inalize the struggle for Irish reunification, the Labour government ended that policy in 1976.
Kiernan Nugent was still a teenager when he was sent to the H-Blocks as the first sentenced republican prisoner after the withdrawal of political status. He refused to put on the prison uniform and was dragged naked into a cell with only a blanket to cover himself. For several weeks, not even his family knew where he was or that he was refusing to wear a prison uniform. By the time he was released in 1979, hundreds of republican prisoners were on the blanket. Their protest culminated in the hunger strike of 1981.
After passing Kieran Nugent, we continued on to the PDF, which I learned was a republican bar. We seated ourselves and had just been served when a squad of armed British soldiers entered. Brendan leaned over and whispered, “They’re going to ask your name and address. Use this one.” Then he mentioned a street number on Donegall Road.
A soldier approached our table and held out what looked like a microphone. He asked each of us our name and address. I responded with the address I’d been given. The soldiers spoke with everyone before departing. The last one backed out, holding his weapon with the barrel pointed at the floor, his eyes scanning the room. Brendan explained that the information they recorded was fed back to a central location and used to plot the movements of people in the area.
As we finished our drinks, he checked his watch and said it was time to go and meet his brother at the Felons Club on the Falls Road. Brendan mentioned that normally only men who had “done time” were allowed entry there.
We walked a short distance to a two-storey building. He pushed the buzzer beside a heavily fortified door, and after a few seconds, a small peephole opened covered by a grill. A voice asked what we wanted. Brendan explained that his brother had been invited to celebrate the release of a republican prisoner and had told us to meet him there. After we were allowed inside, I walked up several steps and found myself in a brightly lit bar with a high ceiling and stained-glass windows.
I was introduced to Brendan’s brother Tommy and his mate Scottie who invited us to join them. Tommy had already picked up my bag from the bookshop and stuffed it in his car. Brendan told me I would be put up at Tommy and Scottie’s for the night. When we parted, I thanked him for acting as chaperone during my first day in Belfast.
We drove west, and after a few minutes, Tommy parked in front of a line of row housing surrounded by vacant land. At the entrance to his flat, he pointed to several black smudges above the doorknob and asked if I could guess what they were. I shook my head. “They’re tread marks from the boot of a British soldier,” he said and explained the door had been kicked in the week before.
I spent the night in a sleeping bag on the floor and the next morning discovered there was no hot water, so shaved and washed as best I could. After some tea and a bun, I headed off with Tommy, who was driving to the Royal Victoria Hospital where he worked as an orderly. He dropped me by the bookshop with my bag, and I headed down the road to a small hotel I’d noticed. It seemed to be the only one in the area. I took a room and discovered it too lacked hot water. But I had a bed to sleep in, and breakfast was included.
The only other guest I ran into was an American. In the midst of the hunger strike, West Belfast was not the place to be if you were looking for a relaxing vacation. Exactly the opposite. Throughout the time I was there, you could never escape the tension, a foreboding feeling that something was about to happen over which you had no control.
One time I was walking along the Falls Road towards the city centre when I glanced to my left and was startled to see a British soldier squatting in an alley with his weapon pointed in my direction. On another occasion, I watched as several children suddenly emerged from a narrow laneway and hurled stones at a passing British armoured vehicle. The driver swerved towards the youngsters who 