Donal Donnelly - Prisoner 1082: Escape From Crumlin Road, Europes Alcatraz

This book tells the tale of a dramatic incident during the 195662 campaign of resistance to British rule in Ireland. The story told is much more than that. It places the author and the campaign in its proper historical setting. Many young men throughout Ireland were persuaded that only by taking up arms could justice be achieved. The social, political and historical influences that convinced them are set out here. In that context the personal and family history is also included to explain why two young men found themselves on the top of a prison wall on a bitterly cold winters night at risk of being shot dead by police marksmen stationed in the prisons gun turrets. The story is one of success but also failure. One of the success stories centres on the one that got away. I did not achieve it on my own; courageous people in Belfast, Tyrone and Monaghan contributed to my escape against all the odds. They placed themselves and their families in danger by providing shelter, transport and cover for a fugitive most of them had never met. But why did they take such risks for no benefit to themselves? The reason is explained in this book and, as a result, begs the question: why did the British government ignore all the warning signals?

In the mid-1950s thousands of respectable people in Mid-Ulster voted not once, not twice, but three times for a convicted felon in Crumlin Road Gaol. This should have told the government that there was, to paraphrase the Bard, something rotten in the state of Northern Ireland. The people were convinced that no one was listening, least of all the government, who claimed that the six-county state was an integral part of the United Kingdom. The government served only one section of its own citizens. If it had acted then, it is quite possible that not only would the campaign of resistance known as Operation Harvest never have taken place but neither would the thirty years war between 1968 and 1998. There was also a responsibility on the Unionist parliament in Stormont to deal promptly and transparently with the fundamental issues of one man, one vote and other forms of discrimination. The politicians did not rise to the challenge and were humiliated throughout the world in later years by having their parliament prorogued by their own allies, a Tory government in London, as not being fit to govern. The lesson is universal take care of your minorities and do not let injustices fester.

The book also provides a unique record of the British penal system in the mid-twentieth century by someone who experienced it at first hand. I spent my eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first birthdays in Crumlin Road Gaol. I describe in detail the nineteenth-century layout of the prison and the modus operandi of the Governor and his staff. Two men were executed in the prison in 1961, a year after my escape. These were the last executions to take place in Northern Ireland. The book describes the conditions and the daily routine, making an important contribution to the penal history of the last century.

Many of my fellow prisoners were among the leadership of the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA, none more prominent than my fellow escapee, John Kelly, the Belfast republican who featured so often in the events that have shaped the new dispensation in the Six Counties. The narrative provides part of the genesis of the rise of the northern republicans in the years following my incarceration.

Finally, the book follows my move from participation in physical force solutions to involvement in highlighting injustices elsewhere in Irish life. My escape was a severe embarrassment to the British but also to a minority among the IRA leadership within the prison, as it was not authorised by them. Consequently, the event has been practically airbrushed out of Northern Ireland history and, amazingly, out of authorised republican history also. Down the years a common question was: Whatever happened to the man from Gallows Hill? This book tells that story. This is my memoir.

Included here is a thumbnail sketch of Irish history for readers who may not be familiar with the context. Very early dates are approximate. History is often popularly discussed in simplistic terms but behind apparently straightforward facts lies a mound of complexity. This summary is no exception.