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This chapter continues the narrative from May 5th to May 7th, beginning with the negotiations taking place in the Generalitat Palace to form a new government in Barcelona while the fighting continued. Appeals were issued from the Palace, pleading for an end to the conflict, though three incidents escalated the conflict further—the shootings and deaths of leading figures from both sides of the conflict. The fighting would continue to intensify and abate as calls for ceasefires and revolutionary fervor alike starved and fueled the conflict by turns, though the fighting grew less heated on the morning of May 7th. The end of the conflict and the Anarchosyndicalist predominance in Catalonia would signal a portentous victory for the Communists.

The contribution of paramilitary prisoners to conflict transformation remains a surprisingly under-stated aspect of the Northern Ireland peace process. Former prisoners have utilised the organisational capacity and structures of paramilitary groups and developed these as agents of conflict transformation. ‘Management systems’ and structures evidently mobilised to engage in violence were reoriented towards developing positive community roles in respect of restorative justice, opposition to violence and reducing sectarian tensions at interfaces. Concurrently, former prisoners and their representative groups have developed client relations with the local state, in the search for funding for local conflict transformation and reconciliation projects. These radical developments have been facilitated by dialogue initiated by former prisoners, on an inter-communal basis through meetings with former prisoners on the opposing side and via intra-group dialogue. A combination of tactical flexibility, societal change, perceptions of victory or continuing change and outworking of the longstanding recognition of the limited utility of violence contributed to ceasefires and concentration upon politics.

This chapter examines the period from 1994 to 2000, which saw the evolution of the peace process and the early release of paramilitary prisoners. It groups together the role of both prisoners and prison managers in analysing their contribution to that period. First, it explores the historical context of prisoner release in Ireland on both sides of the border. Second, it examines the role of prisoners in the process of conflict resolution in the 1990s including the period before and after the breakdown of the first IRA ceasefire. The provisions within the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent legislation are then analysed under four themes. These include prisoner release as an incentive for peace amongst organisations outside the peace process; the relationship between prisoner releases and the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons; the impact of prisoner releases on the victims of violence; and the issue of prisoner reintegration. It is argued that the issue of prisoner release represents a crucial acknowledgement by the British government of the political character of the conflict. Such a view will be required to spread to all of the protagonists in the Northern Ireland body politic to ensure the continuance of the conflict resolution process.

This Chapter is the first of two that describe efforts to understand the mental health and related impacts of the conflict in Northern Ireland, often referred to as The Troubles. The Chapter covers the period from the outbreak of violence in the late 1960’s up until the period around the peace accord, the Belfast Agreement (or Good Friday Agreement) of April 1998. The early studies reveal little, if any, major effects on the wellbeing and mental health of the population, but as the years go by, evidence starts to build of the impact of the violence, particularly as the ceasefires of the early and mid 1990’s take hold. The developing understanding of the impact was due in part to the evolution of methods and approaches being used by researchers - which is discussed in more detail at the end of Chapter 5.

This chapter evaluates the renewal of loyalist politics through the newly (re)formed Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and PUP and argues that the events leading to the ceasefires in October 1994 evidenced an independent loyalism, prepared to consult widely and re-engage with traditional allies on its own terms, acting with a sense of freedom and confidence. The second section tempers this argument by considering the changing nature of loyalist violence during this period. It uses the Drumcree dispute to illustrate the powerful grip of the conservative impulses that birthed the paramilitaries. The final section considers how these two divergent manifestations of loyalism fostered a chaotic, nihilistic brand of loyalism personified by Johnny Adair, a product itself of a parallel series of engagements with right-wing extremists and global popular culture.