within Long Kesh. Remaining alert to the challenges of the inherent mythologising in some recent sources, the figure of Gusty Spence – Commanding Officer of UVF prisoners until 1978 – is central to the thesis. His role in promoting martial discipline and political thinking was vital to the assertion of a UVF prisoner identity, and a form of resistance against prison authorities. Spence shaped a radical culture among inmates that critiqued traditional sectarianism, inspired pluralist politics, and promoted education and self-analysis. This political engagement, I will argue, helped in paving the way for the ultimate peace process that concluded a thirty-year period of intercommunal conflict. The thesis analyses numerous political manifestos, produced with the input of prisoners around Spence who engaged closely with sympathetic outside activists. It also explores education – both formal and informal – and leisure pursuits including handicrafts, sport, and personal reading as activities that affirmed political prisoner identity, helped prisoners encounter new ideas and challenged the control of the prison authorities. The final chapter explores loyalist prisoner protests against the Criminalisation policy, which removed nominal political status for incoming prisoners, and the adoption by loyalists of republican tactics such as blanket protest and hunger strike in response. The difficulties faced by loyalist protesters in gaining support from their outside constituents – who were usually supportive of the British state’s associated law and order – highlights the contradictions of the loyalist prison experience, and illustrates the challenges of ‘pro-state’ resistance more broadly.