Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-25T00:33:21.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - ‘At first she refused to say how she got it’

Networks of Acquisition

from Case Study 4 - ‘A person of very superior attainments’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2020

Elaine Farrell
Affiliation:
Queen's University Belfast
Get access

Summary

The historian can glimpse prison networks, and connections between incarcerated participant women, at points where their activities clashed with prison regulations. Evidence of prison exchange networks was revealed when collusion was reported to officials, when illicit material goods were discovered on bodies or in cells, or when gossip about another inmate or staff member reached staff ears. Chapter 4 interrogates information and material goods transactions to discover the workings of networks and relationships behind bars. It offers an insight into ways the prison economy could facilitate networks that enabled women of different ages, backgrounds and circumstances to connect. The chapter is divided into three distinct sections. The first examines the exchange of information in prison, the second focuses on material goods networks, and the third considers how exchanges of information and goods impacted power relations and hierarchies. Evidence of female networks and partnerships indicates convict ingenuity and enterprise, cooperation and collusion. The prison thus offers a snapshot of nineteenth-century Irish society and a glimpse of (predominantly lower-class) female networks and relationships. This chapter demonstrates that in prison, as on the outside, community networks and cooperation were vital for social and economic survival.

Type
Chapter
Information
Women, Crime and Punishment in Ireland
Life in the Nineteenth-Century Convict Prison
, pp. 181 - 204
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×