by Ken Wharton
The concept of the hunger strike was nothing new; Republicans had used this weapon many times during their various campaigns against the British. Indeed, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was viewed as a method of non-violent resistance with participants refusing to eat as an act of political protest. It was also designed to gain a wider audience, provoking feelings of guilt in others; most hunger strikers will take liquids but not solid food. Members of the early Suffragette movement – both British and American – employed the tactic, often compelling the authorities to force-feed them. The great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi embarked on several hunger strikes in 1922–42.
It was used by Irish Republicans extensively following the Easter Rising of 1916, with one prisoner – Thomas Ashe – dying in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, the following year. During the Anglo Irish war of 1919–21, IRA men Terence MacSwiney, Joe Murphy and Michael Fitzgerald all died during hunger-strike protests. After the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, a bitter civil broke out between the new government and anti-partition forces (IRA) that lasted until October of the same year. However, the new President, Eamon De Valera, ordered the detention of about 12,000 IRA members, with as many as 8,000 of them going on hunger strike; two of them – Denny Barry and Andrew O’Sullivan – died as a consequence. As late as the Second World War, De Valera ordered the internment of several IRA men, who immediately embarked on another hunger strike; three men died during this latest round of protests.
On 26 March 1980, the Thatcher government announced the end of the ‘special category’ status that Republican prisoners had previously enjoyed. This led to the first hunger strike since 1974, when IRA man Frank Stagg died in Wakefield Gaol on the UK mainland. On 26 October 1980, led by Brendan Hughes, a total of seven prisoners began to refuse food; this ended in December before any deaths occurred. Sinn Féin have always claimed that there was a tacit agreement with the British Government to reinstate special category status, which consequently ‘encouraged’ them to end the protest. However, this has always been denied by members of the Thatcher Government.
On 1 March 1981, a PIRA prisoner, Bobby Sands, who had been arrested in Dunmurry for taking part in the bombing of a furniture car as well as being armed, began to refuse food. He died sixty-six days later on 5 May. In all, seven PIRA and three INLA members died between 5 May and 20 August; their hunger strikes lasted between forty-six and seventy-three days. Those who died were: Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kieran Doherty and Thomas McElwee (Provisional IRA); the following INLA men also died: Patsy O’Hara, Kevin Lynch and Michael Devine. A further thirteen prisoners took part in the strike, but all called off their fasts before they became irrevocably ill. On 10 August, after sixty days without food, INLA gunrunner Michael Devine became the tenth protestor to die from ‘self-imposed starvation’. This was the signal for more pressure from the Catholic Church in the form of Father Denis Faul; this pressure was applied not only to Adams and Morrison but also to the families of two of the still surviving hunger strikers, Bernard Fox and Liam McCloskey. The families brought about the ending of their sons’ protests on 24 and 26 September respectively. The final six men ended theirs on 3 October; the strike was finally over. It left ten men dead and lasted 217 days. The repercussions were vast, with the subsequent riots and violent attacks causing a huge spike in military as well as civilian deaths.
The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, steadfastly refused to negotiate with intermediaries acting on behalf of the Republicans, presenting a steely cold attitude towards the protestors. Indeed, her Government was hailed by the Guardian newspaper, which stated: ‘The Government had overcome the hunger strikes by a show of resolute determination not to be bullied.’ However, leading Sinn Féin member Danny Morison took a more naturally bellicose view, labelling Thatcher as ‘...the biggest bastard we have ever known’.
Hunger striker Bobby Sands’ coffin, flanked by an IRA colour party, leaving his mother’s home in Twinbrook.
The protest gained the Republican movement massive worldwide sympathy, further stiffening support in the USA, from political leaders to the ordinary Irish Americans. In many ways, it led to the emergence of Sinn Féin as a major political party as they engineered the strike in masterly fashion, even manipulating the election of Bobby Sands as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. It was the making of Gerry Adams, who was able to present himself as a statesman, the leader of a previously insignificant political party that had once masqueraded as the ‘political wing of the IRA’.
However, the deaths of these ten men, while accepted as part of the sacrifice, did attract some severe criticism from within the Republican movement. The main leaders outside of the Maze were Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison, while Bayardo Bar killer ‘Bic’ McFarlane orchestrated things from within. All three of the main leaders plus the entire Hunger Strike Committee must have been aware that neither Thatcher nor her Cabinet was prepared to compromise; furthermore, it was clear to them, after the first two deaths – Sands and Hughes – that there was absolutely no weakening of the Prime Minister’s position. Even at that early stage, the protest was lost; eight more men – albeit convicted terrorists – died needlessly afterwards, driven on obsessively by the leaders of Sinn Féin/PIRA. It well suited their purpose that more men died because as a consequence it cranked up the wave of worldwide sympathy, including additional financial contributions towards the Provisionals’ cause. It ensured that wealthy Irish American businessmen, at their $1,000-a-head dinners, wept tears over the loss of hunger striker after hunger striker, while opening wide their chequebooks. With a supreme irony, they failed to recognise the irony of feasting on lavish meals as the men across the Atlantic slowly starved to death.
Hunger striker Bobby Sands, on the right.
Masked gunmen fire a volley of shots beside Sands’ coffin.
AFTERWORD
On 9 February 1941, Winston Churchill finished one of his now famous wartime speeches with the words: ‘Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.’ The British Army had the tools and the training, but it was restrained by ROE, as well as the watching cameras of the media, just waiting for the opportunity of reporting another ‘Bloody Sunday’. It was also bereft of government support, given only tacit political backing by their masters in Whitehall. It should be remembered that the following Prime Ministers sent or continued to send soldiers into the cauldron of Northern Ireland: Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair. Of these, it would be fair to state that only one – Thatcher – offered her soldiers any measure of support. Others provided only cursory and tentative backing, with Blair being seen as the one leader who very much betrayed them, before selling them down the river following the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). History will, of course, be the judge, but many former soldiers have told this author in numerous conversations how unhappy they were with some of Blair’s actions.
The most often quoted complaint is that he gave out far too many ‘get out of jail free’ cards, which gave comfort to the OTRs, who found political sanctuary in places such as the USA and the Irish Republic. This author has previously cited the example of John Downy, the man widely considered responsible for the Hyde Park bombing as well as the deaths of two UDR soldiers – Alfie Johnston and Jimmy Eames – in a 1972 car-bombing; he was given a ‘letter of comfort’ by the Blair administration.
Perhaps this particular debate might better be left to another time and place, and another book. Suffice to say, the Provisional IRA knew that they were free to develop weapons and tactics in their safe houses in the Nationalist estates as well as their training camps in rural and isolated places in the Republic. They also had the support of US money in the form of NORAID funds, as well as lavish contributions of weapons and explosives from sources as diverse as the former Soviet Union and ‘mad’ Colonel Gaddafi of Libya.
They developed the concept of what they termed ‘the horizontal morta
r’ with devastating effect, and devised remote-controlled explosive devices and mercury-tilt booby traps, which were used with tragic success on a number of occasions underneath the cars of off-duty UDR and RUC personnel. They even designed a mini-bomb that was virtually undetectable to human eyes despite SF personnel correctly maintaining security by inspecting underneath their vehicles. There is little if nothing to commend the Provisionals, given that the vast majority of their actions had but two objectives: violent death or a lifelong maiming of their ‘enemies’.
A part of the Provisionals’ strategy was to adopt some of the methods of Cypriot terrorist groups EOKA ‘A’ and EOKA ‘B’ (Ethnikí Orgánosis Kipriakoú Agónos, or National Organisation of Cypriot Struggle), as well as modelling themselves on the tactics of the Basque separatist group ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna). PIRA developed an expertise and sophistication in its ‘long war’ strategy, which by definition had to be ruthless and oblivious to humanitarianism.
From the earlier fertiliser-based bombs, with hit-and-miss timers and detonation systems, they would become technically efficient and professional in their strategies and weapons. They would move from amateur weapons to the less than amateurish, particularly in the 1980s, where they would plant devices weeks in advance, as they did with the Brighton bombing in 1984 and the earlier Regent’s Park attack on the bandsmen of the Royal Green Jackets in 1982. The bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984 that attempted to wipe out Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet was in many ways a masterpiece of precision timing, illustrating just how far they had come in the first half of the Troubles. There were, of course, farcical incidents, such as their ‘expert’ who mixed raw explosives with a spade on a hard surface. His naïve clumsiness produced a spark, igniting the mix with a deadly effect and removing him from the gene pool. They would eventually overcome, but only through trial and error, fanatical determination and finally, through the realisation that they could produce billion-pound bombs that could devastate the British economy much more effectively than their pinpricks in the towns and villages of Northern Ireland.
From the use of surplus US Army weapons, vintage ‘Tommy Guns’ and First World War German Mauser rifles, and dangerous home-made explosives to the devastatingly professional terrorist organisation it was by the 1990s, using technologically advanced weaponry, this illustrates the rise of the Provisionals.
________________
* Known to his PIRA comrades as ‘D for dog’.
** See Voices from the Grave, Ed Moloney (Faber & Faber, 2010).
*** www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/arrest-sinn-fein-chief-gerryadams-over-jean-mcconville-murder-says-republican-30202502.htm.
**** www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27262361.
* Author Ed Moloney estimates that Belfast brigade alone had 1,200 members.
* The yellow card was a pocket-sized card bearing the rules of engagment that soldiers had to follow.
** John Kennedy, who once famously referred to himself as ‘British in lined through education’.
CHAPTER 4
ATROCITIES (1970–79)
The Provisional IRA’s bombing assault began to gather momentum in mid 1970; initially, they would be met with setback after setback, but their ruthlessness helped them prevail. In June of that year, a three-man PIRA bombing team in Londonderry’s Creggan estate were caught in a premature explosion that killed Joseph McCool (40), fatally wounding Joseph Coyle (40) and Thomas Carlin (55), who both later died from their injuries. Also killed in PIRA’s irresponsible attitude to the endangerment of their own community were McCool’s two innocent children, Carol (4) and Bernadette (9). Their willingness to turn Catholic communities into battlefields is borne out by the number of Catholics killed by them. Irish Republicans killed almost 2,000 people, the bulk of whom were Catholics. Indeed, according to David McKittrick, 59 per cent of those killed in the Troubles were at the hands of the Provisionals.
In the July of that same year, thirty people were injured, some very badly, by a PIRA bomb attack on a branch of the Northern Bank in Belfast. The following month, two RUC officers, Samuel Donaldson (23) and Robert Millar (26), were killed by an IRA booby trap bomb attached to an abandoned car near Crossmaglen, South Armagh. The officers were lured to their deaths by the deliberate positioning of a suspicious car in the town centre. In September, there was another own goal death as PIRA Volunteer Michael Kane (35) was blown to pieces when he mishandled a bomb at an electricity substation in South Belfast. The year 1971 saw an escalation of PIRA bombs, with the murder on 9 February of five electricity workers in their vehicle as they were inspecting a radio transmitter at Mount Brougher, Co. Tyrone. The landmine was aimed at a British Army patrol, but instead killed civilian workers George Beck (43), John Eakins (52), Harry Edgar (26), David Henson (24) and William Thomas (35).
On the evening of 9 March 1971, an incident took place north of Belfast that shocked millions of people all over the world; it set a benchmark for the Provisionals’ conduct. Three young soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers, brothers Joseph McCaig (18) and John McCaig (17), and their cousin, Dougald McCaughey (23), were drinking off-duty in Belfast’s Cornmarket. They were approached by two attractive young women, who invited them to a party in North Belfast where they were allegedly promised that there would be lots of women. They told the three young Scots that they were Protestants, thus ensuring their safety. According to eyewitnesses in the Cornmarket, the slightly tipsy soldiers willingly got into the women’s car, still clutching their unfinished pints of beer. The author has several times imbibed a pint or two of Tennent’s in the same area of Belfast and can easily imagine just how relaxed these young soldiers had been; their guard had been fatally down.
The car drove the 3.7 miles from Belfast city centre along the Crumlin Road, stopping at White Brae, Ligoniel, on the north-west outskirts of the city. There the women explained that it was some distance yet to the party venue, suggesting that the boys might like to relieve themselves at the side of the road. Unknown to the soldiers, the women had pre-arranged the exact spot at which to stop; three PIRA gunmen, including Patrick McAdorey, were hiding behind the thick roadside hedges. The three soldiers crossed to the opposite hedge to begin relieving themselves; as they did so, McAdorey and the other two crept up behind them, shooting the two brothers in the back of the head, killing them instantly. The older boy was startled, half turning; as he did so, he was mortally wounded. In the cold half-light of the following morning, a local resident found the three dead soldiers, still clutching their pint glasses. It was senseless and shocking, by design, as the Provisionals were announcing that no British soldier was safe, on duty or off. It badly damaged the morale of the troops all over Ulster, further adding to the difficulties of their role as peacekeepers. It also showed the ruthlessness of their enemy, the IRA. McAdorey was killed by soldiers in the Ardoyne the following August.
On 2 November of that same year, with the overall death toll having already reached more than 200, the Provisionals planted an explosive device outside the Red Lion Bar on the South Ormeau Road in Belfast. They gave only a few minutes’ warning, which was simply not enough time to evacuate the packed Protestant-frequented pub. In the blast, three civilians were killed: John Cochrane (67), Molly Jane Gemmell (55) and William Jordan (31), who died two days later. It was a highly denied yet axiomatic tactic of the Provisionals to give either no warning or, at best, an inadequate and misleading one to maximise casualties. Sinn Féin spokesmen mastered the art of blaming both the RUC and the Army to shift the blame, making mendacious statements to the press. They also used their own publication: An Phoblacht (Republican News), in which they claimed to give adequate and accurate warnings; their subsequent claims that warnings were ignored or deliberately misunderstood were as much a symptom of the dirty war as of their own cynicism. It suited the Republicans’ propaganda purposes; it mattered little if everyone else treated the claims with a pinch of salt, just as long as Irish America and the British
hard left were convinced by them. An outstanding example of this was the vague warning given before the napalm bombing of the La Mon House restaurant in 1978. On receiving the warning, an RUC officer immediately phoned the La Mon, to be told by the traumatised manager: ‘For God’s sake get here quickly; a bomb has gone off!’
Rose and Crown Bar. Two men were killed and twenty-seven injured when a bomb went off in the hallway on 2 May 1974.
The following month, the Provisionals planted a large bomb in the entrance to the Balmoral Furniture Company on the Shankill Road. As it was just fourteen days before Christmas, the shop was packed, thus maximising casualties. No warning was given when the devices exploded with devastating effect, pulverising the shop and tearing the shoppers to pieces. As George Styles wrote: ‘Bombs have no pity.’ Was it ever thus, as two young lives were snuffed out before they had chance to be enjoyed. The entire shop front was blown out, as all three storeys of the building collapsed on top of each other. A young mother pushing a pram carrying two babies was walking past at the exact moment of the blast; Colin Nicholl (17 months) and Tracey Munn (2) were killed instantly when a wall smashed into them. The young mother was very badly injured, but doorman Hugh Bruce (50) and auctioneer Daniel McCormick (29) were crushed to death; their deaths left seven children fatherless. While the following cannot be stated with any certainty, this could well have been the cataclysmic moment that sparked the ‘Protestant backlash’. Many Loyalist paramilitaries have pinpointed this moment as being the catalyst to their recruitment into one of the two main groups: Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) or the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Twenty-two years later, the Provisionals repeated the tactic at Frizzell’s fish shop along the same road. A rash decision by the fledgling PIRA Army Council had unwittingly sown the wind; so their communities would reap the whirlwind as a consequence of their actions. With Christmas approaching – the third of the Troubles – the Provisionals had killed four more and seriously injured nineteen others. A Republican spokesman at first denied the outrage, but in almost the same breath stated that it was in retaliation for the McGurk’s Bar bomb by Loyalists that had killed fifteen people just seven days earlier; this will be covered in Chapter 7.