Captive Columns by Eoghan Mac Cormaic

This study looks at over sixty prison titles which span the Irish Republican struggle from the Fenians to close to the twentieth century. Some of the papers do not have a name, some remain only in name, ir in passing references in a book or a memoir or statement. Others are preserved in collections and museums. From the pin pricked streets of toilet paper in Pentonville in the Nineteenth century to the glossy productions of the H-blocks, Maghaberry and Portlaoise prisoners in the 1990's, they presented rebel defiance, the subversion of the prison rues, a refusal to conform.

Often against huge odds they succeeded in leaving their mark, leaving to history their account of faoi ghlas ah Gallaibh. those faded paper are Irish prison struggle heritage. to all the authors, artists, re-writers, readers and producers of all these papers this book acknowledges their moment in time. Some of them, in time, faded away like their pages, some went on to shine brightly. Some died in prison, on hunger strikes, or were executed. Some died of medical neglect, some never recovered after their release.