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In October of 1980, the Northern Ireland prison
officials granted all the prisoners of Long Kesh the right to
wear civilian-type clothing issued by the prisons, a token gesture
in response to the five demands of the
prisoners. Other than this gesture, no further concessions were
made to the prisoners' demands. The prisoners rejected the concession
as merely replacing one type of prison uniform with another, and
claimed that their demands were not being taken seriously. Since the protests to date seemed to be producing no concessions from the government, the prisoners decided to step up their protests and called for a hunger strike. The hunger strike was the prisoners' weapon of last resort, a way to react to the dehumanizing treatment they were recieving, to fend off the despair that the prospect of continuing on in such horrible conditions threatened to let loose on them. By hunger striking, the prisoners would be able to leave behind feelings of impotence, to take matters into their own hands and become more active resistors rather than giving in to the role of victim. On October 10th, the prisoners released a statement of their intention to begin a hunger strike on October 27th. The statement, released by "the Republican Prisoners of War in the H-Blocks, Long Kesh", formally laid out the demand that the prisoners be given political status, claiming the status as their right "as captured combatants in the continuing struggle for national liberation and self-determination." The fast was timed so that it would peak at Christmastime. The strike was to be conducted by seven men representing Blocks 3, 4, and 5. The number of strikers was to be seven in order to symbolically unite their cause with the seven signatories of the 1916 Declaration of Independence. Brendan Hughes from Belfast was to lead the strike - the other six were Tom McFeeley from County Derry, Raymond McCartney from Derry, Leo Green from County Armagh, John Nixon from Armagh City, Tommy McKearney from County Tyrone, and Sean McKenna from County Down, later joined by three women strikers from Armagh prison. Six of the men were affiliated with the IRA, the seventh with the INLA. Decisions concerning the strike were to be made by the seven and then passed through a committee of the OCs of the Blocks, so that the decision to end the fast did not rest solely with the seven strikers. The seven were all to fast jointly and simultaneously, and therein lay the weakness of the first strike. By being a group strike, the protest would only be as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Margaret Thatcher, who became Prime Minister in May 1979, was unconvinced by the threat of the hunger strike, and she refused to reinstitute Special Category Status or to even consider the possibility of conceding to any of the demands. She denounced the prisoners as criminals. She declared, "There can be no political justification for murder or any other crimes. The British government will never concede political status to the hunger strikers or to any other person convicted of criminal offences in the province." Nor was Thatcher the only one to be incredulous. Other members of Parliament, such as Gerry Fitt, were convinced that giving the prisoners political status would only send a message of encouragement to other IRA supporters to commit further acts of violence. Apart from the prison uniform issue, the British government refused to budge for any of the demands made by the strikers. It was determined to outlast them. The strike lasted until December of 1980, when Sean McKenna was in the hospital and several others were very ill. At that point, the National H-Block Committee attempted to prevent any deaths by requesting a meeting on Dec. 5 with Humphrey Atkins, the Secretary of State. He refused. On Dec. 9, Michael Allison attempted to reason with the strikers. He attempted to convince them that their protest was useless because the British would not, could not grant all five demands because it would mean "handing the prison to the prisoners." He attempted to draw their attention to Long Kesh's superiority over other prisoners in terms of facilities and opportunities for privileges such as the five points they were seeking. Allison was attempting to convince the prisoners that their desires for a few extra privileges were not worth sacrificing their lives; he perhaps did not recognize the symbolic nature of their demands for being granted political status. On December 18th, 7:46 PM, the strike ended, with all seven men still living. The prisoners were said to have recieved a copy of a statement Atkins was to deliver to the House of Commons on December 19th. Based on this document, they decided to end the strike. They believed that under the new statement, the families of the prisoners would be allowed to bring in clothing for them, packages of food and literature could be delivered from the families, and they would be allowed more visits. It seems likely that McKenna's proximity to death increased the prisoners' willingness to concede - however, the actual concessions the government made were not quite the same as the prisoners believed. The British had agreed to allow the prisoners to wear civilian-type prison-issued clothing rather than civilian clothing. They had also granted a very limited number of hours for free-association, agreed that education and some skills training could replace penal labor, and allowed weekly visits and package deliveries. The prisoners released their own statement, explaining that since they had recieved a document which contained an elaboration of their original five demands, they had decided to halt the strike. The statement also contained a threat of sorts, placing the ball firmly in the Government's court in an attempt to make certain that the government followed through on its promises. It promised, Atkins, however, denied that the prisoners had recieved a copy of the speech and stated that the British government intended to keep the same position as it had at the start of the strikes. January 11th, the Prison Governor met with the OCs (prison represenatives) of the H-Blocks (including Bobby Sands, Hughes' protege) and the representatives and governor agreed to set up a test case to check that both sides were bargaining in good faith. The test case prisoners from H5 would be moved to clean, furnished cells and given clothing of both civilian and prison types. Immediately after the agreement, however, the prison governor asked for a week's extension in order to allow the prison officials to decide about the civilian clothing. Brendan McFarlane, commonly known as "Bik" in the prison, suspected that this was the governor's way of stalling in order to let the British gain the upper hand on the issue of clothing. He was correct. The officials broke the promise to allow the prisoners to wear civilian clothing. In protest, the H5 prisoners broke the furniture of their rooms and were moved back to dirty cells, then later transferred to H6. The prisoners claimed that the British had failed to cooperate and had broken its promise to make concessions. The British, on the other hand, claimed that they had never promised to offer any special privileges in the first place. The fragile truce was broken, and the stage was set for a resurgence of protest. Only a few short months later, the prisoners regrouped and embarked on a second strike. |