A person with dignity like Marian Price.

By AM Wednesday, April 18, 2012

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Tonight The Pensive Quill features a talk given by Mgr Raymond Murray at a gathering in St Oliver Plunkett’s Church, Lenadoon, Belfast, 3 April 2012. The subject og his talk was the ongoing detention of Marian Price

The Church is a worshipping family. She reaches her full stature only when she falls on her knees and bows her head in adoration. What is worshiping God? The care of the sick, the struggle for justice, the needs of the poor, the education of the young – all these are worshiping God – all these people are made in God’s image. The Church is supremely herself when God’s family gathers in a building like St Oliver Plunkett’s to worship.

We are reminding ourselves this evening of the importance of every human being – the concrete historical, live individual, the person with a name. The name this evening is Marian Price. All morality, Christianity and human rights, at least a person’s commitment to these things, can be summed up in our attitude to this man or woman with a name – not some abstract man or woman. A person with dignity like Marian Price.

I was Catholic Chaplain in Armagh Gaol from September 1967 to June 1986, nineteen years. Marian and Dolours Price were prisoners there within that period and I was well acquainted with them. On 12 March 1973, with eight others, they were charged with conspiring to cause explosions in London on 8 March 1973. They were jailed for life and went on hunger strike at the end of November 1973 for transfer to prison in the North. They were artificially fed from 3 December 1973 to 18 May 1974. Hugh Feeney and Gerard Kelly, imprisoned with them, also went on hunger strike. On 8 June 1974 all four ended their hunger strike after 206 days. On 13 December 1974 the sisters were transferred from Brixton Prison to Durham. On 18 March 1975 it was announced that they had been transferred to Armagh Prison. During their imprisonment both sisters suffered from severe illnesses. In my chaplaincy files I succeeded in collecting their medical reports from independent medical sources.  I will never forget visiting Dolours in the security wing of the Musgrave Hospital. She was brought down a corridor to me in a wheel chair. She looked like a skeleton.  I will never forget it - she was handcuffed to the wheelchair! So severe was their sickness that both women received an accelerated release. Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, the Papal Nuncio, the Taoiseach were among the concerned people who pleaded for their release on the grounds of ill-health.  Unfortunately even after their release they suffered from some recurring illnesses.  Added to this Marian Price suffers from severe arthritis.  Then after 37 years what has happened? – Marian Price was interned.

The Secretary of State Mr Owen Paterson revoked Marian Price’s license after the judge had granted her bail in a court case. This severe action has had strong repercussions among the nationalist community who look upon his action as a form of internment. Internment mainly against Catholics in the 1970s was one of the main causes of the continuation of conflict in the North and followed the tradition of the British Government who had cruelly imposed internment on nationalists in every decade of the Stormont Government régime.

Did Owen Paterson  never hear tell of internment here? Did he never hear tell of the ill-treatment and torture? Is he unaware of the cruelty and injustice dealt out to the Finucane family? The use of Diplock Courts – special courts - during the conflict in the North of Ireland occurred in a context of diminishing confidence in the law and especially among the Catholic population.  It went with Special Powers Acts, emergency laws not used impartially but abused, internment, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, ill-treatment illegally by agents of the law, use of verbal statements and super grasses; blackmail of young persons by security forces, semi-official assassinations, collusion of security forces with loyalist paramilitaries and official ‘shoot-to-kill’ policies.  Even in prison injustice continued for internees - the injustice of the Long Kesh Appeal Tribunals of 1972 still haunt us.  There must no longer remain in the North of Ireland a trace of the violation of law by government in its laws and its law agents.  Confidence in the law is extremely important.  The internment of Marian Price is a supreme example of injustice.

The cruel attitude of the Secretary of State has again been shown in the question of pardon (the Royal Prerogative of Mercy) granted to Marian Price in 1980. The public have been astounded to learn that the British authorities either shredded the pardon document or just cannot find it – or so they say. They have failed to locate it. Now Marian Price’s case will widen into a global concern regarding injustice on the part of the British Government. Her plight will receive the attention of international human rights organisations and the attention of concerned citizens, all of you among them – I hope!

Added to the factor of Marian Price’s life long illnesses was her cruel detention in solitary confinement in Maghaberry Prison for ten months. Her isolation from other people was a serious cause of worry to her family and added to the severity of her ill-health.  Her case demanded the immediate exercise of justice on the part of Mr Owen Paterson, Secretary of State. 

I wrote to Paterson on 2 February 2012 outlining details of her case and condition and sent copies to the Taoiseach and the Deputy First Minister at Stormont.  Paterson replied on 23 February 2012. He said that in accordance with the Life Sentence (Northern Ireland) Order 2001 which governs the licence regime and provides for the revocation of someone’s licence where it is necessary for the protection of the public and to prevent the commission of further offences, he sought a recommendation from the independent Parole Commissioners and they recommended that Marian be returned to prison because of the serious risk she posed to the public. He then revoked her license. The judge in court had granted her bail. Paterson said that the Parole Commissioners would review the case in full and the decision on Marian’s suitability for release rests with the Parole Commissioners. We are waiting. Paterson said that Marian was released on license from the life sentence and that the Royal Prerogative of Mercy only relates to the 20 years sentence – I am wondering now has a copy of that document and he won’t let us see the terms.

On Friday 17 February, following advice from the Health Care Staff of the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, Marian was transferred to Hydebank Wood. That was the day after more than 200 concerned citizens gathered at a meeting in the Tower Hotel Derry.  The feeling at the meeting was strong and it was clear that as individuals all present were prepared to act on her behalf. I advised writing to Paterson and human rights bodies.

Paterson said he trusted his letter addressed my concerns. I am not satisfied. It is 31 years since Marian was released from Armagh Prison. Due to Paterson’s action she has already served nearly a year in prison. Despite her ill-health she was held in solitary confinement, isolated, in the High Security Prison, Maghaberry. Her health deteriorated quickly and very seriously. Is that not reason enough for Paterson and the Parole Board to release her and let her face trial in court, even if we are not happy with the Special Courts here?

That brings me to the corruption of law. We had internment in the North in every decade of the Stormont monolithic unionist government. In the 1970s it was introduced with ill-treatment and torture- besides the hooded men in Ballykelly some 400 men within a few months were severely tortured and ill-treated in the Palace Barracks Hollywood and Girdwood Park Barracks. Even after internment was formally ended in 1975 – a substitute was found – doubling sentences and imposing charges so that innocent people were held in jail for a year and a half before they were found innocent at their trial.

It is time compassion was shown to the isolated Marian Price in her present terrible state of mental and physical ill-health. Damian and Clare, brother and sister of Marian, saw her at Hydebank on Saturday 3 March and reported to me then the urgency of her present situation.

A bad situation has been made worse by this move to Hydebank, the end of a corridor in isolation, an environment of constant interruptions which is totally unsettling. People arrive unannounced. The lack of privacy is degrading.  A male security officer does the nightly check (looks through the peep-hole). She feels like she is ‘in a zoo’ with so many unwanted so-called ‘visitors’.  She wants any of the human rights groups or those politicians who have been to see her in Maghaberry to insist on seeing where she has been confined to and not allow themselves to be brought to a visiting area. The truth of this charade under the guise of a ‘health-care package’ must be exposed for what it is – a contrived public relations exercise to disguise the isolation and torture of a woman in need of urgent attention.

Strong feeling, even distress, and of course agony within her family and close friends, are sweeping North and South. Following the meeting in Derry on 17 February, a great meeting was held in Conway Mill, Belfast.  Over 500 were present. All felt the pain of Marian and her family and were angry that the use of the law as a weapon in the arsenal of the Government was now policy once again.  There was a meeting in Teach na bPiarsach in Pearse Street, Dublin, on Sunday 25 March – again packed. More than 200 people – regretfully some people could not get in because of the crowd and had to depart.  Among speakers at these meetings were Peter Corrigan, her lawyer, Pat Ramsey, SDLP, Bernadette Devlin, Ité Ní Chionnaith past president of the Gaelic League, Eva Brady, Nuala Perry former prisoners in Armagh  and myself.

Remember what I said at the beginning of this talk – the importance of the dignity of every human being.  We call on you this evening to act – start writing, write to Paterson, write to the Taoiseach, write to human rights groups.  We are now living under the menace of political brutality in the case of Marian Price and the suffering prisoners under punishment in Maghaberry. Deliver them all, we pray this evening, Lord, by the courage of all the good people gathered here this evening.