'There's good in everyone - and if you look for bad, you'll get it'

THE SATURDAY INTERVIEW:After running a model prison for women and then resigning as that model was undermined, Kathleen McMahonis not one for going quietly

IF YOU didn’t know the occupation of the woman opposite, you would never guess. The chatty, trusting manner, the wry, country humour, the soft, Cavan accent, the tears welling in the softly made-up blue eyes . . .

The air of authority is there all the same: quiet, almost indiscernible, the kind that has no need to assert itself. When I order the coffee, the waitress leaves me to lorry it outside by myself, struggling through a couple of heavy doors. When Kathleen McMahon orders, the waitress ferries it out without a murmur.

Still, her eyes well when she talks about the staff meeting where she announced her retirement and her last words of guidance: "One, treat people with respect and dignity, and that goes for your colleagues, for the women here, for their families and the people who visit. Two: always err on the side of humanity. And three: don't do wrong to anybody." She wanted no leaving functions, she added, because she wanted to go out "nice and quietly". Why? "Because I'd be too emotional," she says, her voice cracking again. "The mascara would be running down my face." Really? " Of courseI'd be emotional," she says, with an astonished smile. "I was crying. . ."

Immediately after the staff meeting, she went to see the women, adding her tears to their tearful huddles. “This is a very small country. I used to be looking at those women – young girls, usually – coming in and I’d be thinking, ‘I must know somebody belonging to you’.” Afterwards many of them wrote to her, cards with the odd holy picture, poem or book token, all with heartfelt messages, many carrying more than a hint of self-awareness.

“I no doubt deserve my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserve you as my friend.” “Thank you so much for all you have done for me, to be honest I didn’t appreciate it at the time but now I do.” “Thank you for everything you done for me over the past months you seen me the evening that I came in to prison just before I went up to healthcare at about 6.30pm and you were as nice to me then as you are now.” “Thank you so much for giving me the day with my son on his birthday . . . Me and my son were so happy together.” “You have shown great faith in me and I promise you, you won’t ever regret it. You gave me hope when I didn’t think it was possible.” “I am relly going to miss you you are the best governor and I don’t think that anyone can ever take your place miss you love from . . .” Others were from the mothers of prisoners: “Thank you for much for looking after [name] so well. Your thoughtfulness and kindness is much appreciated.”

And from a prison befriender: “You are fair, just and honest – a woman of integrity . . . You carried so many of these women like footprints in the sand . . .” To these women and the many who visited Dóchas women’s prison (including foreign academics, politicians and numerous delegations, including one from China), as observers of a model prison, the fact that she has retired at the young age of 53 must seem like an unfortunate loss. That she retired in frustration at deteriorating conditions seems like carelessness on someone’s part.

"Please don't mention the bunk beds," she implores, aware of the impression that she flounced out in protest solely at the imposition of extra bunk beds in the single-person rooms. Things were already deteriorating well before that, she says. "Things were getting more strict, there was more control. Things were starting to be done centrally where they hadn't been before. They will continue to be done – and I don't think anyone is going to speak out . . . I gave the Irish Timesinterview [stating her reasons for resignation] for the sake of the women's prison, not for me. It had to be dealt with . . . I was getting more and more frustrated, sick of it."

For a woman driven by the belief that “there is good in every person – and if you look for the bad, you’ll certainly get it”, and that “it’s not the end of the world if, having considered the consequences, you bend the rules and maybe give someone a telephone call or an extra visit”, this new pressure from above was unwarranted and intolerable. “I was very proud of all that was achieved in the women’s prison but, little-by-little, things were being taken away. After 33 years, my opinion maybe wasn’t as valued as it should have been. There was a questioning of everything . . . I used to say to myself: ‘Who’s going to look out for these women?’ The general public think of women prisoners as dreadful. I do believe they are viewed differently to male prisoners. Oh yes, absolutely. The minute a woman comes in to prison, she’s in the papers for evermore. You will almost never hear about a man afterwards. But I think there’s some kind of a fantasy around women in prison.”

In whose mind? "You see it in certain papers all the time. Even when the Evening Heraldwas reporting my retirement, it had to link it with all the high profile women. In the past, some papers have linked [sexually] some of the high profile women to some who are not and who would be very, very vulnerable. And there would be notruth in it. None. I don't understand how people can print stuff like that when it's lies. I am notconcerned about someone's sexual orientation. If someone is a lesbian, that's a whole different thing. My concern is that young, vulnerable women would come in, be subjected to pressure and get lured into sexual abuse where there is overcrowding. It's most certainly not about lesbianism. Two weeks before I left, there were 137 women in a place designed for 81. Obviously there is going to be more pressure. If people have no connection with the prison system, they believe what is written in those papers. Of course the other side is, you have the partners of the women and how it's affecting them. They could believe it and be gone. You also have the children, who have to attend school. They didn't commit any crime, nor did their families."

The “sarcastic” tabloid stories about pampering regimes – spray tans and daily hairdos – are particularly irksome to her. “It works two ways: first of all, the majority of the women have very low self-esteem and dreadful lives and, if you can encourage them by getting their hair done, putting on a little bit of make-up, manicuring their nails, it builds their self-esteem and helps to pass a little time. Then there’s the training aspect: a part of the workshops inside is the hairdressing salon. The way they are trained is to do each other’s hair. These are things that women do. There would never be any controversy about a man working in a woodwork or metalwork shop – and the women inside do that as well. In the summer they paint every room in the place, keep the gardens, work in the kitchen, but you’ll never hear that in the media.”

Over and over, she returns to her central belief: there are distinct differences between men and women prisoners. “The big difference is that women don’t need as much security. Yet most prisons here were designed for men by men. Men can go to Loughan House, Shelton Abbey, to the midlands, to Castlerea, to the training unit. They have a choice of open and closed prisons. If you’re a woman, you have no choice. It’s Dóchas or a wing in Limerick prison, which is just grim. There are at least 70 women in Dóchas who are not locked into their rooms at night at all. They have full access around the house and there’s hardly ever a problem. They could be in an open centre, like Shelton Abbey, where they could walk around. Where they are is a committal prison, where people are coming and going and it’s all very unsettling. Yet very seldom have you ever heard of major trouble in a women’s prison; very seldom do you hear of assaults and there is no segregation. No matter what the crime, they get on together. But that’s the result of a lot of hard work; I put in a lot of work to achieve that. It’s done knowing that women need a little bit of space. The issues are different. It’s said that when men go to prison, they leave their problems outside. When I looked out my office window, the majority of those visiting the men were women – partners and wives who keep the home and family intact until the man comes out. When women come to prison, a lot of the time the partners are gone when they come out.

“The majority of the women have children to quite a few partners – so they do a lot of worrying inside. Women are more vocal. You’ll hear hospital nurses say that it’s more difficult to work in a women’s ward, because women worry. It could be about the home, bills, is the corporation going to take the house and are the kids going to be taken into care? And then, of course, there’s the whole worry about communions, confirmations, Christmas – about paying for them. Those are the times when they would go into prostitution.”

At a Christmas party a couple of years ago, it was noted that 18 young women had died within a year of leaving the prison. “Many live terrible lives. Many have been sexually abused, or raped, working on the streets, battered, beaten, no money, absolutely nothing. All they want is somebody to listen and the staff go way above and beyond the call of duty to do that. The chaplain, Sr Mary Mullen, listens – by God does she listen! The queues are outside her door every day, a mile long . . . I could spend a whole day talking to someone who was new in, listening, often contacting a mother who I’d got to know over the years. The number of addicts who have gone out clean is excellent, contrary to what is said.

“But the complex was designed for 81 people. That was the whole point – that they would go out better people. It’s very easy to say they’re all dreadful. I don’t deny there are people in for horrific crimes and, of course, there are the victims out there. But there will always be victims if the prison doesn’t help to rehabilitate these women in one way or another. Part of the Irish Prison Service remit is to rehabilitate people, not to punish them more. Yet no-one else is speaking out? I suppose it’s a male-oriented job. There is no female governor now that I’ve left. Women do think differently to men. I probably wouldn’t be as vocal as men but I’d probably stand up for my principles more. They can say all the right things but they mightn’t be able to stand over those things.” That said, she found John Lonergan, the governor of Mountjoy to be “a man with vision and extremely supportive”.

The worst thing that happened to her in her career was having to cut down a young woman who had hung herself with knitting wool brought in by her mother to keep her occupied. McMahon was only in her 20s then. It took several years for her to get over it. “I used to think about it regularly.” Then again, although born on a small farm near Bailieborough, Co Cavan, she had already experienced life’s harsh vagaries by the time she boarded a bus for Dublin after her Leaving Cert at Bailieborough Vocational School in 1973. She was only 13 when she witnessed her father’s sudden death from a heart attack, at the age of 47. As well as the personal devastation for her mother, Tessie, and the four children, his death also meant the loss of the family’s main support, his “hard, tough” factory job at the Irish Foundry. The family all worked to support themselves and were lucky in their neighbours. Tessie (85 this week) was taught to drive by a local priest, Fr Oliver O’Reilly, then went out and minded children. Kathleen and her older sister worked on local farms – picking potatoes, making hay, feeding animals – and took charge of a grocery shop in the town while the owners were away.

Strong at French, English and science, she started her Dublin job search with temporary teaching jobs in the inner city. Then she took a job in the office at Jeyes in Finglas where her sister worked. None of it appealed to her. Centred perhaps by her early experiences and the sense that all three siblings were set to emigrate, her first requirement was security, permanence, “a good pensionable job”. She was 19 when she joined the civil service as a prison officer in Mountjoy women’s prison, then based in St Patrick’s Institution, with just 24 women in custody.

Then, after a couple of years as a “housemother” in Loughan House, a juvenile detention centre in Cavan where the “Bugsy Malones” (the scare of the era) were detained, she returned to Dublin, where Catherine Comerford had taken over as chief officer: “Catherine was very young then and did so much. She never got the credit for what she did.” From there on, McMahon rose steadily through the ranks, culminating in her appointment as governor of the newly-built Dóchas, which she opened.

Money never interested her and played no part in her retirement: “Last year, everyone else was trying to get out before the Budget – I hadn’t a clue . . .”

If some might detect a wistful air about her decision, she is quick to counter it. “I am decisive,” she says. And Brian Purcell, director general of the Irish Prison Service, did invite her to re-consider, but she adds: “I had my mind made up.”

So what now? She has shared her life in a north city suburb with Gerard, her partner of “20 to 25 years” (she is always vague about dates) and values a tight group of women friends who delight in “any cause for a celebration”. She enjoys a walk in the Phoenix Park and travel. “I should have gone to Spain on the 19th of April but couldn’t because of the ash. If I’d gone, I could have stayed forever.”

She visits her brother in New York often and talks affectionately about her “wonderful” nieces, Ciara and Aoife, the small daughters of her second brother, who lives in Dundalk and who lost his wife tragically early at 35. Her sister lives at home with their feisty mother: “She has the patience of Job – and allows the rest of us to sleep at night.”

She’s been told there’s a good pension awaiting her but doesn’t appear to have much of a meas for money beyond liking a good car and a glass of wine or two. But where does a prison governor who prides herself on her mediation/listening skills take herself at 53?

“I’m not going to do anything in the summer, just going to take time out somewhere between the country and Dublin. Then I’m debating doing some kind of a course. Life-coaching has been mentioned by several people. And I’ll do some kind of voluntary work.” Her current cause is D15 Charity (D15charity.com). “We’re looking for a guest speaker for our lunch on May 21st. Any ideas?”

EARLY YEARSBorn February 13th, 1957, in Copponagh, Bailieboro, Co Cavan, to Tessie and the late Bartle McMahon, who died when she was 13. Completed her education after her Leaving Cert at Bailieboro Vocational School.

CAREERJoined the prison service at 19 and gained steady promotion through the ranks, culminating as governor of Dóchas Women's Prison, Mountjoy. Resigned because her position had become "impossible" due to overcrowding and a move away from progressive rehabilitation policies.

PIVOTAL MOMENT"I was fortunate to encounter an [unnamed] excellent mentor who believed in me and encouraged me to develop my gifts. I learned a lot from this person about trusting your instincts, humanity and justice."