Irish Political Prisoners, 1920-1962 Pilgrimage of Desolation (Routledge 2013)
By Seán McConville
Irish Political Prisoners presents a detailed and gripping overview of political imprisonment from 1920-1962. Seán McConville examines the years from the formation of the Northern Ireland state to the release of the last border campaign prisoners in 1962.
Drawing extensively and, in many cases, uniquely on archives and special collections in the three jurisdictions, and interviews with survivors from the period, McConville demonstrates how punishment came to embody and shape the nationalist consciousness. Irish Political Prisoners 1920-1962 commences with the legacy of the Anglo Irish and Irish Civil Wars - militancy, division and bitterness. The book travels from the embedding of Northern Ireland's security agenda in the 1920's, and the IRA's search for a role in the 1930's (including the 1939 bombing campaign against Britain) to the decisive use of internment during the war and the border campaign years. This volume will be an essential resource for students of Irish history and is a major contribution to the study of imprisonment.
Praise for the Irish Political Prisoners series
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"McConville has not shrunk from the challenge of an account that demands deep understanding of the political and administrative histories that shaped responses to the problem of political violence over long periods in Ireland and Britain. More than this, he embraces the work of capturing the modes of thinking, and the ways of living, of prisoners caught in the web of carceral institutions that made manifest those responses. These histories of the long saga of political imprisonment will remain a formidable testament to an era we may only hope we have now lost."
​- Professor Mark Finnane, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.​