‘Thatcher & The Hunger-Strike: A Mother’s Love & A Lady’s Vengeance’ by Donal Lavery

Recently I watched a favourite film from my childhood – Some Mother’s Son. Although not precisely accurate in the timing of the actual events, it’s a powerful depiction of one of the worst yet bravest episodes in Irish history. When I first saw it as a child, I suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my life. My mother had been a Personal Assistant to Belfast Catholic solicitor and former SDLP politician, Paschal O’Hare. As a result, I knew all too well at an early age that we could get into our car one morning and never get out alive; exposing me at an early age to the horrors perpetrated by the state. But the ethos of the film and Mr. O’Hare’s example motivated me to want to become a solicitor specialising in securing what justice was possible for republicans and republican prisoners, in the bygone Orange State. I had a photo, decorated with rosary, of Patrick Finucane on my bedroom wall and from a young age was climbing lampposts to help Sinn Fein get elected.

When future generations look back at those turbulent events, the majority of the world will regard Sands and his comrades as martyrs true to the end, as well as the few politicians/professionals fully willing to stand up for their rights throughout it all (like Tony Benn, Fr. Raymond Murray, Neil Blaney and Sile DeValera). When you see the love and affection depicted by the mothers and families of the prisoners, you can’t help but think that it would take a very cold person, let alone a mother, to deny them any empathy at all. They weren’t just some mother’s sons, they were ten of Ireland’s bravest sons.

So why did Margaret Hilda Thatcher show no such affection for other women’s sons, when she rushed to avoid her own son being executed for his role in an illegal coup d’etat in Africa? Surely that constituted “terrorism” most foul on his part? I think I know why and it wasn’t all political manoeuvring. After all, they got all their demands just after the strike ended. So she starved them to death deliberately.

The far right-wing spy-master and architect of “Ulsterisation”, Airey Neave, had been her spokesman on “Northern Ireland” before she took office. Some commentators and even the ‘Iron Lady’ movie have made subtle references to the possibility that Thatcher and Neave were involved in an intimate relationship with one another. He closely managed her leadership campaign to destroy the Tory moderates and she rewarded him with the portfolio he most wanted upon electoral victory – a prospective office to terrorise the Irish to the hilt, using the darkest of methods of war.

When republicans assassinated Neave, to Thatcher it became personal, not just political. There are many ironies from that dark era. One was the fact that the then Irish Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, was intransigent (under pressure from the anti-republican wing of his party) in asserting the demands of the prisoners, as a means of ending the strike – but oddly enough, he had tried to arm the IRA in the early 70s while Finance Minister. Haughey’s lack of resolve resulted in Fianna Fáil never again winning an overall majority. Another irony was that the previous UK Labour government had afforded political status to them, only to take it away when they needed the votes of a handful of Unionist MP’s (and Gerry Fitt) to stay in office.

Despite massive state censorship, intimidation and a right-wing Fine Gael/ Labour coalition coming to power, the Irish people refused, in their hearts and in the ballot boxes, to criminalise the prisoners. Against all odds, some were elected to the Dail and Sands became the MP-elect for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. It seemed for a moment as though they just might snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But Thatcher wouldn’t have it. With ice in her blood, she was ready to remorselessly starve them all to death, quickly passing legislation to ensure another could not be elected upon the death of Bobby.

I agree with Ken Livingstone that Margaret Thatcher’s record on Ireland was a most brutal one; of systematic state murder, torture and death squads. I also agree with his advocacy of Britain coming completely clean on what really went on here. Those who pretend there was a democratic way back then aren’t fooling any right thinking person – Sunningdale was allowed to collapse because Loyalists refused to share power with Catholics. Although he idolised her in most ways, Ireland was the one policy of hers which Tony Blair wholeheartedly dismantled, beginning the process of treating the Irish people with some respect and dignity. Blair later wrote in his autobiography that Sands’s suffering was one of the most touching and emotional experiences of the whole troubled ordeal between Britain and Ireland – it’s hard to think a British Prime Minister would admit to being inspired by the writings of a so-called IRA “terrorist”. But irrespective of Bobby gaining a much larger personal mandate than her, Thatcher stuck to her guns, only giving in after each of the men had perished at her hands and later beginning secret talks with those she wanted eliminated.

The Hunger-Strike didn’t just demonstrate the extraordinary courage of the prisoners, but particularly that of their families and communities. Women in particular have carried Ireland through the darkest of hours. When I think something is bad in my life, I recall how much tougher that period would have been, particularly for the mothers involved. No matter what befalls us as a nation, nothing will ever be as tragic yet so determined as that seminal event in our history. For their example and sacrifice, we owe them big. It began the move towards politics and dialogue. It led to the peace we now enjoy. It established a precedent here and abroad which no British Government can go back on.

Now, the peace process changed the fortunes of us all in different ways – I’m now an accountant-in-training and I don’t have to worry that my children could die upon entering the family car like I once did. But that deep realisation that at times the most heart-breaking of circumstances can bring out the absolute best in people has always stuck with me. It soothes the soul. For there are those therein who don’t simply suffer throughout the experience of history, they make history.

The other most pertinent irony of all is that Thatcher died on the same date Sands was elected. It’s odd that the very day when life was slipping from her meant a forced empathy of circumstances with Bobby Sands, the man she helped murder. An Act of God perhaps or just sheer coincidence? With this wicked old hag, who destroyed the lives of so many of her own people, particularly in industrial/mining Britain, having to have a state-subsidised funeral, and people actually being paid to attend (like MPs), as though she was some sort of latter-day saint. I say “hag” because compared to the strong maternal figures whose sons she mercilessly killed without batting an eyelid, she certainly was no woman; not on their terms!

In her eyes, those men died as “villains” but to the world they are commemorated as heroes. Whatever her motivations, Sands and his comrades live on in their poetry, song and sacrifice, across the hearts of the globe. In the event of a real Republic being established in Ireland, they and their writings should decorate the most valuable of our bank-notes, buildings and regalia. I would raise their statue in pure gold.
As for the “Iron Lady”, well.. You don’t have to worry about coal where you are now Mrs. Thatcher!