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In the early 1970s Irish prisons were overcrowded – there were few rehabilitation programs, medical care was limited, psychiatric care was practically nonexistent, and brutality was commonplace. The Irish prisoners unionized, igniting a movement that helped transform the penal system over the next decade and a half, and whose legacy is still visible today.
Prisoners’ Bodies is the first book on the history of the prisoner-driven movement that sought to revolutionize the prison system in Ireland between 1972 and 1985. Oisín Wall charts the rise and fall of prisoners’ organizations, their changing social networks, tactics, and splits, and the effect that they had on life inside prison, public policy, and society at large. Considering the public discourse around prisons and prisoners during this period, Wall investigates how it shaped and was shaped by the movement. Finally, the book examines the experiences of more than twenty individuals in prison, setting their activism within the context of their lives and their politics. Their stories are reconstructed through oral histories, court records, press reports, prisoners’ publications, and archival material.
Prisoners’ Bodies seeks to amplify the voices of people who have been systemically and institutionally silenced in the history of modern Irish prisons.
"[Prisoners' Bodies] examines the efforts of 'ordinary' (rather than political) prisoners to obtain more humane conditions in Irish prisons. Wall’s accessible and deeply empathetic account makes an important contribution to the literature, particularly given the wider context of Ireland’s troubling history of institutional brutality." Choice
"As a history of imprisonment that completely decentres the political, Oisín Wall’s [Prisoners' Bodies] is unique. By placing a welcome new focus on this movement, the book addresses a significant lacuna in our understanding of both the history of imprisonment on this island and the history of ordinary citizens’ interactions with institutions of confinement in the Irish state. This work is a timely and necessary addition to scholarship on prisons and prisoners on the island of Ireland." Social History of Medicine
“Wall’s thoughtful work moves the reader to consider the gap between rhetoric and reality. It urges us to confront the deeply classed erasure of prisoners and the communities from which they are drawn.” American Historical Review