I was talking to David for about 2 hours. And I briefly spoke to Fionn, I didn’t see Mick. David is getting on well. He is in a cell with Fionn. They are settling in and appreciate the letter from the Socialist Party in England and Wales.

Visit to Mountjoy prison

The prison facilities are poor. There is no access to toilets at night. They only get 1 shower and 1 change of clothes per week. The food is low quality.

They are in with the general prison population. It seems that the Dept of Justice made a request to have them in Mountjoy with the general prison population and not the Training Unit.

The prison they are in was originally built in the 1850s and is the poorest quality facilities in Ireland.

They go to the school during the day. They get to do Cooking, Art, and there are classes on History and on Politics. Dave said that he had the chance to see the Manchester United football match at the weekend. They do not have a TV, they only have a radio in their cell, they are not even allowed to have a watch. They can only tell the time of the day by the prison routine.

The ’Free David Murphy’ campaign in UCD is going well. We plan to have a benifit gig/welcome home party for him in the Student Bar in UCD. The SU have paid for any overheads, so all proceeds will go towards the Legal Defence Fund. We’re currently looking for bands to play.

David is running in the Academic Council elections on Wednesday. The AC is a College body with not much real power that has a token number of students on it. If elected on Wednesday David will be the first member of the UCD Academic Council to be a political prisoner since Prof. Eoin MacNeill, M.P. (a leader of the Irish Volunteers and the 1916 Rising).

And he will be the first to become a member of the Academic Council while in Prison!!

Oisin Kelly , Education Vice-President, Students’ Union, University College Dublin

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