‘More thoughts on the Hungerstrike’ by Joe McVeigh

Nobody likes to be humiliated or undermined as a human being. That is what the British authorities tried to do to the Irish republican prisoners in Long Kesh in the 1970s. The British, first under the Labour government and then under Thatcher and the Conservatives, decided to change the status and conditions for the Irish political prisoners. In 1976 they introduced a new regime to treat them like the other prisoners being held for all kinds of criminality. Irish political prisoners throughout the long history of colonial rule by Britain never ever accepted that they were criminals. They regarded themselves and were regarded by their supporters as political prisoners –prisoners of conscience –in jail solely because of what they believed in and because of the political situation obtaining in their own country. They saw themselves as political and would never have seen the inside of a jail except for the diabolical political situation into which they were born and reared. They did not often accept the verdict of the courts which they viewed as corrupt for very often the judges were politically motivated and belonged to one or other secret society. Republicans did not often recognise the court as legitimate and so they could never see themselves as other than political prisoners.

The Irish republican prisoners in the 1970s had a sense of their special place in Irish history. They saw themselves in the tradition of Pearse and Connolly, MacDiarmada and MacDonagh, Clarke and Ceannt, MacSweeney and Ashe and Gaughan and Stagg and before them Fintan Lawlor, Emett and Tone -and the many others who ended up in British jails and who were tortured because they were Irish patriots struggling for freedom and justice. They ended up in prison because they had taken on the might of the British Empire which had taken ownership and control of this small island and persecuted the native inhabitants. Irish citizens became subjects of the English crown and when, due to Irish resistance, they were no longer able to keep control of the whole island of Ireland, they deviously partitioned this small island and held control of the 6 counties in the northeast- with disastrous consequences. The other 26 counties established an independent state which remained reliant on Britain for trade and as an outlet for their male and female unemployed workforce.

As a result of the systematic discrimination by Unionists in the 6 northeastern counties and the systemic and legalised repression by the Unionist government backed by Westminster a rebellion began in 1968 with the Civil Rights Movement. Because of the brutal reaction to that campaign for justice, equality and civil rights, the militant wing of the republican movement reformed to defend the Catholic/nationalist population. The British began to enforce the tactics they had learned in other colonial places and were proposed by Frank Kitson, a big General in the British army with experience of uprisings in other British colonies. These involved counter insurgency methods like employing local assassination squads and agents provocateurs among the loyalist section of the population to undermine the struggle. Thus began a bitter war. Many of those imprisoned by the British in the early 1970s were treated as political prisoners. But in 1976 the British government introduced a new regime in Long Kesh. It was yet another attempt to dehumanise the republican prisoners and undermine the political struggle for freedom and justice. This policy of the British eventually led to the prisoners going on a hunger strike in 1980 and when that was called off they began another hungerstrike led by Bobby Sands on March 1^st 1981. It was to be a most distressing episode in our lives for those of us involved in one way or another on the outside but most of all for the prisoners and their families.

(All of the prisoners and their families belonged to the Catholic tradition, even if some were not practicing Catholics. They had been educated in Catholic schools and belonged to Catholic parishes and dioceses. Except for the efforts of Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich and one or two bishops, the other Church leaders were hostile to the republican movement. They kept silent about the brutal treatment of prisoners over many years. They had little to say about the role of the British government in fomenting violence though they had plenty to say about ‘men of violence’ referring to republicans.  It is little wonder then that most of the republican community in the north has disconnected with the Catholic church. The Long Kesh prison chaplain, Fr John Murphy, remained friendly with the prisoners, as we can see from the Diary kept by Bobby Sands. Another visiting chaplain became more and more hostile to the prisoners and their political leaders. His attitude surprised and angered many because he had allowed his political beliefs to influence his attitude to the prisoners and to the leaders of Sinn Fen. He constantly denounced them and he went on to pressurise the families to intervene and to end the hungerstrike. It was called off on 3 October 1981. Nothing would ever be the same again.)