TODAY, Wednesday 20th August marks the anniversary of the death on hunger strike in 1981 of Mickey Devine. Mickey was the last of the ten men to die and several weeks later the hunger strike ended on 3 October. It was also the day the by-election was held in Fermanagh South Tyrone caused by the death in May of Bobby Sands. Owen Carron successfully held the seat as the ‘Anti-H-Block/Proxy Political Prisoner’ candidate.
This Sunday the annual National Hunger Strike March and Rally will take place in Belfast. Republicans and others remember with pride and sorrow those who died on hunger strike in 1981, as well as Michael Gaughan 1974 and Frank Stagg 1976, and others of earlier generations. The men of the H-Blocks and the women of Armagh Women’s Prison hold a special place in republican hearts and minds. We also remember all of those who died during that summer of 1981.
On Saturday 23rd, a new book, edited by Danny Morrison, entitled Guthanna ’81 will be published. Guthanna means Voices and the book very appropriately contains the voices of some of us who were active during the blanket protest, the hunger strike campaign or in the prisons at the time. Brendan McFarlane, who replaced Bobby Sands as OC and died several months ago, wrote a piece about ‘My Comrades’; Joe Doherty writes about ‘The 1981 Escape’; Fr. Joe McVeigh writes about ‘The Role of the Catholic Church’; Laurence McKeown and Pat Sheehan who survived the hunger strike reflect on ‘The End; and there are many more, including mé féin and Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald.
Bobby wrote:
All things must come to pass as one
So hope should never die.
There is no height or bloody might
That a freeman can’t defy.
There is no source or foreign force
can break one man who knows,
that his free will no thing can kill,
And from that freedom grows.
His words encapsulate the depth of conviction and strength that was evident in the H-Blocks and in Armagh Women’s Prison during the five years of prison protest and the hunger strikes of 1980 and ’81.
They also capture at this time the indomitable spirit of the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The 1981 hunger strike was a political watershed in Irish politics. It changed the shape of Irish politics forever – a change that is still evolving. It was built on the selflessness and courage of the men and women political prisoners who refused to bend the knee and accept the Thatcher government’s propaganda description of them and of their struggle as ‘criminal’.
For years, day after day the comms would arrive from within the Blocks and Armagh to Taobh Amuigh telling us of the latest beatings, of the brutality of the wing shifts, of the forced washing with deck scrubbers, of the mirror searchers and ill-treatment. Bobby wrote regularly on scraps of paper, with bits of pens hidden inside his own body, of the appalling conditions on the wings and the cruelty of the prison regime.
Later when the hunger strike began on 1 March 1981 the comms carried the weight of the hunger strikers. Young men, who were already painfully thin and who were now defying the British government with the only weapon left to them – their lives.
The momentous election of Bobby Sands in Fermanagh South Tyrone in April was a huge boost to the campaign. I was travelling through the Cooley Mountains in Louth when the result was announced on the radio news. I had left Fermanagh that morning, after weeks of intense campaigning, convinced Bobby was going to win. I pounded the roof of the car as a response. Later I watched the result being announced on the television news. Danny Morrison was at the count. His very loud and enthusiastic yell – a screech almost – nearly drowned out the words of the election returning officer Alastair Patterson as he announced: “Sands, Bobby. Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner, 30,492,”.
The result gave the lie to the claims by the British and Irish governments that the prisoners were part of a criminal mafia-style conspiracy and not political prisoners who belonged to the centuries old struggle for Irish freedom and independence. Bobby got more votes than Thatcher. Several months later in June 1981 the criminalisation policy suffered another body blow with the election to the Dáil of Kieran Doherty in Cavan Monaghan and the election of Paddy Agnew in Louth. As well as the election of Kieran and Paddy, Joe McDonnell came close to taking a seat in Sligo and Mairead Farrell and others won credible votes
Fianna Fáil and Charlie Haughey, who had thought they were on their way to another election victory, and who had treated the hunger strikers and their families so appallingly, were punished by the electorate. No party has been able to form a majority single government in the Oireachtas since then.
The prisoners’ election successes also accelerated the debate within Sinn Féin on electoralism.
Today Sinn Féin is the largest party on the island of Ireland. Mary Lou McDonald is the leader of the opposition in Leinster House and Michelle O’Neill is First Minister. All of these advances, and more, owe a huge debt to the steadfastness and bravery of those we will commemorate this weekend.
The photo of Bobby Sands, left, and Máire Drumm, second right, taking part in the first march in support of political status in August 1976
So, come along to the Falls Road on Sunday. The march will commence at 2.15pm in Dunville Park where the very first march in support of political status ended in August 1976. In that march Bobby Sands was in the Colour Party. On that occasion it was Leas Uachtarán Máire Drumm who addressed the crowd. Next Sunday it will be Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald who will be the main speaker when the march concludes at Milltown Cemetery where Bobby Sands, Kieran Doherty and Joe McDonnell are buried.
An Clogán
Among the many excellent events at this year’s Féile an Phobail was the launch of a new journal called An Clogán (The Little Bell). It is an independent, politically unaligned magazine that takes its name, and I suspect its design as an A5 booklet, from The Bell.
This was a left oriented magazine edited and published in the 1940’s and 50’s by Peadar O’Donnell, Roisin Walsh and Sean Ó Faoláin.
An Clogán, which is edited by Oisín Gilmore and Oisín Vince Coulter is an ambitious magazine containing 27 contributions from a wide range of writers, including Claire Mitchell, Robbie McVeigh, Phillip Pettit, Martina Anderson, Margaret Ward, and an interview with me.
The theme of this first edition – The Republic – explores how republicanism is rooted in the radical idea of self-rule. Claire Mitchell and Martina Anderson, who both spoke at the launch, share their transformative visions on what a new and inclusive united Ireland should look light. A New Republic worthy of its name.
The magazine pins its colours to the mast in quoting on its inside front cover the words of Fintan Lalor and Bobby Sands.
“Without agreement as to our objects we can not agree on the course we should follow … The principle I state, and mean to stand upon is this, that the entire ownership of Ireland, moral and material, up to the sun and down to the centre, is vested of right in the people of Ireland; that they, and none but they are the land-owners and law makers of this island.
Fintan Lalor, The Rights of Ireland 1848
I shall not settle until I achieve the liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic.
Bobby Sands, The Birth of a Republican, 1978.
The publishers are still in the process of arranging wider distribution but copies are currently available in An Cultúrlann, McAdaimh, O Fiaich, 216 Bothar na bhFál, Belfast.
