The politics of Irish primary education: reform in an era of secularization

choices too: compliance with prison authorities had been understood as a synonym for capitulation, particularly in the 1970s. However, after 1981, the republican frontal assault on the jail regime was gradually replaced by a more strategic approach: ‘pragmatism began to dismantle some of the tactical blinkers and hindrances of ideology.’ (p. 956). There were opportunities for ‘sly and elusive subversion’, although this was a fine line to tread. McConville persuasively argues that there was an analogous process of policy learning and accommodation both inside and outside the prisons in the late 1980s and early 1990s, though progress was slow and by no means linear. Ultimately, McConville has produced a body of work which will surely be a touchstone for future scholars. Despite the prohibitive price tag for individual readers, every serious institutional library should have a copy of the trilogy.