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News and Events
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This site is designed to provide background information on prison education in Dublin prisons as well as news and events of particular interest to teachers in Prison Education Centres. The site also contains samples of work by prisoners who attend the Education Centres in Dublin prisons. Art exhibitions, drama productions, music performances and publication of
writings provide the students with the opportunity to have their work seen and heard by those outside the prison gates.We hope and expect that this site will provide a platform for their work to be viewed by a wider audience and extend this viewing
beyond the lifespan of an exhibition or performance.
Except in the case of group projects, all works shown here are done so with the understanding that they are owned solely by the prisoner accredited and that the accredited prisoners have consented to them being used on this site. The images, poems and music samples are also copyrighted to this site and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission from the site owners, who in turn must get permission from the relevant accredited prisoner. Ownership of any work featured on the site remains that of the accredited prisoner.
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The long awaited music CD and DVD from the Training Unit has been completed and was launched in Dublin in December, 2007. Titled ‘Angles in the Wings’, this CD contains songs composed in the Training Unit Education Centre. The songs are performed by students and accompanied by fellow students and guest musicians, under the stewardship of the music teacher, Gerry Hendrick. Gerry thanks all involved in this production.
Proceeds from the sale of this CD are to go to the Children of Barretstown. Backed by the medical world,
Barretstown is a specially designed camp which provides challenging activity-based programmes for children affected by cancer and other serious illness and their families. These programmes are designed to re-build confidence, self-esteem, trust and courage, in a safe, fun and supportive environment.
(see www.barretstown.org)
Some songs from this CD as well as songs from other prisons can be downloaded and listened to on
this site (see Music link) or on the ESCAPE site – the European Site for Creative Arts in Prison Education –
www.escapelink.org.
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New Creative Arts Website |
Following the success of the Irish prison art site
www.irishprisonart.com and a number of requests to include artwork from prisoners in European prisons, I have designed a new site called 'ESCAPE - the European S ite for Creative Education in Prison Education. It has have four main elements. These are Art, Music, Poetry and Drama. The site address is
www.escapelink.org and was launched at the EPEA Conference, Poster Session, Dublin, June 2007.
The Art page has articles written
by Art teachers and Artwork by prisoners displayed in 'Gallery' pages.
Again the Music
page has articles written by Music teachers and features original
songs composed by prisoners. These are in MP3 format and can be
downloaded as full songs or as samples of the songs (about thirty
seconds) and listened to by visitors to the site.
The Poetry page features selections of poems written by prisoners in their
original written language and also translated into English (the
primary working language of the site). The Poetry page also
features articles by prison teachers on Creative Writing classes,
projects and publications.
The Drama page
contains articles by Drama teachers on drama events and
productions, with accompanying images.
The site is designed to provide a virtual multimedia gallery exhibition
space for artwork, music, poetry and drama by prisoners who attend
classes primarily in European Prison Education Centres.
The main design features of the site are in place and what is needed now is works by prisoners - artwork, songs or poems.
For information on the site and details on how to submit work clink on
site link above.
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In October (24th - 26th), a group of policy makers and prison educators from South American countriescame
on a visit to Irish prisons. The purpose of their visit was to learn about the European Models of Education in prisons.
The group included people from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Uruguay, Mexico and Honduras.
Previously they had visited France and Greece and their visit formed part of a four year Euro-Social project
coordinated by Samuel Bordeau from the Centre International d'Etudes Pédagogiques in France.
Governor John Lonergan introduced the group to Mountjoy Prison and Kevin Warner, Co-ordinator of Education
from the Department of Justice, talked about the European model of Adult Education in use in Irish prisons. Anne
Costelloe, Chairperson of the EPEA, talked about the forthcoming EPEA conference which will take place in Dublin next June, and extended an invitation to all present to attend. Stephen O'Connor, Organiser of Education for Dublin Prisons, delivered a
PowerPoint presentation to show some of the diverse activities taking place in Prison Education Centres. This was followed by some lively and informed questions from the delegation. Tours of Mountjoy Male prison and The Dochas Centre followed lunch, which
had been prepared and served by the women in the Dochas Centre.
The group then visited Pathways, a post-release centre for ex-prisoners, and this
gave them the opportunity to talk with some of the participants, as well as the
project staff and Pathways Manager, Tom Lonergan. The visitors enjoyed an evening meal in The Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest pub, and got to hear some Irish music. They were accompanied by teachers Eleanor Jones, Maggie Byrneand Paula Egan and prison officer John Dooley, who were the guides for their visit. On the final morning the group visited Wheatfield Prison where they were shown all the facilities available and got to see the school in operation.
The delegation unanimously agreed that their visit to Dublin was more than they had hoped for and were highly impressed with the reception they received and the amount and quality of the information given. They were also very impressed by the range and diversity of the educational programmes on offer in Irish prisons.
For some images of the visit see Photo Gallery.
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In September, Stephen O'Connnor was appointed to the position of Organiser of Education for the CDVEC's
Educational Service to Prisons. Stephen began his teaching career with the CDVEC in 1977 at Ballyfermot Vocational school where he taught Humanities. In 1978 he divided his time between Ballyfermot Vocational school and the Education Unit, Mountjoy prison and in 1979 he opted to teach full time in Dublin prisons, teaching a range of subjects that included Humanities and German. Stephen moved to the Training Unit in 1981. He was appointed Supervising Teacher for the Training Unit in 1986.
In continuing and advancing the role of education in prisons, Stephen sees Curriculum Development as central. "What it comes
down to, in simple terms," he says, "is for us to meet the needs of the students.” In this respect he suggests that catering for the needs of a diversity of ethnic groups and nationalities in all the prisons will be challenging. He sees the provision of an education service to remand prisoners in the new Clover Hill Education Unit as offering a particularly exciting challenge. “In addition,” he goes on to say, “we have to continue to strengthen and develop the existing provision in all of the Dublin prisons.”
We wish Stephen the best of luck in his new role.
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Shakespeare's Othello, adapted by Helen, the drama teacher, was staged in Wheatfield prison on
December 7th, 8th, 11th and 12th. The production was given a
modern setting and was very well received. Helen has been involved in
drama productions in Wheatfield Education Unit since its beginnings in
1990 and Othello represents one of a number of Shakespearean plays that
she has successfully adapted for use in prison. In 1998 she staged
'Shakespeare Unplugged', through which people were introduced to
Shakespeare's language and in which five of his characters told their
stories (in part) to a ‘Therapist’. At the end of each performance the
audience was asked which character interested them most; which
character's story would they like to hear in full? The majority wanted
to hear Othello’s story.
The story of a man brought to a jealous ‘rage
beyond words' by whisperings, innuendo and deceit, seemed to strike a
chord amongst the prison audience. "However, the desire to
explore Shakespeare's great text on this theme was one thing," says
Helen, "The actual decision to do it could only be taken when (and if)
we could find the right partners; the interpreters of the text; the
players. A variety of life experiences, some as dark as those enacted in
the play itself, came together to make this piece of theatre. The
presence of so many international students among those who attend the
Education Unit in Wheatfield made it possible for us to cast our
Othello."
One of the cast members
described Helen as 'not the director of this production; she is its
soul.' and went on to say, "She believes that we all have it within us
to appreciate the real thing. Better yet, Helen has the ability to make
Shakespeare's writing accessible, without compromising it." Helen took a
varied cast of prisoners, a couple of wonderful professional female
actors and produced a stunning success. She is due to retire at the end
of this academic year so this may be Helen's last stand. But those who
know her say 'watch this space' - there may yet be another production
before she exits stage left. (See also article by Helen on
Drama page)
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