Gerry Kelly has frequently been described as the IRA’s chief of staff.

But Kelly dislikes discussing his precise rank in the IRA. When the subject is broached, the 54-year-old laughs it off. “There has been all sorts of descriptions of me (smiles) in terms of what my position is. Everybody has a title but I’d prefer not to give mine!”

It echoes a similar quote Martin McGuiness gave to Hot Press only last year. Regardless of whatever rank he may have held, there is no disputing the fact that he is venerated in Republican circles. Kelly was in the thick of things during the height of the Troubles. He was convicted of participating in the bomb attack on the Old Bailey in 1973. Banged up in Wormwood Scrubs, Kelly went on hunger strike for an astonishing 205 days in an effort to gain political prisoner status and to be repatriated.

But Kelly will be best remembered for his utter determination to escape from prison. He hatched countless plots, culminating in the great escape from the Maze in 1983, the largest break-out of prisoners anywhere in Europe since World War II.

In the wake of this extraordinary drama, Kelly spent three years on the run and was eventually picked up in Amsterdam in possession of fake passports, different currencies, maps and keys to a storage facility that housed 14 rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammunition and nitrobenzene.
Clearly, Gerry Kelly doesn’t do things by halves…

As I waited in the Sinn Fein office to conduct this interview, Gerry Adams walked by and stopped for a quick chat. Despite only meeting once last year for a Hot Press interview, Adams was asking after my infant daughter and jokingly enquiring if another child was on the horizon.
After discovering who I was there to meet, Adams told me: “Ask him about Leonard Cohen.”

As an icebreaker, I mentioned this to Kelly. “I really like Leonard Cohen," he said. "He is a brilliant poet. I mightn’t agree with all his lyrics, but you’ll find many ex-prisoners either love him or hate him. I drove people around the bend listening to him. There is a brilliant example on ‘Bird On The Wire’, the lines: ‘Like a bird on a wire/Like a drunk in a midnight choir/I have tried in my way to be free’. It is brilliant – there is nothing as free as a drunk, but it is temporary and it is very personal…”

For the record, Kelly is also a huge Pink Floyd and Christy Moore fan. “I also enjoy some of the more up-to-date singers, like Amy Winehouse. She is in a lot of trouble but some of her songs are very easy to listen to.”

Kelly would be the first to acknowledge that, in the past, there was nothing he didn’t know about being in “a lot of trouble”. But right now he is a Junior Minister in the Office of The First Minister and Deputy First Minster in the Northern Ireland Assembly. What a long, strange trip it’s been...

JASON O’TOOLE: You will probably be immortalised in Republican folklore as the great prison breaker.
GERRY KELLY: Actually, up until I escaped the second time, I was starting to think that I was the worst escaper in the world! But if you keep trying, you know! I made my first escape when I was 18 from Mountjoy. I was in Fianna Éireann and was given a two year sentence for robbery. Basically, I escaped through the women’s jail. They were building a new bathroom, downstairs, and they had breached the wall. I seen my chance, planned an escape with a bit of assistance, and went out through it. It wasn’t as simple as it sounds. That, of course, put me on the run.

How many times did you try to escape?
We were always planning. I tried to escape a couple of times when I was in jail in England, but really over there it’s down to one attempt after the hunger strike. I almost made it. We got a false key made and broke out of the wing, got into laundry, made ladders, went to the wires – an 18 foot barbed wire fence, followed by no-man’s land, and then a wall. You had to be out within 90 seconds – it was speed that counted. Once you hit the wires the alarms went off. But the plan didn’t run smoothly. I was escaping with somebody else, and he fell off the ladder and was caught. I managed to get the ladder over, get into the middle, run down to the corner, get up on the outside wall. I ended up outside, but they’d already arrived. So, I was caught.

Your great escape from The Maze has since gone down in the history books as the biggest prison break out since WWII.
I had tried to escape before that in 1982 and I was brought down into the blocks for about 18 months or so before the mass escape in ‘83. There was 38 of us but, in the end, 19 got fully away. There was more that got away but a few were caught in the early stages.

I understand that you shot a prison officer in the head during the escape?
It was alleged. There was a prison officer shot in the control room. It was the nerve centre – that’s where all the alarms are. So, whoever was in the control room had to be subdued immediately – and was. There was a diversion, if you like, he tried to give the alarm and was shot. He was injured but survived. Obviously, it was alleged in court that it was me.

Can you describe what was going through your mind as you made a break for it?
It was a complicated escape. It started to go wrong and we ended up having to improvise and go across fields instead of our original plan of going through the British army camp. Because we went over barbed wire, I’d lost a shoe and a sock and I was wearing a prison officer’s uniform, as well as my own clothes – very heavy. Anyway, I was running up the hill just outside the front gate and the first thought going through my mind was, “I’m out!” But because I had escaped before – and had failed to escape before – I was also thinking, “Oh, I’m not home until I’m home, like.” I was zigzagging up the hill waiting for the British army, because they had posts there to fire, but actually – we found this out later in the trial – the guy was confused because obviously at one point he thought it was prison officers sprinting up the hill. He eventually fired, just after I’d gotten over the hill. But he didn’t fire at me, he fired at the guy behind me who got shot in the leg.

You then managed to get across to Europe.
In the first instance, I went around the border area and then went over to Europe. Altogether, I was over there from ’84 to ’86, nearly three years. I remember the mundane things, but from a personal point of view, within a period of a couple of years, I saw more of the world than I would have in normal circumstances. I was free and I travelled throughout Europe and further afield. It was a mind-opening experience. I saw things I’d probably never had seen and enjoyed it. But I was also on the run and in hiding and that had a huge impact on the type of life I had.

When you were in Amsterdam, you must have partook in a bit of marijuana smoking?
No, I didn’t actually (laughs). You’ll get no confession out of me, I’m sorry! I take drink. I know the argument that drink is a drug as well – and it is clearly. Maybe it is the easy way out to take drink because it is legal and not do something because it is illegal. It is not as if I’ve a great aversion to things that are illegal! But I’ve always mistrusted and am very wary of drugs. You can get into the old argument of should it be Class A, Class B. I feel I don’t know a lot about it, but clearly it is a very topical issue.

You were eventually arrested in Amsterdam, with what appeared to be a large quantity of weapons…
There was weaponry found. It was alleged that I was still working for the IRA at the time and that we were out there procuring weapons. I was arrested with Brian McFarlane. The Dutch jails are the most liberal in the world. But they overthrew all of that and, at the behest of the British, put in a special regime to hold us. I could argue that they were afraid that we’d escape out of the Dutch jails – I don’t know. They were a bit paranoid about us. Silly stuff. Over there you’d have a wee boiler for your tea and metal forks and spoons – they took all that off us, put us in an empty cell and it was like we were in jail in England again.

You say ‘allegedly still’ an active member of the IRA during this period. But were you?
Yes. I got out and rejoined the ‘Struggle’. I can’t really say much about that – just that I was still a Republican activist.

Did you try to escape again?
No. I was released in 1989. When I was extradited back my two life sentences and 25 years sentence were done away with. The Dutch quashed all my original sentences and then agreed to extradite us on some of the charges to do with the escape. One of the theories is that they withdrew the charges at the behest of the British because they just wanted to extradite us and charge us with the escape. They went over the top with the escape – they charged everybody with 75 charges each! It was crazy stuff. They gave me five years for the escape charges, which to me was good news. My father didn’t want to come to the trial because he thought I might have got a huge sentence. When he heard the news – and this might sound a bit strange – he went out and celebrated instead (laughs)! Actually, it’s an ironic sort of twist – the Dutch do not have a charge of escaping from lawful custody, therefore the British could not charge me with escape. They could charge me with things to do with the escape, so I was never charged with escaping (laughs). So, for me, it was brilliant.

You also escaped from an RUC jeep back in 1996. How did that happen?
(Laughs). It was at an Orange March in North Belfast. I was actually at that protest as an observer. So, I wasn’t actually in the crowd. The cops decided to move the protesters to force the march through. I was standing with two women and they were saying, “The RUC officer over there is looking at you. He’s talking to your man about you.” I said, “It’s your imagination”. Then, when they decided to charge they charged straight for me (laughs). I always lose my glasses in these things. My glasses flew off straight away. They brought me in behind the jeep and gave me a good shoeing, a good booting, right? And fired me into the jeep. Before that, before I got into the jeep, I said, “No, I’m not getting into the jeep.” They walked away for a minute because there was a bit of a commotion and, as they walked away, I tried to walk away – with the handcuffs on! And one cop nabbed me and just burst out laughing and locked me in the jeep. I was actually the only person that they lifted!

Why did they focus on you?
They deliberately did it to annoy the crowd because the whole crowd knew who I was – because obviously they’d elected me (laughs). Then it became pantomime. I was looking out through the peephole in the back of the jeep and I realised there’s a lever! So, I just watched and when they all went away – apart from this cordon holding the crowd back – I opened the thing and ran. I remember thinking as I was running up the road handcuffed, “What the flip are you doing?!” I was running up side streets because your man jumped out of the jeep and started shouting at me. This was a Catholic area, so I knocked on a couple of doors but there was nobody there. Eventually, I rapped at a door and he said, “Come on in.” I showed him the handcuffs and he said, “For flips sake! I think I have something for it.” He took out a hacksaw but I knew it wouldn’t work on the new type of handcuffs. He said, “Hold on”, and he pulled out a grinder! (Laughs). I said, “Do you know how to use this?” It was an electric grinder! He grounded it down and cut the handcuffs off me.

What happened next?
I had to decide what to do – because the cops knew it was me that they had. I made a couple of phone calls and we decided that I should go and talk to the protesters. I went down and basically got up on a soapbox and I was trying to calm the crowd down. They went searching for me but when I ended up down in the middle of them again, they made some sort of decision not to arrest me. So, I appeared in the Telegraph and the Irish News holding the handcuffs (laughs)! When they got me, my glasses went and they ripped off a sleeve of my coat – so, it’s actually a beautiful photograph.

There was also a controversial episode concerning you at another Orange March on the Crumlin Road, but this time you helped British soldiers circumnavigate a hostile Catholic crowd!
A crowd of some thousands turned up and we were trying to keep it calm. Some idiot in the British system decided to put paratroopers – a hated British force anyway because of Bloody Sunday – in the Ardoyne street as opposed to out on the main road and the thing got out of hand. They were getting hit with everything – tree trunks and lumps of wood. I actually went up to them and said, “Look, you need to get these guys out of here – because this is the paratroopers – you don’t understand what people feel about them. This crowd will eat youse!” At first they ignored me and decided to charge – they couldn’t get any further – and picked me out again and broke my watch and my wrist with a baton. But then they realised they couldn’t get anywhere. To cut a long story short, me and three others went down and talked to the Brits and said, “That’s your way out. You need to move these jeeps out quick.” It was ‘Kelly defends British soldiers’ but really we were very close to another Bloody Sunday situation. The soldiers were armed – and in actual fact one of the Brits had cocked his weapon. And it was another Brit, in fairness to him, who calmed him down. If the crowd had overcome the soldiers, one of the soldiers would have opened fire – and once one of them opened fire it would have been just a melee. The number of British soldiers and armed cops there was just phenomenal.

What did you make of the negativity aimed at you in the aftermath? Even one of your close colleagues, one of the Price sisters, attacked you in print.
She was a close colleague – she’s not now! First of all, she has a political agenda. I took the criticism and I went and had meetings with people and said, “I did what I believed was right”. Our people were unarmed – so they were going to lose. It was my duty to safeguard the people and the best way to do it was to get the Brits out. Some people you never satisfy, but when people looked at it later they realised how bad it was. And my vote has gone up! (laughs)

Going back to your participation in the Troubles, did you kill anybody during your time in the IRA?
In fairness to your question, I have been involved in an army – and armies are involved in conflicts and in conflicts people are killed. So, I do not want to do away with the responsibility that I was involved in an army who killed people. I must take that responsibility. But that’s the way I answer it, as opposed to dealing with individuals. I’m giving you an honest answer.

What about the Old Bailey explosion? Unfortunately, one person died in that bomb attack.
Well, one person didn’t die! I know it was reported in the papers, but let me guarantee you that nobody died as a result of the bombs. I don’t want to diminish this – but it’s worth saying – there was a man who, as matter of fact, had taken a heart attack six hours before the bombs went off. You can be guaranteed that we would have been charged had it been as a result of the bombings – because we were charged with everything else. But tabloids being tabloids, they made it into something else. I’m just giving you the facts now.

But over 200 people were injured in that attack…
There were a lot of people injured – and some of them quite seriously. So, I’m not trying to diminish that in any way. These things are always difficult – and I’m not complaining about this, I’m just saying it – when you deal with one particular event because this was a conflict that went on for generations. I saw myself as a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army, fighting for something that I believed in, and part of it was to take that war to the British. The bombs were planted to make a point because the Old Bailey was the centre of the judiciary and to protest against that. It was also the British Forces Broadcasting Service, so it was the British forces propaganda; and a recruiting office.

You're saying that these were all legitimate targets.
I’m not trying to be argumentative with you – I’m just trying to be informative. I think these things (individual events) are hard to argue and I don’t often do it, but just to explain the thoughts that went through my head. But I regret all injuries and deaths – on all sides.

But at the time I’m sure you would have derived great satisfaction because you had achieved your objective of hurting the British government?
Just to be clear about this: the bombs were not made to injure or hurt anybody. The bombs were huge bombs but there was an hour’s warning, which you would never have got in Belfast where it was a half hour, or whatever, because they were practised. What happened in the Old Bailey was it took them 37 minutes to react, at all, to the warning. It becomes irrelevant in the circumstances, but again I’m just giving it to you as information because in actual fact if anybody looked at it objectively – and it is quite hard to look at it objectively – they’d know that the bombs were done to hit the system and not to injure people. If your intent was to injure people you don’t give warnings. That is not to in any way diminish the fact that there was a huge number of people injured. If one plants the bomb then you have to take responsibility for the fact that you planted it. I was hugely surprised by the amount of injuries. I was hugely disappointed and affected by it. But it was a conflict and our intention was to make a huge propaganda statement and, of course, that was made.

After your arrest for The Old Bailey attack, you went on hunger strike.
I went on a long hunger strike with the two Price sisters in 1973. The hunger strike actually lasted 205 days. You can surprise yourself with the inner strength you have, especially if you believe in what you are doing. I was force-fed after the first 19/20 days. I was on hunger strike until they started force feeding me, so obviously your stomach is very, very small. They force-fed me 167 times.

Can you describe the process of force feeding?
The force feeding was quite brutal. Eight prison officers would come in. You were naked – obviously, we weren’t wearing prison clothes – and they would force you onto the bed and into a sitting position and then they’d go about trying to force open your mouth. I don’t want to exaggerate, but it could be quite brutal at times. They would run forceps up and down your gums. They would push your nose up to try and push your chin down and put knuckles into the side of your face. It would be started by a prison officer and then a doctor would join in and you went through that nearly on a daily basis. They’d bend your neck over the back of the bed and then they work at getting your mouth open and force in, basically, what you’d recognise as a horse bit – a bit of wood with a hole in the middle of it – in between your teeth. There are straps on it. They hold that back and they put the tube down your throat.
It must have been a terrifying experience.
They’d come in and tell you, “If I make a mistake, if it goes down the wrong way, it goes into your lungs – and you’ll die”. They are holding everything; they are holding your hair. You are pinned down. All that you can move is your eyes; because there is a bit in your mouth, you can’t say anything. Then they start putting this tube down – they’d lubricate it with paraffin – and they’d slide it down your throat. And you always think that’s the point when you’re gone. Then they’d pour – it’s like a mixture of Complan and other things. It takes a while and then you are usually sick after it. When I was throwing it up, they were throwing it back down my throat. That went on over a long period of time. And when you’re young – your faith goes up and down and all of that. It was a real battle.

Were you adamant about dying?
The conviction isn’t to die. It is a very important distinction to be made because there has been a number of hunger strikers and the big argument at the time was that it was suicide and you had a choice. But you don’t go on hunger strike to die – you go on hunger strike to win. It is really a tradition that if you are one person against the system then this is the only way that you can fight your case. And my case was a very simple one, even within the British system; I should have been in a jail closer to my family. But they refused to do it as an act of punishment.

But were you prepared to die?
I went on the hunger strike not to die – but was I determined to die? I mean, I’m in my 50s now, I could say with some honesty, yes I was. We had a great determination, which is historical in Republicans. But I was very lucky. My determination has seen me through – but there was also luck in it because the negotiations were going on and the leadership demanded that the British would transfer us, if we’d come off hunger strike. I’m glad that I survived. Nobody wants to die. But it’s important to understand that any Republican on hunger strike did not go on it to die. But knew that the risk of dying was there. 12 comrades died on hunger strike in this phase of the ‘struggle’. I’m not trying to compare myself, but in Republican history there have been a series of people who have gone on hunger strike.
You had to make many personal sacrifices during your time in the IRA. Any regrets?
Of course, I have missed certain things – bringing up children and stuff like that; although, I have quite a young family now. I have a son in his 30s – I have grandchildren actually – and I have a surprisingly good relationship with him. And I’m delighted with that. It could have been much worse. It could have been much harder. Do I regret not getting to see him or, in fact, not bringing him up? Yeah, I do, but he turned out to be a good fella. I’m proud of all my children. But it was also my choice. Whatever people might think of my choice, I made it – and I knew the risks. I knew that I could end up in jail and that I could end up having a short life. I was prepared to do it because I believed in what I was doing.

Your mother died when you were on the run. That must have been a very lonely period for you?
It was very difficult. My mother died after I escaped and was on the run in 1972. My father didn’t die until 1996. Almost everyone eventually loses their parents – unless they die before their parents – and it is always a traumatic experience anyway. I don’t want to insinuate that mine was more, but it was hard. I actually went to the funeral even though I was on the run. There was a fair crowd at the funeral – I took a chance – and there would have been a fight and I might have got away in the melee. As it turned out, they didn’t come for me – even though there was a British army garrison not far away. I didn’t stay. I just walked a short distance and all of that. And they didn’t have a great idea what I looked like at that stage. So, that worked for me.

After your release in 1989, was it difficult picking up your life?
Most prisoners who have done a long term in jail aren’t the same people. Maybe that’s a harsh way of putting it – but they change when in jail. How can you go through extreme circumstances and not be different? I would like to argue that it made me a better person – that it actually made me more tolerant. When you go into jail for any length of time, one thing that does not happen is that you stand still. You either go introverted – it does you damage – or else you use it as a positive experience. I’ve always had, to over simplify it, two priorities: one was to escape; the other was to educate – and in that order, which is why I always wanted to escape (laughs).
Did all these experiences – particularly the hunger strike – scar you?
No. This is an honest answer – when I was back in jail, it was like I was never out. But when I was out of jail, it was like I was never in. That’s the way my mind deals with it. It’s not as if I don’t remember – because you’ve heard me, Jason – I’ve remembered a lot of details. But I don’t linger on the fact that I was in jail for a long time. Every now and then I would get a dream where I’m back in jail – but, like, once a year; it’s not a recurring dream. I would wake up in a cold sweat but that’s all. Even with the hunger strike, I know a lot of people were affected by that – but I’m inclined to move on. It’s not to deny it happened. The fact that I can talk about it freely shows that it hasn’t really scarred me.

But did you ever suffer from depression?
It depends on what you’re talking about. If you are talking clinical depression, then the answer is no. But if you are talking about, “Are there times when you were really down in jail?”, yes. I can say now because I’m in my 50s, I was a kid that was being forced fed – it was people my age doing it. At times I was wondering what was going through their head. Part of me was a scared kid. I was a Republican, after bombing in England, in an English jail – so, was it a nervous situation? It was a very nervous situation.

How do ex-IRA members cope with returning to normality?
It’s interesting because the same phenomenon hit South Africa and you’ll find some people who became politicians and could really – not deal with it (pauses)… sometimes it might just be the pace of life. If you live on the run for a long time, if you’ve been in jail for a long time, you do get different perspectives of life. So, it’s hard, but also there have been many – and hopefully including myself – who have been able to deal with it. We are now in a different struggle. We are still going for the same aim of a united Ireland; of an Ireland of equals; of making a difference to the ordinary people in Ireland. We actually set up ex-prisoners groups deliberately to allow for – I don’t really like the word rehabilitation – re-integrating back into the communities. There is an adaptation of your beliefs into your new situation. Unfortunately, some people find it hard to cope and this is a general phenomenon in all sort of extreme circumstances after wars/conflicts – and we have to try and deal with that.

Ex-IRA members have become involved in criminal activities.
That has happened. I think it hasn’t been the phenomenon that people make it out to be – all these huge headlines about hit men and robberies. Generally, Republicans are very principled people. But have some done it? Of course they have. There are ex-British soldiers who are now in jail – you might get a shock there too!

Will you admit that there were mistakes made by the IRA?
I don’t think you’ll find anybody – probably including yourself – who would be able to say they have no regrets. In conflict, people get killed and there are mistakes made. I genuinely wish there had been no causalities, but I did make a decision to be involved in a military struggle many, many years ago. And, of course, there were mistakes – too many mistakes. Non-combatants were killed. And innocent people were killed. This is quite hard for Unionists to deal with – when you are trying to deal with what does a ‘victim’ mean. I use the sort of misquote that ‘a victim is a victim is a victim’. And some people did things that were deliberate – and not mistakes – and were wrong. It is not just mistakes – by accident somebody was killed – you can also make a decision which is wrong. You can also find some of the perpetrators, or those described as perpetrators, are also victims. If you went through, for instance, prisoners or ex-prisoners – you’ll find that they have lost loved ones; that they themselves have been shot, blown up, or all of that. So, mistakes were made on all sides. My only difficulty is that in propaganda terms, or in the media it is ‘Republicans made all the mistakes’. Clearly that’s not true.

You played a pivotal role in the Good Friday Agreement…
I don’t want to overplay my hand in this. I’m a team player. I was delighted to be on the team – to be at that level and involved in the negotiations. I still am involved in the negotiations. My importance or otherwise may be debatable, but certainly I was in the leadership of it.

How did the initial contact with the British government evolve?
There was always some kind of sporadic, or erratic, communication between Republicans and the British. That came to some sort of fruition in the early 1990s. Probably because Sinn Fein was already – especially through Gerry Adams – putting out the idea that we need to bring this to a resolution, that it needs to be negotiated etc, etc. Our peace strategy can be traced back to the 1980s. I went with Martin McGuinness – we were asked to go by the Ard Chomhairle of Sinn Fein – and we met secretly with a British delegation in March 1993, at which there was all sorts of things promised.

What were they promising you?
I remember this particular guy saying it was inevitable that there was going to be a united Ireland; they were going to leave and all of that. Our view has always been that people can tell you anything in a secret meeting – the best guarantee is to have those things in public and to have your public as a guarantor. This is a philosophy we have used right throughout the negotiations, but it was an important point, I think. Without putting too much importance on a single meeting it triggered off a series of negotiations.

Why did those negotiations appear to drag on and not result in a resolution until Blair arrived in power?
The Conservative government promised everything but were basically a minority government and were afraid to talk with us. Even though they were talking to us, they weren’t moving, until Labour achieved an historical majority. There used to be a very Republican belief – probably based on the example of Algeria and France – that it needed a Conservative government to pull out or to be able to negotiate with strength. My philosophy has always been that it had to be a government who had strength, whether that government was Labour or Conservative. Blair didn’t have to look over his shoulder. The negotiations took off after the Labour government came in.
Perhaps it was easier to deal with Blair because his mother is from Donegal and his wife is a Catholic.
I don’t know if that’s very relevant. The first key point was that he had the ability to negotiate because he had a huge majority. The second point was – he clearly had a willingness to try and sort this out and had the imagination to realise that there was a chance of getting a resolution as opposed to just dealing with this as a security matter.

What is your reaction to the recent comments by dissident Republicans vowing to carry out terrorist acts?
I think Martin McGuinness’s quote of “These are no-hopes” is – while it’s a bit provocative – quite accurate. Some of these people were not involved – some of them were – in the whole struggle and then all of a sudden they become very militant. They are some young people who’ve got caught up in it. They are very few. It is disappointing and it is also dangerous because I have to take these things seriously.

Have you been threatened yourself?
I have been getting threats for years. I’m used to threats. There’s threats from dissidents now. When it came home to me was when our children would say to me after hearing about the threats on the media, “Does that mean we have to be more careful?” I think, “First of all, they are worried about you and they are worried about themselves.” You have to take it seriously. I could dismiss it, in terms of, “We’ve heard all this before”. They are dangerous – they are not capable of having a strategy or doing massive damage. Unfortunately, however, anybody who deals in military activity – or bombs – can do good damage even in one act. That’s the danger in it all.