IF THE IRA ceasefire had held, any remaining republican prisoners in the State would be sitting down to roast rib of beef this lunchtime.
Here is today's menu at Castlerea Place of Detention in Co Roscommon: leek soup to start, followed by the roast beef and brown gravy, with mashed turnips and whole peeled potatoes. For dessert a fresh fruit salad, topped with cream. Tea tonight is scrambled eggs on toast.
If you believe that jail should properly be a place of punishment, as well as detention, please read no further: it may put you off your breakfast.
The fare on offer at Castlerea - during a carefully balanced 28 day "diet and menu cycle" - includes the following: roast stuffed chicken, roast leg of mutton, chicken chasseur, fresh cod in breadcrumbs, roast leg of pork and apple sauce, glazed turnip batons, southern fried chicken, braised liver, lentil soup, and sherry trifle and cream.
A reasonably wide variety of vegetables and salads accompanies the main meals. Breakfast includes a choice of All Bran, bran flakes, cornflakes, Krispies, muesli, porridge or Weetabix, as well as tea or coffee and toast and marmalade.
A full breakdown of the menu was given to journalists during a remarkably open visit last week, during which the journalists were invited to go wherever they chose within the prison's forbidding seven metre perimeter wall.
In the notes which accompany the menu, the governor, Mr Dan Scannell, writes: "Despite the amount of activity available to offenders in all the prisons and places of detention, being in custody can be quite boring. It is intended that with the introduction of a 28 day menu cycle the grub being offered is not boring and, in particular, that no day within the cycle can be identified with any particular dish.
The low security detention unit at Castlerea opened last year in response to political pressure from the area, when a depressed local economy led townspeople to cry out for any project with the promise of a few jobs. The benefits to the town so far have been minimal, but that may change a building proceeds on a new maximum security prison next door.
The present set up represents a bold departure for the prison system originally conceived as a transfer station for republican prisoners on their way to an early release. It has now been reinvented as a place where "ordinary" criminals can serve out their last days in custody in relative comfort.
Twenty five prisoners are housed there at present, out of a target number of 40. They include a number of wealthy farmers and a vet who have been convicted of offences involving illegal growth promoters. According to one prison officer, they were transferred down from Mountjoy almost immediately following their convictions.
One of the striking features of Castlerea is the absence of conventional cells, although there is one isolation cell where a prisoner can be kept if he "loses the head". According to Mr Scannell it has not yet been used.
The prisoners are housed in two large two storey houses, which were already on the grounds when the former psychiatric hospital was earmarked for a prison. Other accommodation is provided in one of three purpose built bungalows.
The accommodation is modern and of a high standard, with built in wardrobes in the bedrooms and all the usual fittings in the kitchens, including fridges, cookers and microwave ovens. A television set and a fireplace in the sitting rooms complete the illusion of normality.
There are some single and double bedrooms, as well as others housing larger numbers. The prisoners are free to take a shower as often as they like, although one supervised shower a week is mandatory.
For exercise they can walk the 25 acres of grounds or use one of three £1,000 exercise bike in the gym. A rowing machine will shortly be installed. The recreation room has a pool table, table tennis, a special television with satellite TV and the terrestrial channels, chess and draughts.
There are few restrictions on visitors, according to Mr Scannell.
"The prison is run on the basis that the people will get what they would get if they were on civvy street. They get the same treatment."
This includes access to a cardphone, with cards for sale in the tuck shop. "No more than visits, nobody is ever refused a phone call. We have to keep some control on the regime we operate here, but it's flexible," he says.
Day work includes catering, cleaning and gardening. A small bakery is being built, as are some craft workshops. Library books are supplied by the county library.
The most radical departure, however, is a scheme under consideration by which prisoners would be given a weekly allowance and told to budget for themselves.
"Our aim, as part of the prerelease programme, is that we would give the prisoners an allowance, £40 or £50 a week, and let them spend it themselves and live on it Rather than what we call `hotel treatment' - by that I mean we do all the thinking - we call them and get them up and spend their money and the food is there.
"Let them do it themselves give them an allowance and if they run short, well, then they go hungry," says Mr Scannell.
Another key concept, if you'll pardon the pun, is the arrangement whereby prisoners are given keys to their own rooms, and the front doors of the houses they live in. It is dramatic illustration of the trust and drive towards "normalisation" that underlies almost everything in Castlerea.