Recently, I read a collection of reminiscences on the hunger strike of 1981 carried out by republican prisoners in the north of Ireland. The hunger strike began March 1 and ended October 3. During those seven months, 23 young men joined the hunger strike and 10 perished. It was a spectacle of high drama played out on a world stage. What follows reflects my memory of that time. Looking back more than four decades on, there is reason to believe that out of the ashes of that experience, a new, more promising future may yet emerge for the people of Ireland.
Ireland was England’s first colony, and six of its 32 counties remain under British control to this day. Despite successive efforts over hundreds of years to establish a sovereign Irish nation, British rule continues in the northeast portion of the island.
In the 1960s, a movement arose in Northern Ireland demanding equal access to voting rights, housing, employment, and basic civil liberties for the minority Catholic population. When that movement was met with force by the authorities, it opened the way for a resumption of armed struggle and the return of British troops. The ensuing conflict claimed almost 3,500 lives between 1969 and 1998, when a military stalemate between armed republican groups, on the one hand, and British troops and their local allies on the other, led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
In 1981, I spent two memorable weeks in the north of Ireland. International attention was focused on that part of the world because of a hunger strike by republican prisoners. Four had died by the time I arrived: Bobby Sands, aged 27; Francis Hughes, 25; Raymond McCreesh, 24; and Patsy O’Hara, 23. Four other men had joined the hunger strike to replace them. And more began refusing food while I was there.
I had been participating in weekly pickets outside the British Airways office on Bloor Street in Toronto, demanding that the government of Margaret Thatcher admit that these men had been jailed for actions that were politically motivated, regardless of whether one agreed with the actions themselves or not. Their goal was the ending of British rule in the north of Ireland as a way of winning equal treatment and rights for all.
They had been convicted in juryless courts, where the burden of proof was shifted to the accused, and statements extracted by physical abuse were often used against them. The prisoners were demanding not to be forced to wear prison uniforms, not to do prison work, for the right of free association, including the right to organize educational and recreational pursuits, the right to receive one letter, one parcel, and one visit a week, and restoration of any reduction in time served due to good behaviour, which had been lost as a result of the protest. Winning these demands would amount to recognition of their status as political prisoners.
I knew no one in Ireland but obtained the address of a bookshop in West Belfast and wrote a note saying I was arriving on a specific day and would appreciate any help they could offer.
On my way into Belfast from the Aldergrove airport, I noticed slogans painted on the walls of buildings. One said, “Victory to the Blanket Men. Grant the Five Demands.” Further along, another replied, “Let them die!”
I didn’t know how to reach the bookshop, and after arriving at the bus station, was directed to the Linen Hall Library. A person at the front desk offered to phone a local newspaper, The Andersonstown News. I was handed the receiver and spoke with a man who told me to get a black taxi and tell the driver to let me off at the Busy Bee.
I walked back outside and saw two men lounging against a black taxi. After I explained where I wanted to go, both men stared at me for a moment. Then one of them pointed down the street at a line of black vehicles in the distance and said, “You want to get your taxi in Castle Street. This one goes up the Shankill.” I thanked him and headed off with the newly acquired understanding that these men only drove into the unionist areas of Belfast. That was not where I was headed.
Fr