Dr Jade Moran

Time Shadows is a remarkable memoir of imprisonment. It is a beautiful elegy to lost comrades and a searing indictment of British state violence against Irish Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. The 13 chapters focus on the prison protest years of 1976 to 1981. These were Dr Laurence McKeown’s first five years in prison, and they capture Britain’s brutal attempt to criminalize Irish political prisoners during the blanket protest, the no-wash protest, and the battle ground of the 1981 Hunger Strikes.

Six unarmed men were shot dead by the British Army in the New Lodge area of Belfast in the North of Ireland on the 3rd and 4th February 1973. Collectively, these men are known as the New Lodge Six. There has never been a public inquiry into how or why they died. Eyewitnesses were not interviewed and there was a terrifying absence of police investigation into why six unarmed men were killed by British forces. No British soldiers were ever prosecuted in relation to this case. This intervention outlines what happened to the six unarmed men and how the British Army claimed the New Lodge Six were involved in a gun battle with troops. The intervention has three interlocking aims. Firstly, the aim is to draw attention to the case following the 50th anniversary of the shootings. Secondly, the intervention calls for a public inquiry into the New Lodge Six killings, which share troubling similarities with the shooting of unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday twelve months earlier. Finally, the aim is to position the case within the context of other conflict-related killings and to highlight the injustice of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, which is currently making its way through the British Parliament.