Sport, Memory, and Nostalgia: The Lives of Irish Republicans in Internment Camps and Prisons, 1971–2000

Abstract

While there exists a wide range of historical and social science literature on political prisoners during the Northern Ireland conflict between 1969 and 1998, little attention has been paid to the prison life of the individual internees and prisoners. Sport, in particular, played a very important part in the lives of both republican and loyalist prisoners. Historians have long been preoccupied with the motivations and inner lives of individuals, and indeed the emotional states of people in collectives such as camps and prisons. Using Irish republican internees and prisoners as a case study highlights precisely this aspect of their experiences. Between 2014 and 2017, I conducted 34 interviews with activists in the Provisional IRA that have been involved since the 1960s. I draw on these records to analyze why former prisoners who had spent up to three years in isolation and on no-wash and blanket protests would describe their internment and imprisonment as ‘the best time of my life’. Indeed, their memories of sports in the camps and prisons were particularly happy and contributed to their nostalgic view of imprisonment.