The Blantyre House Prison Affair: Lessons from a Modern-day Witch Hunt

Tom Murtagh

jan 2007 · Waterside Press

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In this autobiographical account of his life as a prison governor and administrator, Tom Murtagh deals with life in charge of The Maze Prison, Northern Ireland - when he narrowly avoided being killed by a terrorist bomb - and his move to England. This is when he was faced with a remarkable series of events at Blantyre House where a modern, liberal, ground-breaking, and in many respects, successful regime was beginning to attract the attention of reformers, academics, and others. But that regime also masked more sinister developments - events that should ultimately have received serious attention from a House of Commons Select Committee set up to look into 'The Blantyre House Affair.' Only now - and after much reflection - does Tom Murtagh feel able to tell publicly his side of the affair of how the committee chose to concentrate on selective and misleading information. Despite all the accolades for Blantyre House, behind the scenes and in reality, the regime was being taken advantage of by a number of very serious offenders who had managed to get themselves transferred there so that the establishment was at risk of being overtaken by organized crime and corruption, leading to covert police and other criminal investigations. The book tells how the author acted to preempt this, only to be vilified by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, some penal reform groups, and ultimately the committee. The Blantyre House Affair is a telling example of how people can sometimes be swept along by events that may cause them to ignore those things that are counter or inconvenient to their own aims or interpretation.

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Tom Murtagh OBE ended his long career in the Prison Service as an Area Manager in HM Prison Service. He is also the author of The Maze Prison: A Hidden Story of Chaos, Anarchy and Politics (Waterside Press, 2018).