Beyond the Wire: Former Prisoners and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland

This book provides the first detailed examination of the role played by former loyalist and republican prisoners in grass roots conflict transformation work in the Northern Ireland peace process. It challenges the assumed passivity of former prisoners and ex-combatants. Instead, it suggests that such individuals and the groups which they formed have been key agents of conflict transformation. They have provided leadership in challenging cultures of violence, developed practical methods of resolving inter-communal conflict and found ways for communities to explore their troubled past. In analysing this, the authors challenge the sterile demonisation of former prisoners and the processes that maintain their exclusion from normal civic and social life. The book is a constructive reminder of the need for full participation of both former combatants and victims in post-conflict transformation. It also lays out a new agenda for reconciliation which suggests that conflict transformation can and should begin ‘from the extremes’. The book will be of interest to students of criminology, peace and conflict studies, law and politics, geography and sociology as well as those with a particular interest in the Northern Ireland conflict.

Peter Shirlow is a Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast. He has edited the books Development Ireland and Who are the People? and is the co-author, with Brendan Murtagh, of Belfast: Segregation, Violence and the City (Pluto Press).Kieran McEvoy is a Professor of Law and Transitional Justice and Director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Queens University Belfast. He has written and edited several books on prisoners, conflict and transitional justice including Paramilitary Imprisonment in Northern Ireland, winner of the British Society of Criminology Book of Year Award in 2002.