Dr Philip O’Sullivan, 

25^th April 2023

The final session of the 2022/23 Open Politics webinar series was a timely presentation on the role of The Open University in the prison system of Northern Ireland, during The Troubles. Dr Philip O’Sullivan discussed the OU history project, the ‘Time to Think’ archive, and the impact OU students had on the peace process leading to the Good Friday Agreement, twenty-five years ago.

The story started with the introduction of internment without trial, in 1971. As a result of this policy of rounding up individuals who were identified as posing a risk to peace, a new detention facility was created at the Maze, Long Kesh, a former World War Two American Airforce base. Prisoners were crammed into Nissen huts behind barbed wire fences and had few, if any, facilities. It was into this situation the OU was drawn following a conversation between a prison social worker, Liz Kennedy and the first regional organiser of the Open University, Jane Nelson. The OU had only just established itself in Northern Ireland and Liz Kennedy thought that it might help deal with the distress and confusion felt by many who had been interned. As Philip pointed out in the discussion this was originally on an ad hoc basis and it was only after some time that the relationship was formalised.

The approach, despite its initial low-key beginning, became successful and the OU delivered courses to prisoners involved in paramilitary groups in the later H-Blocks at the Maze and Maghaberry prisons and to women prisoners, in Armagh. Following its work in these prisons, The Open University has developed an oral history archive, Time to Think, dealing with the memory and the issues around the role of education within the conflict. The project gathered a hundred and twenty interviews, with fifty-one of those being prisoners – both Loyalist and Republican – forty-five were men and six women. Some thirty-eight OU tutors were also interviewed and nine prison educational officers. This digital archive is available to study, though students will need to seek permission to access the resource, however there is a fully accessible, Time to Think resource drawing on these materials that is available to students. The issue of memorialising what happened in the prisons, at the time, has also attracted controversy, as some see it as romanticising terrorists, while others see it as a question of acknowledging the past and reconciling with it.

Philip went on to present some of the interviews and how OU students had played a role in the subsequent peace process, as well as some of the strange encounters within the system. Robert Campbell, a Loyalist prisoner, for example, recalled that his maths course required a practical experiment involving springs. Prison regulations said prisoners could not have springs and, in a cell search his Parker pen was taken as it had a spring in it. However, the box of springs the OU had sent were still in his cell. On enquiry he was told that the spring in the pen was against prison rules, but the box of springs was educational materials. Other inmates recalled how education gave them a way to deal with incarceration and provide structure to their lives. Jennifer McCann, a Republican prisoner in Armagh, recalled doing a music module and how it had impacted her life. Wherever she goes and hears classical music she can recognise Mendelssohn or Liszt. The OU also gave her opportunities outside prison and she ended up working for a number of NGO’s.

The final section of the Time to Think resource looks at “sowing the seeds of peace” and at the learning journeys of some of the prisoners involved with finding a way to peace. William “Plumb” Smith, a UVF Loyalist, was one of those showcased here reflecting on the way the Open University shaped his experience. Smith focused on the fact that he came from a working-class community where there was little focus on education, into a prison where he was afforded the opportunity to develop his skills in mathematics. He also reflected on the constants in education in the prison – including pleading with guards for lights to be left on after 11pm to allow for study or an assignment to be finished. When asked about the role of education in the conflict, he replied, that he did not see it as the single thing that led to changes, but that it prepared people for the next stage and enabled them to look at other ways of reconciling differences.

The discussion then turned to the issue of what has come out of this project. Philip thought that at least two things had already emerged from the study. The first was the development of an Open Learn course called Isolation, which looked at prison experiences, and how these might have helped people dealing with the Covid-associated lockdowns. The second spinoff, at this time, has been a writing course aimed at younger people around the Shankill Road Belfast, seeking to reflect on circumstances and articulate what they feel about their lives, following a number of instances of riot in the area.

What the presentation showed was the extent of the influence of the OU and why education is a valuable tool in re-framing political questions and being more reflective and critical, of having ‘time to think’. The fact that the OU contributed to equipping both sides to negotiate and helped structure change is something that should be acknowledged more. It also pointed to the importance of capturing these memories so as to provide a tool not only for understanding what happened in Northern Ireland, but also to provide a resource that will benefit teaching and learning in the future.

For more information, visit the Time to Think project digital archive.