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The
invisible prison, scenes from an Irish childhood / Pat Boran. -
Dublin : Dedalus press, 2009. - IX-257 p. ;
22 cm.
ISBN
978-1-906614-15-7
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DESCRIPTION :
From the early 1970s the Irish midland town of Portlaoise became famous
as the home of the country’s maximum security political
prison. A
childhood on the Main Street of that « once
congested, now
double by-passed town » afforded prize-winning poet
Pat
Boran a unique insight into its workings at the time, as it did into
small-town life in general.
Here are
extraordinary glimpses of
bog men and bogey men, of the town's first colour television and the
national debate over its first public toilet … Here
too are
stories of coming of age, of high jinks and low deeds, of events and
characters both wonderful and deeply strange.
And here
too is
the shadow of the northern conflict, seen through the lens of a
southern Irish town with claims to being the place where the British
Empire began, and the first shots were fired of the 1916 Rising.
Part
memoir, part social history, part meditation on community itself, The Invisible Prison
is a funny, moving, surprising and by times heart-breaking look at
Irish life, and Irish family life, and the energies and passions that
animate it.
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Portlaoise
is where the prison is.
☐ Prelude,
p. 4 |
Grandir
à Portlaoise, au cœur de l'Irlande des
années 70
c'est, comme ailleurs, changer et voir le monde alentour changer
— roses, cytises et buddleias du jardin
sacrifiés
pour un parking, premiers feux rouges, apparition de la
télévision, …
Le poète Pat
Boran tire de ces souvenirs une poignée d'éclats
qui
reflètent le passé avec vivacité, sans
nostalgie.
Loin de figer le temps, la mémoire éclaire
incertitudes,
élans, tensions : la vie en marche.
Portlaoise
était célèbre à
l'époque pour sa
prison, où étaient détenus nombres
d'activistes,
de l'IRA en particulier. Trop jeune pour entrer dans un
débat
politique, les enfants ne manquaient pas de s'interroger sur ces
hôtes invisibles
— pressentant qu'ils n'étaient pas
fondamentalement
différents : mêmes hantises,
mêmes
rêves ; comme cet ancien détenu que Pat
et son
père rencontrent un soir au bord d'une route :
« Oh give me land, lots of land, under starry skies
above », « don't fence me
in … » — Prelude, p. 6.
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| EXCERPT |
All Along
the Watchtower
When the
January 03, 1970 edition of The
Leinster Express carried an advert for the Coliseum Cinema
in Bull Lane, Portlaoise, the evening's main feature, Hang ‘em High, appeared
to promote rough justice for law-breakers.
« They made two
mistakes, »
ran the advertising copy. « They hanged the wrong
man and
they didn't finish the job. »
At that
time pretty much anything in the Coliseum Cinema was out of my reach
(with the exception of supervised matinees of Oliver, The Robe
or, the following year, Fiddler
on the Roof).
And yet the presence among us of a movie about crime and punishment can
not have been lost on at least the adult population of our prison town,
even if the true dominance of the gaol would not commence until its
upgrading to maximum security political status two years later.
Of
course, someone must have built the prison : we wondered about
it
even then, even as kids, passing it on our way back from Sunday walks
and picnics on the Block Road, the great sturdy door and arch and walls
of it a mystery even then.
A
mystery compounded by the reports my father would soon begin to read
aloud at the kitchen table, within our earshot, in both the local and,
increasingly, the national press. Reports of
« trouble in
the prison », of « protests on
the Dublin
Road », of « crowds from the
North marching
through the town ». I remember hearing about
attempted
escapes, small-scale riots « when lads
start throwing
bits of the furniture around » as an article in the
same
edition of the local paper put it, life and art inextricably
intertwined.
« A
substantial amount of damage was done to the furniture and fittings and
to the fabric of the recreational hall, in which the incident started.
Items broken include two TV sets, a radio, film projection equipment
and two billiard tables. »
« Wow, »
we said in school the next day when the subject came up.
« Imagine : billiard
tables ! »
And
every youngster in the town felt torn between a life of freedom and
good behaviour (but endless deprivation) and a life of crime (and
punishment), the latter
significantly sweetened by the presence of TV sets, film projectors and
billiard tables.
Seven
years later, long after the political status upgrade, another press
report would list some of the games the Republican prisoners in
Portlaoise were playing to help them pass the time, the same games as
it happens we were playing after school : among them chess,
Ludo,
Snakes and Ladders and (life imitates
art imitates life) a Colditz escape game.
☐ pp. 44-45 |
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| COMPLÉMENT
BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE |
- « History
and promise, poems from Laois »,
Portlaoise :
Portlaoise International university press, 1990
- « The
unwound clock », Dublin : Dedalus press,
1990
- « Strange
bedfellows », Galway : Salmon publishing,
1991
- « Familiar
things », Dublin : Dedalus press, 1993
- « The
shape of water », Dublin : Dedalus press,
1996
- « A
short history of Dublin », Dublin : Mercier
press, 2000
- « As
the hand, the glove », Dublin : Dedalus
press, 2001
- « New
and selected poems », Dublin : Dedalus
press, 2007
- « The
next life », Dublin : Dedalus press, 2012
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- « Wingspan : a Dedalus
sampler »
ed. by Pat Boran, Dublin : Dedalus press, 2006
- « Flowing,
still : Irish poets on Irish poetry » ed.
by Pat Boran, Dublin : Dedalus press, 2009
- « Shine
on : Irish writers for Shine »
ed. by Pat Boran, Dublin : Dedalus press, 2011
- « The
bee-loud glade : a living anthology of Irish poetry » ed. by Pat Boran,
Dublin : Dedalus press, 2011
- « Dedalus
new writers, 1 : poems by Marie Coveney, Clare McCotter, John
Saunders » ed. by Pat Boran, Dublin :
Dedalus press,
2012
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| site internet de Pat Boran |
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| mise-à-jour : 24
avril 2017 |
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