Seán’s experience relates to the Ballyfermot/Coolock feud but it could just as easily relate to the Crumlin/Drimagh feud, the Keane-Collopy/McCarthy-Dundon feud or the hostilities between various paramilitary groups down through the years. Prison gangs and the associated violence have existed for as long as there have been prisons.

Prosecutions relating to prisoner-on-prisoner violence are rare, because few prisoners, including the victims, are reckless enough to give evidence against one another. At most, the incident Seán described would have appeared as a statistic in the assault figures released yearly by the Irish Prison Service (IPS). It’s a problem which rarely enters the public consciousness. This is what gang violence looks like in prison. That was one day of absolute mayhem and bedlam. And every time he screamed, the gash just got bigger and bigger and bigger. “I remember one guy going by me and he had no side of his face, it was just gone.

“On this particular day I saw things that I guarantee the Hollywood special effects people wouldn’t be able to create.

Inter-prisoner violence is likely under-reported as many prisoners decline to tell the authorities they have been attacked

“I remember one day, every time that cell door opened, two minutes later that alarm went off and we went back in,” Seán recalls (like most others interviewed for this article Seán has asked to remain anonymous due to the subject matter). Gangs from Ballyfermot and Coolock had been feuding and brawls had become a regular occurrence. Whenever there is a major fight in Mountjoy, prisoners are locked back in their cells while a siren rings to get all available officers to the scene and alert medics to standby. In 2013, Seán had just been transferred to C-Wing when the alarm went off.

Mount & blade prisoners