Bobby Sands died in Long Kesh on May5th 1981 after 66 days on hunger strike. He was an Irish Republican prisoner and the elected MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. He was the leader of the republican prisoners who were on a protest against the British government policy of criminalising them. The Labour government ended Internment without trial and introduced a new policy of criminalisation. The protest began on 1 March 1976 when republican Kieran Nugent refused to wear prison uniform and covered himself with a blanket. The criminalisation policy continued when Thatcher and the Tory government came to power in 1979.
If you want to know something of the brutality and inhumanity of the regime that existed here in the north of Ireland before 1998 then read this letter from Bobby Sands in Long Kesh. It was written on toilet paper.
“Panic gripped me as the heavy steel door rattled and flew open. A wave of black uniforms swept into my cell blotting out the door space. A gruff, intimidating voice yelled, “Right, you, get up!”
I was already half way to my feet before the last syllable left his rowdy mouth, wrapping my threadbare old blue towel around my shivering waist.
“Bears in the air” echoed throughout the wing as those awake and alerted by the invasion warned the rest of the lads that there were screws in the wing.
“Wing shift” someone shouted, leaving me in no doubt as to what was to come.
“Right you, out and up to the top of the wing and be quick”, rowdy mouth snapped. I moved out of the cell, the corridor was black with uniforms, batons dangling by their sides.
“Not quick enough,” rowdy mouth snapped again.
“Two strong pairs of arms gripped me from behind. My arms were wrenched up my back and my feet left the floor. A mass of black thronged around me and moved in a sudden burst of speed dragging me along with it. I came back to earth and a well-polished pair of leather official issue boots ground into my feet. A screw on the perimeter of the now excited gang kneed me in the thigh. I felt like vomiting and screaming surrender but I remained mute. A table loomed up before me where half a dozen or so screws converged, gaping and inspecting me –their first intentional prey. I was left standing in the midst of the black horde who awaited their cue from the mouthpiece.
“Right,” screamed the self-appointed tyrant. “Drop that towel, turn around. Bend down and touch your toes.”
I dropped my towel, turned a full circle and stood there embarrassed and naked, all eyes scrutinising my body.
“You forgot something,” the mouthpiece grunted.
“No, I didn’t”, I stammered in a fit of bravado.
“Bend down, tramp,” he hissed right into my face in a voice that hinted of a strained patience. Here it comes, I thought.
“I’m not bending” I said.
Roars of forced laughter reinforced by a barrage of jibes and abuse erupted.
“Not bending!” the confident bastard jibed.
“Not bending! Ha! Ha! He’s not bending, lads,” he said to the impatient audience.
Jesus here it comes. He stepped beside me still laughing and hit me.
Within a few seconds in the midst of the white flashes, I fell to the floor as blows rained upon me from every conceivable angle. I was dragged back up again to my feet and thrown like a side of bacon, face downwards on the table. Searching hands pulled at my arms and leg, spreading me like a pelt of leather. Someone had my head pulled back by the hair while some pervert began prodding and poking my anus.
It was great fun: everyone was killing themselves laughing, except me, while all the time a barrage of punches rained down on my naked body. I was writhing in pain. They gripped me tighter as each blow found its destination. My face was smashed against the table and blood smeared the table under my face. I was dazed and hurt. Then they dragged me off the table and let me drop on the floor. My first reaction was to wrap the towel, which lay beside me, around my reddened waist. Again I was gripped by the arms from behind and dragged towards the other wing. I just caught a glimpse of one of my comrades being beaten and dragged to the table, while in the background someone else was being kicked out of his cell. A cell door opened and I was flung inside. The door slammed shut and I lay on the concrete floor, chest pounding and every nerve in my body strained. Could have been worse. I tried to tell myself in consolation. But this didn’t’ convince me or my aching body one bit.
The cold drove me off the floor. Every part of my body protested as I made the slow ascent to my feet. A trickle of blood ran from my mouth on my long shaggy beard and dripped on to the floor. My skin was finely emblazoned and with a host of bruises and marks. I was trembling. I hadn’t really had very much time to be frightened; everything had moved too fast. Thank God I had not been asleep when they came.
“We’ll get those bastards someday,” I told myself. We’ll see how big they are then, I thought as I spat out a mouthful of blood into the corner.
“We’ll see how great they are then.”
I began pacing the floor. The cold streamed in through the open window and still clad only in a towel. I really felt it. God, I was sore.
More bodies were dragged down the wing.
The bastards were shouting their sadistic heads off, revelling in the blood and pain, all of it ours, of course. God only knows how long it will be before they decide to throw us in a blanket. An empty freezing cold cell, an aching back and blue frozen body, a bunch of psychopaths beating men to pulp outside the door and it isn’t even bloody well breakfast time yet!
“Suffering Jesus, can it get any worse?” I asked myself, and then answered, “you know bloody well that it will.” That’s what was worrying me.
( From Bobby Sands, One Day in My Life, Mercier Press, Dublin 1983)
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