Cage Eleven [Paperback]

Gerry Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

Gerry Adams, a Sinn Fein activist who led sit-ins, marches, and protests in Northern Ireland, was imprisoned without benefit of a trial. He suffered interrogations and torture during his four years at Long Kesh Prison, most of it in cell block "Cage Eleven." This collection of his essays about prison life was smuggled out of Long Kesh and published by the Irish Republican underground press.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...evocative and often witty cameos of prison life...This is an important book for understanding the strength of [Irish Republican] tradition. (Times Literary Supplement )

...a collection of humorous pieces, all done in a dry, occasionally hilarious Belfast idiom. (Irish Times )

Quite brilliant...a tribute to a particular kind of survival by a group of people who have committed their lives to a deeply-held political belief about their country. (Books Ireland )

...a natural storyteller with a warm and agile wit. (The Listener )

By turn wry, humorous, passionate and self-mocking, and parades a cast of characters that stick in the memory. (Irish Press ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

President of Sinn Fein and TD for Louth, Gerry Adams has been a published writer since 1982. His books have won critical acclaim in many quarters and have been widely translated. His writings range from local history and reminiscence to politics and short stories, and they include the fullest and most authoritative exposition of modern Irish republicanism. Born in West Belfast in 1948 into a family with close ties to both the trade union and republican movements, Gerry Adams is the eldest of ten children. His mother was an articulate and gentle woman, his father a republican activist who had been jailed at the age of sixteen, and he was partly reared by his grandmother, who nurtured in him a love of reading. His childhood, despite its material poverty, he has described in glowing and humorous terms, recollecting golden hours spent playing on the slopes of the mountain behind his home and celebrating the intimate sense of community in the tightly packed streets of working-class West Belfast. But even before leaving school to work as a barman, he had become aware of the inequities and inequalities of life in the north of Ireland. Soon he was engaged in direct action on the issues of housing, unemployment and civil rights. For many years his voice was banned from radio and television by both the British and Irish governments, while commentators and politicians condemned him and all he stood for. But through those years his books made an important contribution to an understanding of the true circumstances of life and politics in the north of Ireland. James F. Clarity of the New York Times described him in the Irish Independent as "A good writer of fiction whose stories are not IRA agitprop but serious art." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 151 pages
• Publisher: Roberts Rinehart Madison (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570981310
• ISBN-13: 978-1570981319
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,760,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Insight Into Gerry Adams' Prison Time, December 19, 2009

By 

Jack Stone - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cage Eleven (Paperback)

I think this book should be judged on its own merit and not a person's personal like or dislike for the author. This work offers insight into Gerry Adam's prison time at Long Kesh, a place where he spent several years in the 1970's. This is an important work if one understands that guerrilla movements are often strengthened through incarceration of their members and the subsequent political mismanagement by prison authorities. It is in prison where a movement shares hardship and forms lifelong bonds, where new members are indoctrinated into the undergound war, where up and coming guerrillas earn street cred, and where its leadership has the time and motivation to hone their strategy. Taken in this light, Cage Eleven is an interesting window into the life behind bars for members of the outlawed IRA. At the time that Adams wrote these series of articles, they were smuggled to the outside and openly published. Thus, the purpose of these writings was to give the movement hope and strength and while engendering public sympathy. Adams was an astute writer, filling his articles with Irish humor and references to Irish culture. However, this book is more of a specialty work for someone interested in learning more about Adams, the IRA, or the effect of prison on outlawed movements. If none of these areas draw your interest, this is most likely not the work for you.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, December 15, 2004

By 

M. Loughlin (Good Ole USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cage Eleven: Writings from Prison (Paperback)

This is a great book written from prison...anyone who comments on anything but the book neither has the judgement nor credibility to review this book....ignore the liberals who comment!!!!

7 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hypocrisy and lies, February 9, 2001

By 

James Tone (Sligo, Republic of Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cage Eleven (Paperback)

A warning to all interested readers: take this book with a HUGE grain of salt. Gerry Adams helped organise a widespread campaign of bombings, kneecapping, and mass murders as leader of a group of terrorists, before he was justifiably sent to prison. Here, he uses the hardship of prison life in an attempt to arouse sympathy. Are we really supposed to feel sorry for someone responsible for such horrific crimes? The stories of prison torture are rediculous. I don't believe a terrorist, with a hatred of all things British will give a honest account of the UK justice system.