Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland

by Ed Moloney

  I would have weekly meetings with Reid either on the visits or after Mass and we took a great deal of encouragement from … the O Fiaich–Thatcher meetings, until the day Danny Morrison arrived on a visit and I was sent for. I went down and met Danny and he gave me a big King Edward cigar and then told me that Thatcher had slammed the door on O Fiaich; the talks were over and there was nothing. It was a great shock to me and I remember having to walk back from the prison visits, back to the cell. But before that Danny Morrison said, ‘What are you going to do now?’ and I said, ‘We’ve no choice but to go on hunger strike.’ And I asked him to start preparing outside …

  … there was always a possibility of a hunger strike, because of the upsurge in brutality after we came back from H6. I knew we had to do something drastic because I didn’t believe that the men could take much more of that without [having] some light at the end of the tunnel. People were so demoralised and getting much more so because of the upsurge in brutality and because the actions that the IRA were taking on the outside, assassinating screws, was not having the effect which we believed it could have … The tactic of shooting screws did not work, and did not lessen the brutality. Because of this and the breakdown of the O Fiaich talks, that left us with no alternative. People’s hopes had been built up because of the O Fiaich talks. The day Danny Morrison said that Thatcher had practically thrown O Fiaich out of the place, I knew then that the only option left was a hunger strike. People were waiting with great expectations of me coming back with good news. I mean, the common phrase at that time was: ‘When are the brown bags with our clothes coming in?’ It was the loneliest walk back from the visits that I ever had. I knew I was going to have to inform the men that the whole thing had collapsed. But at the same time the decision to have a hunger strike was at least giving some hope that the prison protest would end eventually, because this was the last step we could take. I remember that lonely walk up the prison yard with people looking out [of] windows and waiting for me to bring them the word that it was all over, that the brown bags were coming up behind me. And I didn’t have that news to give them. I sat and talked. Bobby was obviously in the next cell to me as usual, and he was straight down at the pipe, talking through the small hole at the heating pipe. And I told him what had happened. He was the first one I told, that there was nothing – and he knew right away that we had no option but to call a hunger strike. And that night I got up to the door and informed the men that the O Fiaich talks had collapsed and we would be preparing for a hunger strike. I remember the total silence in the wing.

  The decision made, Hughes set about organising the hunger strike, informing the other protesting blocks, seeking volunteers, setting a date and negotiating with the other Republican para military group on the protest, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a violent offshoot from the Provos’ nemesis, the Official IRA.

  … so the decision was taken that day for a hunger strike and communications were sent around the blocks informing the men that a date would be set … and names of volunteers were to be sent to myself. I can’t actually remember how many names we got. I believe it was over ninety … out of three hundred. It was a high figure … It was now a matter of sorting out how many men [had volunteered] and who would be picked … We went through the list, myself and Bobby, and eliminated anyone with health problems, anyone we believed would be too weak. And then we had to decide how many of us would go. There was some argument between myself and John Nixon who was the O/C of the INLA in the prison. He wanted to have two INLA prisoners on the hunger strike and I was insisting on only one; the rest would be Provisional IRA Volunteers. This argument went on for some time, through comms and through the cell door, in Gaelic. Nixon was in the same wing as me and … I remember the argument out the door with him. It got pretty heated at times, but I insisted there would be no more than one. So John Nixon volunteered to be that one. Sean McKenna’s name came in as well and I initially ruled out Sean because I believed him to be … physically weak. After I eliminated Sean, he tortured me, sending me comms, insisting that he should [be allowed to] go on the hunger strike. I eventually conceded … and put his name down … We decided we would take one from each county, if possible, to maximise the support in the six counties. People thought we chose seven because of the 1916 Proclamation but the reason for seven men … was the six counties plus one INLA Volunteer. The intention was to maximise support in all of the six counties.

  Brendan Hughes and Bobby Sands had, by the way they structured the protest, almost guaranteed that it would run into difficulties, although they didn’t realise it at the time. Hunger strikers have to be very determined people but the two men chose candidates based on geo-political considerations rather than their character. On the morning of 27 October 1980 seven prisoners – Brendan Hughes, Tommy McKearney, Leo Green, Tom McFeely, Sean McKenna and Raymond McCartney from the Provisional IRA and John Nixon, the former O/C of the INLA – refused breakfast. The hunger strike had started. It would last fifty-three days and, for Brendan Hughes, it would end in controversy, deceit, regret and guilt.

  I remember the first day of the hunger strike … I was in the cell with Muffles Trainor … They left the food at the door of the cell, and I told them, ‘I am on hunger strike, as from now.’ I remember … looking round the cell and saying to myself, ‘ … this is the first of the last days of my life’ … and feeling pretty isolated and lonely. As time went on they moved us from the cells and put us into a wing that was clean and empty. It became the hospital wing. Every morning they would … take our blood pressure, weigh us. We would then pass that information over to Bobby. I had great faith in Bobby at that time. That information would be sent to the outside, you know: ‘Tom McFeely lost three pounds today; Brendan Hughes lost six pounds’, and so forth … I can’t remember how many days we were in this hospital wing, when they moved us up to the proper prison hospital. We had separate cells, which they called rooms … Again we were taken out every morning, up to the medical room, weighed, blood pressure taken and so forth. And again these details had to be sent out. By and large it was the priests who did that, particularly Father Toner. I would be allowed to visit each of the hunger strikers … Later, I needed help and the person who did that was usually Toner or Father Murphy, the two prison chaplains. Sean [McKenna] was the biggest problem. He was the weakest mentally and physically and I paid great attention to him. One day he informed me that he didn’t think he could die on hunger strike. It came as a shock to me … Obviously he was going through a bad period of doubt.

  As time went on we had an approach from the British and we all met. By this stage Sean was in a wheelchair, and we met in the prison hospital canteen. I can’t recall the civil servant’s name but the Governor of the prison was there and the Chief Prison Officer was there. They informed us that they were prepared to concede, not political status, not the five demands, but something similar. And we asked for some time to discuss their proposals. I can’t remember specifically what the proposals were. But Tom McFeely who was … probably one of the most strong-willed of the hunger strikers, informed me that it was something similar to the conditions in Portlaoise that they were offering us.|||| So the deal they were offering us became known as the ‘Portlaoise-type settlement’. But we decided to hold on for as long as we could, to try and extract more and we insisted that someone from the leadership of the movement on the outside be brought in as a guarantor and Father Faul and someone else as a guarantors. We wanted guarantors. And this was when the brinkmanship started – we were holding out; they were holding out. After this initial meeting, we went back to our cells, Sean was very ill. I told him I would not let him die. And he took me at my word …

  Q. Firstly, is it true to say that this completely limited your negotiating room for manoeuvre? And secondly, it also put a man’s life directly in your hands, and you couldn’t really violate your word after you’d given it because he [McKenna] was in a coma knowing that his life depended on you honouring your wo
rd. And, I mean, in your own mind there was no way that you could break your word to him?

  A. No, I don’t believe so.

  Brendan Hughes’s promise to Sean McKenna effectively meant the hunger strike was over since McKenna was likely to be the first to approach death. But there were signs that others on the protest were having second thoughts. When McKenna slipped into a coma Hughes kept his word, saved his life and ended the hunger strike. It is evident from his interview that Hughes suspects the British had learned of his exchange with McKenna, possibly via a bug planted in his cell, and maybe tailored their approach accordingly. Only after the protest had been called off did Hughes learn about a document sent into the jail by British Intelligence which purported to offer a deal.

  But Sean was not the only one – Sean was the weakest … So all those weaknesses were there. After Sean asked me, I gave him a guarantee that I would not let him die. A few days later – now, I want to try and get the sequence correct here. Dr [David] Ross – he was the main doctor looking after the hunger strikers – came and informed me that Sean had only hours to live. It’s possible they were playing brinkmanship with me at this stage. And it’s possible that the cells were bugged and that they picked up what I had said to Sean. And they knew that if Sean went into a deep coma, that I would intervene. And that’s exactly what happened. Dr Ross came to me and told me that Sean would die within hours and he wanted permission … to take Sean to hospital. And this took place. There was a sudden rush of activity; prison orderlies took Sean on a stretcher up the wing. I was standing in the wing with Father Toner, Father Reid and Dr Ross … and I shouted up after Dr Ross, ‘Feed him.’ I had no guarantee at that point that anything was going to come from the British, no guarantee whatsoever. We all knew that they had offered us this deal but we had no guarantee that the deal would go through. We only had their word for it. The hunger strike was called off before the British document arrived. It was only later that night, I think; it was very late at night that Father Meagher*** and Bobby [Sands] arrived at my cell with the document.

  Q. So is it fair to say that the hunger strike then did not end as a result of the document but the hunger strike ended prior to the document and it was in many respects the humanitarian decision on your part – you were bound by your word?

  A. Yeah.

  Q. In many senses, I mean, it ended not because you sensed political victory but as a need to save Sean McKenna’s life?

  A. Yeah, that would be true, even though we had a promise, which was eventually boiled down to nothing, of this Portlaoise-type agree ment. That night, as I say, when Meagher and Bobby arrived with this document, obviously this was taking place when we were still on hunger strike. But I didn’t know that a meeting had been arranged at the airport, that Father Meagher was to go to the airport and a man would approach him wearing a red carnation in his coat. That’s the only information Meagher had. He duly did that, went to the airport, picked up the document, picked up Bobby and came to my cell with it. Obviously I could not read it at the time. Father Meagher was jubilant; Bobby was cautious. And I asked Meagher and Bobby what did they think: was there a settlement there? And they both agreed that there was, but it would need further clarification and more work done on it. We were obviously jubilant as well because we believed that we had secured a solution to the hunger strike. I then went round and informed all the boys.

  I made the decision to take Sean off the hunger strike, thus taking everyone else off because I knew that the hunger strike was going to collapse anyway … There were people on the hunger strike, I believed this at the time, I don’t know how much truth was in it, who were waiting for Sean to die, knowing that then the hunger strike would be called off … I had seen the weaknesses in certain people. And I’m sure Bobby had sensed it as well.

  I remember meeting Sean [McKenna] some time later and Sean didn’t come out of it unscarred … He was brain damaged, and his eyesight was badly damaged. I remember him saying to me a few years ago, when I met him in Dundalk, ‘Fuck you, Dark, you should have let me die.’ I remember being really taken aback by that. It was just an example of the type of stuff that the man is still going through today. And I’ve since heard – I don’t know whether there’s much truth in it – he is now suffering from throat cancer.†††

  The IRA and Sinn Fein leadership outside the prison pretended that the hunger strike had ended in victory while faux negotiations took place between the prison authorities and Bobby Sands, Hughes’s replacement as Prison Commander, aimed at implementing the British document brought to Brendan Hughes after he had ended the protest. The authorised version of the first hunger strike, the version put forward by Sinn Fein then and ever since, has the British reneging on the document during these talks. The hunger strikers won, in other words, but perfidious Albion lied and deceived, as she always did. In his interviews with Boston College, Hughes called the Sinn Fein version a ‘lie’; the hunger strike, he declared, was a failure. Most Provo supporters at the time seemed to side with Hughes. When the Sinn Fein leadership in Belfast announced a victory parade through West Belfast to celebrate the hunger strikers’ triumph, so few people turned out it was an embarrassment.

  I remember feeling embarrassed at the whole thing taking place outside … I had no control over anything any more. People on the outside and Bobby were … dictating the line. It was largely taken out of my hands … I mean, the first hunger strike was a failure. We did not win our demands and the lie was perpetrated. It’s happened twice in my life. I remember when the [1994] ceasefire was called the procession of cars going round West Belfast, bumping horns, ‘Victory, victory, victory’, and I knew damn well there was no victory there … So, as I say, that was the end of my leadership in the prison. [Ending the hunger strike] was the last decision I had to make. At that stage I had come out of the prison hospital … back to the prison cell that I had left, and I was totally and utterly demoralised, full of feelings of guilt, and thinking, ‘Should I have let Sean die? It was murderous. I remember one time tensing myself up, pushing to try and stop my heart; I was suicidal. I had a constant clear image of having a gun and just blowing my head off. That went on for a long, long time after the hunger strike, and especially during the second hunger strike when men began to die. I mean, it was the worst period of my life; it was even worse than the hunger strike itself. It took me years and years to get over it. I still have feelings about it and it’s very difficult for me to talk about this. It brings it all back. I have a clear image now of the prison hospital. I’ve a clear image now of people dying … There is a smell when you die; there’s a death smell, and it hung over the hospital the whole period during the hunger strike … I can smell it sometimes, that stale death smell. I couldn’t have spoken like this a few years ago. I wasn’t able to do it. I put it out of my head. Even when the book Ten Men Dead was written,64 I couldn’t read it. I started it, and read one chapter, I think, and put it down. I still haven’t read it. And I’m told that it’s probably the most authoritative book that’s been written on the hunger strikes.

  Brendan Hughes had ended the hunger strike when he was told that Sean McKenna was about to fall into a coma from which he might never recover. The advice came from Dr Ross, a senior prison medical officer, who would himself play a tragic, and until now untold, part in the story of the H-blocks during the terrible summer that followed the first, failed hunger strike. Hughes regarded Ross as the eleventh person to die on the protest.

  … a footnote to all this is that myself and Bobby had disagreements about the doctor who was in charge at the time of the hunger strikes. Bobby believed Dr Ross to be a mind-manipulator. I didn’t believe that. I believed him to be OK. But it’s important to remember that after the second hunger strike, Dr Ross blew himself away with a double-barrelled shotgun. He shot himself in the stomach and then blew his head off. I don’t know if it was to do with the hunger strikes [but] I believe it was. And I would sometimes refer to Dr Ross as the eleventh hunger striker, t
he eleventh victim of the hunger strike. I mean, anybody who could stand by and watch ten men die and not be affected … is a very, very ruthless man indeed … and I don’t believe that Ross was as ruthless as that. Bobby had no time for him, did not trust him, believed him to be, as I say, a mind-wrestler, trying to get inside people’s minds. But he used to sit on my bed for so long sometimes I would wish he’d go, [but] he would talk to me about fishing, about the mountains, the rivers and the streams. And for a man to bring in spring water every morning for the hunger strikers because he believed it to be much richer and would help the prisoners was not a ruthless man. That’s what he did, every morning he brought spring water in instead of the tap water that we had. And you know during a hunger strike it’s awful to drink salt and water. And I remember throwing it up, many’s a time throwing it up. But you had to try … the memory of that salt water and the sickness and … and the smell and watching your flesh. I mean, the body is a fantastic machine – it’ll eat off all the fat tissue first and then it starts eating away at the muscle to keep your brain alive. When that goes, all that’s left is your brain, and it starts to go as well. And that’s when the brain damage sets in. Your body needs glucose, and the last supply of glucose is in your brain.