1981 Irish hunger strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during
The second hunger strike took place in 1981 and was a showdown between the prisoners and the
Background
The use of a hunger strike as a means of protest in
After the introduction of
Blanket and dirty protests
On 14 September 1976, newly convicted prisoner
- the right not to wear a prison uniform;
- the right not to do prison work;
- the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
- the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
- full restoration of remission lost through the protest.[9]
Initially, this protest did not attract a great deal of attention, and even the IRA regarded it as a side-issue compared to their armed campaign.
Shortly after this, the broad-based National H-Block/Armagh Committee was formed, on a platform of support for the "Five Demands", with McAliskey as its main spokesperson.[15][16] The period leading up to the hunger strike saw assassinations by both republicans and loyalists. The IRA shot and killed a number of prison officers,[10][17] while loyalist paramilitaries shot and killed a number of activists in the National H-Block/Armagh Committee and badly injured McAliskey and her husband in an attempt on their lives.[18][19]
1980 hunger strike
On 27 October 1980, republican prisoners in HM Prison Maze began a hunger strike. One hundred and forty-eight prisoners volunteered to be part of the strike, but a total of seven were selected to match the number of men who signed the Easter 1916 Proclamation of the Republic.[20][21] The group consisted of IRA members Brendan Hughes, Tommy McKearney, Raymond McCartney, Tom McFeely, Sean McKenna, Leo Green, and INLA member John Nixon.[21]
On 1 December three prisoners in
1981 hunger strike
In January 1981, it became clear that the prisoners' demands had not been conceded. Prison authorities began to supply the prisoners with officially issued civilian clothing, whereas the prisoners demanded the right to wear their own clothing. On 4 February, the prisoners issued a statement saying that the British government had failed to resolve the crisis and declared their intention of "hunger striking once more".[22] The second hunger strike began on 1 March, when Bobby Sands, the IRA's former officer commanding (OC) in the prison, refused food. A statement from the prisoners was issued by Danny Morrison:
We have asserted that we are political prisoners and everything about our country, our arrests, interrogations, trials, and prison conditions, show that we are politically motivated and not motivated by selfish reasons or for selfish ends. As further demonstration of our selflessness and the justness of our cause a number of our comrades, beginning today with Bobby Sands, will hunger-strike to the death unless the British government abandons its criminalization policy and meets our demand for political status.[23]
Unlike the first strike, the prisoners joined one at a time and at staggered intervals, which they believed would arouse maximum public support and exert maximum pressure on Prime Minister
After negotiations they agreed not to split the nationalist vote by contesting the election and Sands stood as an Anti H-Block candidate against Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West.[25][26] Following a high-profile campaign the election took place on 9 April, and Sands was elected to the British House of Commons with 30,492 votes to West's 29,046.[27]
Sands' election victory raised hopes that a settlement could be negotiated, but Thatcher stood firm in refusing to give concessions to the hunger strikers. She stated "We are not prepared to consider special category status for certain groups of people serving sentences for crime. Crime is crime is crime, it is not political".[28] The world's media descended on Belfast, and several intermediaries visited Sands in an attempt to negotiate an end to the hunger strike, including Síle de Valera, granddaughter of Éamon de Valera, Pope John Paul II's personal envoy John Magee, and European Commission of Human Rights officials.[2][29] With Sands close to death, the government's position remained unchanged, with Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Humphrey Atkins stating "If Mr. Sands persisted in his wish to commit suicide, that was his choice. The Government would not force medical treatment upon him".[29]
Deaths and end of strike
On 5 May, Sands died in the prison hospital on the 66th day of his hunger strike, prompting rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.[1] Humphrey Atkins issued a statement saying that Sands had committed suicide "under the instructions of those who felt it useful to their cause that he should die".[30] More than 100,000 people lined the route of his funeral, which was conducted with full IRA military honours. Margaret Thatcher showed no sympathy for his death, telling the House of Commons that "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organisation did not allow to many of its victims".[29]
In the two weeks following Sands' death, three more hunger strikers died.
Nine protesting prisoners contested the
Following the deaths of Joe McDonnell and Martin Hurson, the families of some of the hunger strikers attended a meeting on 28 July with Catholic priest Father Denis Faul. The families expressed concern at the lack of a settlement to the priest, and a decision was made to meet with Gerry Adams later that day. At the meeting Father Faul put pressure on Adams to find a way of ending the strike, and Adams agreed to ask the IRA leadership to order the men to end the hunger strike.[37] The following day Adams held a meeting with six of the hunger strikers to outline a proposed settlement on offer from the British government should the strike be brought to an end.[38] The six men rejected the settlement, believing that accepting anything less than the "Five Demands" would be a betrayal of the sacrifice made by Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers who had died.[39]
On 31 July, the hunger strike began to break, when the mother of Paddy Quinn insisted on medical intervention to save his life. The following day Kevin Lynch died, followed by Kieran Doherty on 2 August, Thomas McElwee on 8 August and Michael Devine on 20 August.[40] On the day Devine died, Sands' election agent Owen Carron won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election with an increased number of votes.[41]
On 6 September, the family of
The strike was called off at 3:15 pm on 3 October.[42] Three days later, Prior announced partial concessions to the prisoners including the right to wear their own clothes at all times.[3] The only one of the "Five Demands" still outstanding was the right not to do prison work. Following sabotage by the prisoners and the Maze Prison escape in 1983, the prison workshops were closed, effectively granting all of the "Five Demands" but without any formal recognition of political status from the government.[43]
Participants who died on hunger strike
Name | Paramilitary affiliation | Strike started | Length of strike | Date of death | Age at death |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bobby Sands | IRA | 1 March | 66 days | 5 May | 27 |
Francis Hughes | IRA | 15 March | 59 days | 12 May | 25 |
Raymond McCreesh | IRA | 22 March | 61 days | 21 May | 24 |
Patsy O'Hara | INLA | 22 March | 61 days | 21 May | 23 |
Joe McDonnell | IRA | 8 May | 61 days | 8 July | 29 |
Martin Hurson | IRA | 28 May | 46 days | 13 July | 24 |
Kevin Lynch | INLA | 23 May | 71 days | 1 August | 25 |
Kieran Doherty | IRA | 22 May | 73 days | 2 August | 25 |
Thomas McElwee | IRA | 8 June | 62 days | 8 August | 23 |
Michael Devine | INLA | 22 June | 60 days | 20 August | 27 |
The original
Other participants in the hunger strike
Although ten men died during the course of the hunger strike, thirteen others began refusing food but were taken off hunger strike, either due to medical reasons or after intervention by their families. Many of them still suffer from the effects of the strike, with problems including digestive, visual, physical and neurological disabilities.[45][46]
Name | Paramilitary affiliation | Strike started | Length of strike | Strike ended | Reason for ending strike |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brendan McLaughlin | IRA | 14 May | 13 days | 26 May | Suffering from a perforated ulcer and internal bleeding[47] |
Paddy Quinn | IRA | 15 June | 47 days | 31 July | Taken off by his family[47] |
Laurence McKeown | IRA | 29 June | 70 days | 6 September | Taken off by his family[47] |
Pat McGeown | IRA | 9 July | 42 days | 20 August | Taken off by his family[47] |
Matt Devlin | IRA | 14 July | 52 days | 4 September | Taken off by his family[47] |
Liam McCloskey | INLA | 3 August | 55 days | 26 September | His family said they would intervene if he became unconscious[47] |
Patrick Sheehan
|
IRA | 10 August | 55 days | 3 October | End of hunger strike[47] |
Jackie McMullan | IRA | 17 August | 48 days | 3 October | End of hunger strike[47] |
Bernard Fox | IRA | 24 August | 32 days | 24 September | Suffering from an obstructed kidney[47][48] |
Hugh Carville | IRA | 31 August | 34 days | 3 October | End of hunger strike[47] |
John Pickering | IRA | 7 September | 27 days | 3 October | End of hunger strike[47] |
Gerard Hodgins | IRA | 14 September | 20 days | 3 October | End of hunger strike[47] |
James Devine | IRA | 21 September | 13 days | 3 October | End of hunger strike[47] |
Impact of the hunger strike
The British press hailed the hunger strike as a triumph for Thatcher, with
As with
The IRA
The hunger strike prompted Sinn Féin to move towards electoral politics. Sands' election victory, 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
In 2005, the role of Gerry Adams was questioned by former prisoner Richard O'Rawe, who was the public relations officer inside the prison during the strike. O'Rawe states in his book Blanketmen that Adams prolonged the strike as it was of great political benefit to Sinn Féin and allowed Owen Carron to win Sands' seat.[58][59] This was denied by several hunger strikers and Brendan McFarlane, who was OC inside the prison during the hunger strike.[60] McFarlane states O'Rawe's version of events is confused and fragmentary, and states "We were desperate for a solution. Any deal that went some way to meeting the five demands would have been taken. If it was confirmed in writing, we'd have grabbed it ... There was never a deal, there was never a "take it or leave it" option at all".[61]
Commemorations
There are memorials and murals in memory of the hunger strikers in towns and cities across Ireland, including Belfast, Dublin, Derry, Crossmaglen and Camlough.[62] Annual commemorations take place across Ireland for each man who died on the hunger strike, and an annual hunger strike commemoration march is held in Belfast each year, which includes a Bobby Sands memorial lecture.[63][64] Several towns and cities in France have named streets after Bobby Sands, including Paris and Le Mans.[2][65] The government in Tehran, Iran, changed the name of the street on which the British embassy was located to Bobby Sands, from its previous name, Churchill Street.[66][67] The embassy subsequently changed its mailing address to refer to an entrance door around the corner from the main entrance, to avoid having to use the name of Bobby Sands on their letterhead.[66][67]
A memorial to the men who died in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Easter Rising, and the hunger strike stands in Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, Australia, which is also the burial place of Michael Dwyer of the Society of United Irishmen.[68][69] In 1997 NORAID's Hartford Unit in the United States dedicated a monument to Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers.[70] The monument is a granite Celtic cross standing in a traffic roundabout renamed "Bobby Sands Circle" in 1995.[71] On 3 October 2001—the 20th anniversary of the end of the hunger strike—a memorial was unveiled by Gerry Adams, Patrick Sheehan and Ahmed Kathrada, on Robben Island, South Africa.[72][73]
On 20 March 2001 Sinn Féin's national chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin opened the National Hunger Strike Commemoration Committee's exhibition at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, which included three original works of art from Belfast-based artists.[74] A separate exhibition was also launched in Derry the following month.[75] Numerous films have been made based on the events of the hunger strike, including Some Mother's Son starring Helen Mirren, H3 (which was co-written by former hunger striker Laurence McKeown), and Steve McQueen's Hunger.
Notes
- ^ Peter Berresford Ellis states 12 independent councillors were elected,[34] Sydney Elliott states 11 independent councillors were elected.[35][page needed]
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