And Flowers Grew Up Through the Concrete: a prison memoir 1981–1992

When Irish republican prisoners called off their hunger strike on 3 October 1981, following five years of intense protest in the harshest of conditions and the deaths of ten of their comrades, the prison authorities must have believed that they had crushed their spirit of resistance once and for all. Such a belief was dramatically shattered less than two years later when the IRA mounted the largest escape ever in the history of British penal institutions.  The republican prisoners did not stop at that. In the years that followed, they relentlessly waged a war of attrition against the prison authorities. Deploying new strategies and tactics, coupled with a revolutionary mindset and politic, the republican prisoners built upon victory after victory.  In this frank, revealing and deeply personal memoir, former hunger striker Laurence McKeown leads us through the development of this new form of prison struggle in the face of internal challenges from both left and right. The new resistance contains important lessons for anyone in struggle and also helps us understand how easily republican prisoners adapted and applied themselves to the unfolding peace process years later, when all political prisoners were released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and the prison finally closed.  Throughout his account of that evolving prison struggle, Laurence weaves reflections on his own personal, intellectual and emotional growth. He speaks candidly and movingly, especially when recalling his relationship with his mother and father, and how he had to come to terms with their deaths while still imprisoned. This is not just a story of prison struggle; it is a story of a communal life lived, a coming to terms with material conditions so as to better challenge those conditions. It is a story of flowers growing up through concrete. "Remember, you are talking about republicans coming into jail basically as soldiers, revolutionary soldiers, but not politicised soldiers and we saw our role to transform them into politicised revolutionaries, capable of performing any revolutionary task upon release."     – Seán ‘Spike’ Murray "I remember being terribly impressed by the level of debate and analysis in the Camp. To me, it was a higher level of political discussion and analysis than I had ever experienced and that was including people in England who I had been at university with and that sort of left-wing milieu … not only the ideology of the hard political analysis, but also how to deal with each other."     – Brian Campbell "I was delighted with what came out of the workshops … I knew that armies used to have bards and that, but poetry was still regarded as a fairly ‘effeminate’ thing until Bobby [Sands] began writing and pouring out his heart, and then it  became very acceptable, and I thought that was brilliant."    – Gerry Kelly

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements  Glossary   Foreword by Phil Scraton       Preface       Prologue      1.The Hunger Strike Ends      2.Moving Forward      3.The Campaign for Segregation      4.The Issue of Prison Work      5.My Mother      6.The Mass Escape of 1983      7.Aftermath of the Escape      8.Political Education and Organisation      9.Communes 10.Resignations 11.The Charter for Republican Communities 12.The Conditions Campaign 13.My Father 14.The Lifer Issue 15.End of an Era – the Cages Close 16.Creative Writings and Productions 17.The Women’s Studies Class 18.Release Epilogue

About the Author :
Laurence McKeown is the author of several books, film scripts, radio and stage dramas, and a book of poetry. He has a social science doctorate from Queen's University Belfast. Phil Scraton is Emeritus Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast and well known for his work on the Hillsborough disaster (1989).