JOHN LONERGAN is an angry man. After the successful conclusion of the Mountjoy siege, the governor of Mountjoy might have hoped for some credit for himself and his staff. Some 53 hours of negotiations led six violent prisoners to free their four prison officer hostages on Monday night with no loss of life and no physical harm to either side.

"It was a wonderful achievement by the prison staff," he said, afterwards. But he does not hear that reflected on the airwaves. The media and the public seem to be focused on claims of violence towards prisoners rather than by them.

"There's an image that we do nothing but brutalise people, but we destroyed that image over the three days of the siege," he said, reflecting on the traumatic events. "Our top priority at all times was to end it peacefully."

He says the key to the success of the negotiations was that prison staff knew the prisoners involved and were able to keep talking to them throughout the siege.

"If they were brutalising the prisoners, they'd have no relationship with them, and they wouldn't have been able to talk to them."

What about a recent book which portrayed life in Mountjoy as extremely violent? "A rubbish book," he says. Officers do not assault prisoners; and, if a prisoner is assaulted by another, "within seconds there's a response from staff."

As for the separation unit, the section of the prison where the siege took place, Lonergan says: "I reject out of hand any suggestion that prisoners there are subjected to brutalised treatment. I can vouch for that, I can absolutely state that they were not being brutalised.

Neither does he give credence to the suggestion that prisoners' complaints never get beyond the end of their corridor. "They have the Minister, the Council of Europe, the High Court, the visiting committee ... and they all have solicitors. Every complaint made to us is passed on. I'm duty bound to pass it on.

In the aftermath of the crisis the governor has been able to reflect on the prisoners' motives, which were never clear during the siege. He is sure they did not initiate the drama to complain about conditions or their innocence of any charges.

"There's no way I'll ever believe that it was to do with conditions. They had a bigger agenda. What's the biggest agenda for a prisoner? It's to escape. It's not to go up on the roof."

The six men who grabbed the prison officers had a plan. "But, they were confined to that area and they hadn't any opportunity to escape. They were unable to pursue their agenda.

The officers who were taken hostage were severely traumatised. "They have had a horrific experience, but I'm looking forward to the day when they are fit and well and can return to duty."

During the siege the prisoners repeatedly threatened to harm hostages. They were armed with two tubular steel bars - table legs - as well as at least one blood filled syringe.

They also made a noose from an electrical cable in the ceiling, forced a prison officer to stand on a table and placed the noose around his neck. They constantly threatened to kick the table away. "It was the worst crisis I ever came across", says Lonergan.

DURING the siege a team of negotiators at the unit spoke to the prisoners through a window while Lonergan remained in his office in a building just inside the prison gate. He says this was part of the strategy worked out during training for hostage situations.

"If you're the person making, decisions, you have to be back, from it. You can't be up close, there's a psychological pressure, and people can look for an answer from you immediately. So, when something is demanded by the prisoners, the person negotiating says `Right, I'll pass that on up the line'."

Lonergan says that it is a mark of the professionalism of prison staff that the hostage takers were not even verbally abused, let alone physically abused, when they gave up their hostages and emerged from the separation unit on Monday night. "Nobody even spoke to them," he says.

The six were transferred to Portlaoise, where they are in close confinement and are being denied privileges such as visits, telephone calls and newspapers for two months.

After 29 years in the prison service and 12 years as a Grade I Governor, Lonergan has built a reputation as a "progressive man who thinks about the causes of crime and the way prisoners should be treated. Does he feel any differently after the siege?

"How do you define progressive? That depends where you're going to and where you're coming from. What I do believe in is basic humanity, in treating people humanely."

There is a core of prisoners, he says, who tend to be violent and have to be controlled. "Whatever is needed to control them should be done. But it still has to be humane. They still have to get heat, good food, medical attention and so on."

Mountjoy staff will be meeting on Monday to discuss the siege and may call for a vote of confidence in the governor. They will also discuss what types of controls should be in place for the most violent prisoners.

Lonergan says many lessons will be learnt from the siege. One problem which emerged was difficulty with the media, with one newspaper printing a report describing how an explosives expert had examined the door to the separation unit during the siege to see whether it could be blown in if the unit was stormed. The newspaper, was demanded by the prisoners, but withheld from them, leading to one of the most dangerous phases of the siege.

But Lonergan hopes that the main lesson will be learnt by any prisoners who might consider taking hostages in the future. "It was a futile, useless, stupid and dangerous exercise," he says.