1981 Irish hunger strike

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The 1981 Irish Hunger Strike was a campaign by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland for the British government to grant them status as "political prisoners". It was a seminal event in modern Irish history. It radicalised nationalist politics, and was the driving force that enabled Sinn Féin to become a serious political force.

Contents 1 Background 2 First hunger strike 3 Second hunger strike 3.1 Other participants in the hunger strike 4 Consequences 5 Commemorations 6 References 7 Further information/sources

[edit] Background

There had been Irish republican hunger strikes since 1917. The deaths of Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan on hunger strike in the 1970's are often remembered alongside those of 1981. In 1976, as part of the policy of "criminalisation", the British Government ended the previous policy of giving Special Category Status to paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland prisons. The policy was not introduced for existing prisoners, but rather phased in for those newly convicted. Special Category, or political, status meant prisoners were treated very like prisoners of war, for example, not having to wear prison uniforms or do prison work. The end to Special Category Status was a serious threat to the authority which the paramilitary leaderships inside prison had been able to exercise over their own men, as well as being a propaganda blow.

[edit] First hunger strike

Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners (the first was Kieran Nugent) began the blanket protest in which prisoners would refuse to wear prison uniform and either went naked or fashioned garments from prison blankets. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to "slop out" (i.e., empty their chamber pots), this escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners not granted political status refused to wash and smeared the walls of their cells with excrement. These protests aimed to re-establish their privileges by securing what were known as the "Five Demands":

1. The right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. The right not to do prison work;
3. The right of free association with other prisoners;
4. The right to organise their own educational and recreational facilities;
5. The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.

Initially, this protest did not attract a great deal of attention, and even the Provisional IRA regarded it as a side-issue compared to their armed struggle. It began to attract attention when Tomas O Fiach, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, visited the prison and condemned the conditions there. In 1979, former MP Bernadette McAliskey stood in the election for the European parliament on a platform of support for the blanketmen, and won 5.9% of the vote across Northern Ireland, even though Sinn Féin had called for a boycott of this election. Shortly after this, the broad-based Smash H-Block Campaign was formed, on a platform of support for the Five Demands, with McAliskey as its main spokesperson.

The period leading up to the hunger strike saw a campaign of assassination carried out by both sides. The IRA shot and killed a number of prison officers; at the same time, loyalist paramilitaries shot and killed a number of activists in the Smash H-Block Campaign and badly injured McAliskey and her husband in an attempt on their lives.

In October 1980, seven republican prisoners in HM Prison Maze (alternatively known as "Long Kesh") began a hunger strike. The group consisted of IRA members Brendan Hughes, Tommy McKearney, Raymond McCartney, Tom McFeeley, Sean McKenna, Leo Green, and INLA member John Nixon. After a few weeks they were followed by three prisoners in Armagh Women's Prison, and then a short-lived hunger strike by several dozen more prisoners in Long Kesh. A number of Loyalist prisoners also started their own hunger strike after a few weeks, but they were accused of opportunism, attempting to win concessions on the backs of republicans without risking death or serious damage to their health. (No Loyalists or Armagh women took part in the 1981 hunger strike.) In a war of nerves between the PIRA leadership and the British government, with Sean McKenna close to death, the British government appeared to concede the prisoners' right to wear their own clothes. The strike was called off in December before any prisoners died.

[edit] Second hunger strike

After a few weeks it emerged that the British government were simply intending to give the prisoners the right to wear civilian-style clothing supplied by the prison, and had duped the hunger-strikers in the belief that no new hunger-strike would occur. On March 1, 1981, under the new PIRA Officer Commanding in Long Kesh, Bobby Sands, a second hunger strike began, with Sands himself the first to refuse food. The political atmosphere outside the prisons became tense, all over Ireland, with widespread rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.

Shortly after the beginning of the strike, the independent Irish republican MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone died and precipitated a high profile by-election. Sands was nominated as an Anti H-Block candidate, and was elected to the British House of Commons on April 9, 1981 with 30,492 votes to 29,046 for the Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West.

Three weeks later, Sands died from starvation in the prison hospital. The announcement of his death prompted several days of riots in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Over 100,000 people lined the route of his funeral.

Over the summer, nine more hunger strikers also died. The names of these people, their paramiltary affiliation, hometown, dates of death, and length of hunger strike are as follows:

	Paramilitary affiliation	Hometown	Date of death (1981)	Length of strike	Reason for imprisonment
Bobby Sands MP	Provisional IRA	Belfast (Twinbrook)	5 May	66 days	Possession of revolver from which bullets had been fired at police
Francis Hughes	PIRA	Bellaghy	12 May	59 days	Murder of soldier, wounding of soldier, various gun and bomb attacks
Raymond McCreesh	PIRA	Camlough	21 May	61 days	Attempted murder, possession of rifle, IRA membership
Patsy O’Hara	INLA	Derry	21 May	61 days	Possession of hand grenade
Joe McDonnell	PIRA	Belfast (Lenadoon)	8 July	61 days	Possession of a firearm
Martin Hurson	PIRA	Cappagh	13 July	46 days	Involvement in three IRA landmine incidents
Kevin Lynch	INLA	Dungiven	1 August	71 days	Stealing shotguns, taking part in punishment shooting
Kieran Doherty TD	PIRA	Belfast (Andersonstown)	2 August	73 days	Possession of firearms and explosives, hijacking
Thomas McElwee	PIRA	Bellaghy	8 August	62 days	Manslaughter of civilian
Michael Devine	INLA	Derry	20 August	60 days	Theft and arms possession

A number of protesting prisoners contested the general election in the Republic of Ireland in June. Paddy Agnew (who was not on hunger strike) and Kieran Doherty were elected in Louth and Cavan-Monaghan respectively, and Joe McDonnell narrowly missed election in Sligo-Leitrim. There were also local elections in Northern Ireland around that time and although Sinn Féin did not contest them, some smaller groups and independents who did support the hunger strikers had a few successes, e.g. the Irish Independence Party won 21 seats, while a joint campaign by the Irish Republican Socialist Party (the INLA's political wing) and People's Democracy (a Trotskyist group) won four seats on Belfast City Council.

The British parliament rushed through emergency legislation to prevent another prisoner contesting the second by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which was due to take place following the death of Sands. This by-election was won in August by Owen Carron, who had been Sands' election agent, standing as the prisoners' proxy candidate, with more votes but with a reduced majority.

In late summer, the hunger strike began to break, thanks in large part due to the actions of the radical Catholic priest, Fr. Denis Faul, who intervened with hunger strikers' families after they had lost consciousness to urge them to give consent to the prison authorities for their relatives to be fed by drip. The first prisoner whose family intervened was Paddy Quinn. After this happened with a number of other prisoners, on 3 October 1981, the PIRA and INLA called off the hunger strike.

Recently the role of Gerry Adams (President of Sinn Féin) has been questioned. Richard O'Rawe, the Republican public relations officer (PRO) in the H blocks after the death of Sands when Bik McFarlane moved from PRO to CO alleges in his book Blanketmen (2005) that Adams prolonged the strike as it was of great political benefit to Sinn Féin and allowed Owen Carron win Sands' seat.^{[1] [2]} This claim is denied by several hunger strikers and Brendan McFarlane.^[3]

[edit] Other participants in the hunger strike

Although ten men died during the course of the hunger strike, thirteen other men began refusing food but were taken off it, either due to medical reasons or after intervention by their families deciding that their relative's death would be futile. Many of them still suffer from the effects of the strike with problems including digestive, visual, physical and neurological disabilities.^[4][5]

They were:

• Brendan McLaughlin, PIRA, joined the hunger strike on 14 May 1981 and was taken off the strike on 26 May 1981 when he suffered a perforated ulcer and internal bleeding.
• Paddy Quinn, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 15 June 1981 and was taken off the strike on 31 July 1981 by his family after 47 days without food.
• Laurence McKeown, PIRA, joined hunger strike 29 June 1981 was taken off the strike on 6 September 1981 by his family after 70 days without food.
• Patrick McGeow, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 9 July 1981 was taken off the strike on 20 August 1981 by his family after 42 days without food.
• Matt Devlin, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 14 July 1981 was taken off the strike on 4 September 1981 by his family after 52 days without food.
• Liam McCloskey, INLA, joined hunger strike on 3 August 1981 and ended the strike on 26 September 1981 after 55 days without food when it became clear that his family would intervene to save his life if he became unconscious.
• Patrick Sheehan, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 10 August 1981 and ended the strike on 3 October 1981 after 55 days without food.
• Jackie McMullan, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 17 August 1981 ended the strike on 3 October 1981 after 48 days without food.
• Bernard Fox, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 24 August 1981 and was taken off the strike on 24 September 1981 when his medical condition deteriorated after 32 days without food.
• Hugh Carville, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 31 August 1981 and ended the strike on 3 October 1981 after 34 days without food.
• John Pickering, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 7 September 1981 and ended the strike 3 October 1981 after 27 days without food.
• Gerard Hodgkins, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 14 September 1981 and ended the strike on 3 October 1981 after 20 days without food.
• James Devine, PIRA, joined hunger strike on 21 September 1981 and ended the strike on 3 October 1981 after 13 days without food.

[edit] Consequences

The Hunger Strike heralded an upsurge of violence after the comparatively quiet years of the late 1970s, with widespread civil disorder in Northern Ireland and serious unrest in the Republic of Ireland, including rioting outside the British Embassy in Dublin. There was extensive international condemnation of Britain's handling of the hunger strikes, with streets in Paris being named after the Hunger Strikers. It resulted in a new surge of IRA activity, with the group obtaining many more members. It prompted the republican movement to move towards electoral politics – Sands' success combined with that of pro-Hunger Strike candidates in the Northern Ireland local elections and Dáil elections in the Republic of Ireland gave birth to the armalite and ballot box strategy. Sinn Féin gained 5 seats out of 78 in the 1982 elections to the NI Assembly and a seat in the 1983 UK general election.

[edit] Commemorations

The people of Hartford, Connecticut, in the United States dedicated a monument to Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers in 1997. The monument stands in a traffic circle known as "Bobby Sands Circle", at the bottom of Maple Avenue near Goodwin Park.

The Iranian government named a street in Tehran after Bobby Sands. (It was formerly Winston Churchill Street.) It runs alongside the British embassy. ^[6]

The events of the strike are the basis for the 1996 film Some Mother's Son.

Radio Eclectica has sound versions of several songs concerning the hunger strike,[1] including "the H Block Song" by former Long Kesh Internee Francie Brolly, So I'll Wear No Convict's Uniform, Joe McDonnell, and the Black 47 song Bobby Sands, M.P..

In 2006, a diverse group of Irish Republicans in Chicago, IL came together to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Hunger Strike under the banner "Chicago Hunger Strike Commemoration Committee."

For a more detailed list of commemorations see the Bobby Sands page.

[edit] References

[edit] Further information/sources

• Bobby Sands Trust
• Beresford, David Ten Men Dead
• Coogan, Tim Pat On The Blanket (A Republican perspective)
• Hunger Strikes (General)
• Hunger Strikes BBC History
• Irish Hungerstrike Irish Hungerstrike Commemorative Project
• Hungerstrikers Hunger Strikers Memorial, Hartford, CT, USA
• Ten Criminals FAIR Research and Policy Unit (A Unionist organisation)