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Coping in Isolation: Time to Think – insights from Long Kesh for Lockdown 2020

Paper cutout of people in rainbow colours holding hands.

‘People may be on their own, but they are not alone’
(Michael, Irish Republican ex-prisoner, April 2020)

At HERC we publish blog articles covering a wide range of issues that broadly relate to harm, evidence, crime and justice. In keeping with the critical position of HERC, our aim is to highlight all sides of the debate and to facilitate a discussion so that all voices are heard on the issue.

 

Since January 2020, Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has rapidly defined our ‘new normal’. People worldwide are facing prolonged periods in enforced social isolation or confinement, with no certainty of when this will end. Living in this new normal, you may wonder how others adjusted to enforced isolation and confinement in the past and what solace they may offer.

 

Coping in Isolation: Time to Think, a new free Open University (OU) short course on OpenLearn, offers insights on coping from OU graduates who studied while imprisoned during the years of conflict in and about Northern Ireland. Such men and women spent many years in isolation and confinement in prison as a result of their role in the conflict. Some lived for years in small political groups in huts in prison compounds. Others spent years in individual cells, including long periods in almost total isolation while engaged in political protests. Many used their time to develop new skills to help create a more peaceful society.

 

In this short introductory level course, David and Michael, two OU graduates, reflect on the current COVID-19 lockdown and their study experiences while imprisoned in The Maze and Long Kesh prison. Both men offer insights on ways to adjust to the current pressures facing people across the globe. This course also includes resources from the Open University’s digital archive Time to Think. This unique oral history archivecontains the stories of Loyalist and Republican OU students as well as OU tutors and office staff, prison education staff and prison governors reflecting on their educational journeys in British and Irish prisons during the years of conflict. You can explore the archive at this link: Time to Think archive.

 

A picture containing drawing, fence

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Artwork by David Smyth, 2019

 

Today Time to Think is both an oral history archive and ongoing collaboration for teaching, research, impact and knowledge exchange between The OU (OU in Ireland, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and The OU Library) and people who participated in the Time to Think archive. I am part of the core Time to Think team.

 

The idea for this course came from a recent conversation with Jenny Meegan, an OU Ireland colleague and one of the founders of the Time to Think archive. Jenny is retired now and isolating at her home in Belfast. In this conversation, we were reflecting on our feelings about lockdown and on the experiences of Loyalist and Republican participants in the OU Time to Think archive, who lived through confinement in the past. In this context, the term Loyalist refers to those who want Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Historically, Loyalists supported the use of physical force where necessary to defend the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The term Republican refers to those who seek to end the partition of Ireland and who wish to bring about the reunification of the island of Ireland. Republicans have also historically supported the use of physical force where necessary to achieve this.

 

Approximately 15,000 Republicans and between 5,000 and 10,000 Loyalists were imprisoned during the thirty-year conflict (1969 to 2000).  Within this complex conflict Loyalists and Republicans were bitter opponents. A number, however, found points of connection while in prison, including through their OU study, and some went on to play a significant role in the peace process. In 1998 The Good Friday Agreement was signed between Loyalists, Republicans, the British and Irish states and other parties to the conflict, providing a political solution to this long and bloody conflict. Upon their releases, some of these OU students became artists, academics, teachers or community workers. Others are political leaders at community, city/district or governmental level. Many are engaged in conflict transformation and peacebuilding work. Through the Time to Think project and my own PhD research, I work with a number of these Loyalist and Republican ex-prisoners and former OU students.

 

At the end of our conversation that March morning in the early days of lockdown, Jenny made a bold proposition. ‘Let’s do a course’ said Jenny. ‘Why not’, said I. I wrote a quick proposal and with agreement from of our Time to Think colleagues we approached key people in our Loyalist and Republican ex-prisoner networks to float the idea of a free short course in response to Covid-19. The reply was immediate and positive.  

 

In a sense this was a timely proposition. We (my OU and Time to Think colleague Philip O’Sullivan and I) were already in discussion with people in these networks about co-producing short courses for the OU, as part of the Time to Think knowledge exchange project. Now we had a topic around which to pilot this idea and to develop our collaborative approach to teaching. The aim was an accessible course, co-produced with archive participants, bringing together and building on learnings from the archive to address contemporary local or global issues.

 

With support from John D’Arcy (Director, OU in Ireland), the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the OpenLearn team, the Time to Think team embarked on producing this fast turn-around course.  Our co-producers were two OU graduates, Michael, an Irish Republican, and David, a Loyalist, both of whom were imprisoned as a result of the conflict.

 

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David in the Compounds (above) and Michael in the H Blocks (below), by David Smyth, 2020

 

Between them, David and Michael spent 28 years in confinement or isolation in the Compounds and H Blocks of the Maze and Long Kesh prison. The course draws on new interviews and conversations recorded remotely between David and Michael in April 2020. In these audio recordings they reflect on their past experiences and offer insights and support for people living through isolation under Covid-19 today. David also created the original artwork featured in this course. Both men are contributors to The Open University’s Time to Think archive.

 

We held regular production meetings via Skype to brainstorm and work through the course structure and content. Our ground rules were mutual respect and kindness! This was a learning experience for us all and we understood that we would have to work quickly and adapt and refine our methods as we went along. We were also conscious of the psychological impacts of living through a pandemic and our responsibilities to our learners. With this in mind we chose a critical reader- Stephen Robinson – from the School of Psychology for his expertise.

 

Our aim with this course was to provide a free open access resource, that would benefit a wide range of people locally and globally during these difficult times. This is why we chose OpenLearn, The OU’s free learning platform. Coping in isolation is an introductory level course which guides people through the transition from freedom to lockdown or confinement. It introduces strategies and structures for using time in lockdown creatively and constructively, and to reframe this situation to become agents of positive change.  It also offers insights from the stories of David, Michael and a number of other Loyalist and Republican OU students from the Time to Think archive. The course takes 3-6 hours to work through, depending on how much personal reflection you want to do. 

 

For me, having worked with two people who faced indeterminate life sentences and came out the other side, the lessons that linger are:

  • the creativity and adaptability of the human spirit when faced with extreme situations
  • the power of our imaginations to find new ways of seeing the world and of changing it
  • the importance of positivity and of communal support (in its many forms) when living with uncertainty to help us along the way and to reach the other side.

 

As David commented during the making of this course: ‘Remember, every road, no matter how long has an end. So, use this time well to prepare for then.’

 

Why not try Coping with isolation: Time to Think It’s now live at: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/coping-isolation-time-think/content-section-overview.

 

This free OpenLearnshort course written by Gabi Kent and co-produced by Michael, an Open University graduate and Republican ex-prisoner, David, an Open University graduate and Loyalist ex-prisoner, Gabi Kent, Jenny Meegan, Philip O’Sullivan, Colette Hughes and Ruth Cammies from The Open University’s Time to Think project. The critical reader was Stephen Robinson, Lecturer and Staff Tutor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

 

Hannah Parish was our excellent OpenLearn editor. Thanks to Hannah and her team including Gary Windows for all his work on the audio assets and Alma Hales on rights clearance.

 

Notes:

This Blog is solely the view of the author.

Artwork courtesy of David Smyth © The Open University’s Time to Think Digital Archive www.open.ac.uk/library/timetothink. Re-use is not permitted without permission. Contact: university-archive@open.ac.uk.