Post by Papa C. on Aug 19, 2006 12:14:13 GMT
In 1981 Volunteers of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) were involved in a prison protest which would forever change the conflict in Northern Ireland.
The process began in 1976 when the British government ended “Special Category Status” for those who were imprisoned for their role in the conflict. Special Category or political status meant prisoners were treated very much like prisoners of war. They did not have to wear prison uniforms, nor involve themselves with prison work.
The introduction of this “criminalisation” policy was not introduced for existing prisoners, but phased in for the newly convicted. It was met with harsh rejection from the Republican prisoners.
In October 1980 seven prisoners began a hunger strike in Long Kesh. A few weeks later they were followed by three more prisoners from Armagh Women’s Jail. The strike was called off in December, when it appeared that the British government had conceded to the prisoners on the issue of clothing.
What had in fact happened was that the British government had duped the hunger strikers by announcing they intended to issue civilian style clothing, issued by the prison. In the early part of 1981 another strike was organised and the prisoners demanded five rights. They were:
1. The Right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. The Right not to do prison work;
3. The Right of free association with other prisoners;
4. The Right to organise their own educational and recreational facilities;
5. The Right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.
On March 1st, Bobby Sands commenced his hunger strike. He was replaced by Brendan “Bik” McFarlane as Officer Commanding, inside the H-Blocks.
Twenty-five years on, it is still a subject which raises many emotions with those connected to the Irish Republican movement. I caught up with Brendan McFarlane to revisit those dark times, the effects of which still reverberate around the world to the present day.
Matt Clark: Brendan, firstly thank you for taking the time to speak to me.
Brendan McFarlane: You’re very welcome Matt, absolutely no problem.
MC: The purpose of this interview is obviously to discuss the Hunger Strike which was undertaken by the Volunteers of the IRA and INLA 25 years ago. But firstly tell us about your childhood. Where did you grow up and did your family have a republican background?
BM: Ok Matt, I grew up in Ardoyne in north Belfast. It’s a pretty depraved area, which is a very, very staunchly nationalist or republican area. In a sense, coming from that very nationalistic background, it was more of a cultural background that my family would have had, as opposed to a political background.
I didn’t have any overt political influences from my family. The biggest political influences that I would have had would have been when I was a student. The pogroms of 1969 occurred during that August period, with the situation in Derry and in Belfast.
So it ended up that state forces and paramilitary forces; B Specials, RUC, Loyalist gangs, were attacking our areas, trying to deny people civil rights. In the aftermath of that, I returned from college in 1970 and I became involved in the struggle from about 1970 onwards.
MC: That leads me on to my next question actually. I understand that you were studying in a seminary in Wales to become a priest when the troubles broke out, is that correct?
BM: That’s right. I had gone off to a seminary in north Wales. I spent two years studying over there between September ’68 and the summer of 1970. When I returned in 1970 possibly because I wasn’t as settled in the aftermath of that conflict kicking off here, that I came out of it (the seminary) in that period.
MC: How hard was the decision to leave behind the life of a “man of God” to join the IRA?
BM: Many people ask me that, even friends of mine used to say to me, ‘how do you manage that, you’re going from one extreme to another extreme.’ In a sense it wasn’t that difficult, in part because of the development of British theology which was to the fore in the 1960s. With the divine work missionaries primarily being involved in third world countries and conflict regions such as Central and South America, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, areas like that there.
A lot people that were involved in missionary work all over the world became involved at a local level with depraved and oppressed people. So in a sense, for me it wasn’t that big of a contradiction. People would say ‘you’ve turned from religion into blowing up and shooting and all the rest of it’. But in a sense, for me, it was a matter of initially getting involved with the local people of the area that I lived in, for the extensive purposes of the area.
Being against Loyalist forces, being against state forces and then obviously the natural progression of that, moving into an IRA campaign that was initially defensive, becoming offensive after that time.
MC: What were the circumstances that lead to your imprisonment?
BM: I was actually arrested during 1975, at a time when the Shankill Butchers were launching attacks on nationalist areas and killing countless numbers of innocent Catholics. They were kidnapped, killed and had horrendous brutality inflicted on them.
The reason they were called the Shankill Butchers is because they were kidnapping people and sometimes cutting their throats and decapitating them. It was sending a very fearful message to nationalists. People were living in total and absolute abject fear of leaving their areas, and there were a lot of attacks on our areas.
So we had responded at one of the places that they frequented. We attacked that place that they were at, and five people were killed in that and I was arrested in the direct after-event of it.
After court proceedings I was sentenced to life imprisonment in the compounds which we called “the cages” of Long Kesh, which was the political section of the Long Kesh camp.
MC: Describe the situations which lead to the Hunger Strike in 1981. What were the motives behind the strike and what were the conditions like in the prison?
BM: What kicked it off, in a sense, was that the British had introduced political status which they called ‘special category’ status for all prisoners involved in the conflict in 1972. But they decided that because it was such a political identification in an international sphere, they wanted to attempt to criminalise the republican struggle. So they felt that the best way that they could do that, or the most effective way, was to attack the soft underbelly of the republican struggle. They believed that to be in the shape of the prisoners.
So if they could criminalise the prisoners, they could by extension, criminalise the republican struggle. That would be a pretty hefty morale blow to the nationalist base, the republican base. Thus, they could undermine the capability of the Irish Republican Army to wage a struggle. So in March 1st, 1976 they removed political status and determined that anyone arrested after that date would be classed as a common criminal.
As political prisoners we could organise our own education system, we had our own recreation system. We were held in the compound system where we had our command structures. Generally speaking, with the exception of security control, we actually organised our own lives.
So there was an attempt to de-politicise us and to criminalise us. What happened was, Ciarán Nugent, who was the first man processed through the courts, was put directly into these purposely built new H-Blocks. He was told he would have to wear the criminal uniform and do whatever labour that was dealt out by the prison authorities.
He refused to be identified as a criminal and he went on protest. That was the beginning of the blanket protest. The reason they called it the blanket protest was because the British prison authorities removed all the clothing, leaving an empty cell. You had a bed in a cell and that was it. You were denied all reading materials, all access to videos, contact, no tobacco, no parcels, nothing. All because we refused to abide by what they called the criminal regime, because we were political prisoners.
And that protest escalated over a period of time when further prisoners join this. The British Government had challenged the Irish Republican Army and they thought that they could break it. They thought that they could defeat that struggle. Those prisoners, from the start, refused to be used and the protest progressed right through to a hunger strike.
MC: What was the general attitude of the prisoners at the outset of the strike? Was morale high at the time?
BM: Well, first of all, there was a lot of brutality and a lot of young prisoners were under immense pressure. But as the number of prisoners on the protest built up, the morale began to increase. As people began to pay attention and as people began to accept this whole protest mode… morale at different times was high and at other times, it was low.
In 1978 with the no wash protest, when men going to showers were getting beaten up, men emptying their chamber pot were being attacked. So you were almost forced to be in your cell, to wash in your cell, to do your toiletries in your cell.
Sometimes there were mirror searches; your chamber pot was kicked under your bed. So it ended up in this dire situation where urine being forced out of your windows to be emptied. Then the windows were blocked up, so it was spread on the walls.
So coming to the end of the 1978 period morale was at a high period because the protest was beginning to get a lot of substantial attention. However, because of the political situation around the H-Blocks, the British had chosen this as the battleground. Therefore it wasn’t simply a matter of trying to resolve an internal prison situation. This was to do with the biggest political picture.
MC: What sort of criteria did a candidate have to go through to get on the Hunger Strike?
BM: Well first and foremost, when the hunger strike was broached as an idea, the Army Council of the Irish Republican Army was totally and absolutely against it. The IRA on the outside was opposed to it for a number of reasons. They felt people would die. They felt that it could endanger the struggle. But when it was argued vehemently by ourselves within the prison that this was the only way to change the situation, short of surrender which wasn’t an option at all, we sold the argument to the leadership on the outside.
In the beginning there was somewhere between 80 and 100 people who initially volunteered for the hunger strike. The first hunger strike was effectively done with geographical reasons. Every area, where possible, would be represented on the hunger strike. Secondly, the individual in question needed to have clear understanding of the political and personal ramifications of the situation. This meant that the leadership of the inside of the prison and the leadership on the outside of the prison, in particular the Army Council, asked some very hard hitting questions.
They were asked questions such as: Do you understand the effect this will have on your family? Do you understand the political impact you’re having on the struggle? Do you realise and comprehend that in a two months time you will be dead?
As long as the Volunteers in question understood the politics of what we were about and they certainly, to the last man, were determined not to let themselves or the other prisoners in general, to be used as a tool so that damage could be inflicted upon our struggle.
MC: Brendan, am I correct in saying that Bobby Sands was in the cell next to you?
BM: Actually he was in the same wing on a number of occasions and he was a couple of cells down on one occasion. He was also in a cell just across the wing, we were pretty close.
MC: Oh ok. Well he had love of both the written and spoken word, as do you. What can you tell us about Bobby’s ability as a poet?
BM: Well to me, Bobby Sands was a lot of things to many people. You had people like Bobby, and the same goes for all of the other hunger strikers… these were ordinary lads, who grew up in urban areas, that would have been working class areas, or rural areas, farming country. Generally speaking they were ordinary lads, some had formal education. Others had left school at an early age.
Bobby Sands, like the others, had left school at an early age and had gotten involved in the struggle. All of them had been jailed once; this was the second time around for some of them. But within that sense of being an ‘ordinary person’ they rose to extraordinary feats.
Certain talents came out in people… I always viewed Bobby as being a poetic actor. He was a singer and a musician. He was able to craft songs very cleverly with his use of lyrics. A lot of the time, from doing propaganda and publicity within the prison he would evolve day-by-day, non-stop, in writing articles, writing stories, writing reports and doing political lectures, that sort of stuff.
To me his poetry was tremendous, and it was non-stop. He used to send up his work, smuggle it up from cell to cell, just for me to check rhyme schemes and things like that. He had this immense talent of writing and certainly he has a major influence on young people, right through to the present day.
MC: Describe what you felt, if you can, when the news had reached you that Bobby had died.
BM: Bobby’s hunger strike lasted 66 days, during which there were a number of interventions, none of which had proved fruitful. The British had not given any clear indication through any intervention, including the European Court of Human Rights, which had sent a delegation to try and bring some closure to it.... The British hadn’t indicated at any stage that they were genuine, even though in the aftermath of Bobby’s election, many people believed that there was an opportunity there for the British to bring closure to it.
I visited him in the prison hospital about a week and a half before his death and it was a very moving experience. He was lying propped up on his bed on pillows, his eyes were sunken, cheeks were sunken. He found it very difficult to hear properly, to see properly. His speech was slow and heavy, as if it was labored. I spent about 10 to 15 minutes with him by his bedside and I spoke with him. His departing comments at that stage were: “I’m dying a chara, I’m dying.”
In the aftermath of that, when I came back to the cell, we had small crystal radio sets, which we had smuggled inside. We were able to monitor the local British news radio stations. We used to get the news late at night and early in the morning and smuggle, or conceal, the sets after that. That last week there was almost an awful inevitability creeping in that we were going to lose him.
The weekend prior to him dying his family was brought in to the prison hospital and accommodation was provided for them. Then you had the daily medical reports that he was lapsing into a coma and his breathing was labored, that his family was at his bedside….All these sort of things were coming across this small ear piece we had for the radio. There was this awful, awful sense of just waiting for the inevitable.
Late on the Monday night I decided to leave the radio attached, because there was a large copper coin being tied on to a wire pin for an aerial. I just decided to leave it attached and try and get the later news. I got the midnight news, then I got the one o’clock news and I thought ‘Oh, I’ll leave it on and I’ll get up earlier, before the screws get back on duty and I’ll hide it then.’ At the end of the 2am news it was announced, and I remember it as clear as if it was two o’clock this morning, that Bobby Sands - IRA hunger striker and MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone died at seventeen minutes past one. When I heard that I was devastated even though I was waiting for it to happen.
There was a tremendous sense of loss and heartache. I wrapped the pipes of the cells and told the boys down the line….and all the boys were just….numb. It was just this awful, awful feeling.
The process began in 1976 when the British government ended “Special Category Status” for those who were imprisoned for their role in the conflict. Special Category or political status meant prisoners were treated very much like prisoners of war. They did not have to wear prison uniforms, nor involve themselves with prison work.
The introduction of this “criminalisation” policy was not introduced for existing prisoners, but phased in for the newly convicted. It was met with harsh rejection from the Republican prisoners.
In October 1980 seven prisoners began a hunger strike in Long Kesh. A few weeks later they were followed by three more prisoners from Armagh Women’s Jail. The strike was called off in December, when it appeared that the British government had conceded to the prisoners on the issue of clothing.
What had in fact happened was that the British government had duped the hunger strikers by announcing they intended to issue civilian style clothing, issued by the prison. In the early part of 1981 another strike was organised and the prisoners demanded five rights. They were:
1. The Right not to wear a prison uniform;
2. The Right not to do prison work;
3. The Right of free association with other prisoners;
4. The Right to organise their own educational and recreational facilities;
5. The Right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.
On March 1st, Bobby Sands commenced his hunger strike. He was replaced by Brendan “Bik” McFarlane as Officer Commanding, inside the H-Blocks.
Twenty-five years on, it is still a subject which raises many emotions with those connected to the Irish Republican movement. I caught up with Brendan McFarlane to revisit those dark times, the effects of which still reverberate around the world to the present day.
Matt Clark: Brendan, firstly thank you for taking the time to speak to me.
Brendan McFarlane: You’re very welcome Matt, absolutely no problem.
MC: The purpose of this interview is obviously to discuss the Hunger Strike which was undertaken by the Volunteers of the IRA and INLA 25 years ago. But firstly tell us about your childhood. Where did you grow up and did your family have a republican background?
BM: Ok Matt, I grew up in Ardoyne in north Belfast. It’s a pretty depraved area, which is a very, very staunchly nationalist or republican area. In a sense, coming from that very nationalistic background, it was more of a cultural background that my family would have had, as opposed to a political background.
I didn’t have any overt political influences from my family. The biggest political influences that I would have had would have been when I was a student. The pogroms of 1969 occurred during that August period, with the situation in Derry and in Belfast.
So it ended up that state forces and paramilitary forces; B Specials, RUC, Loyalist gangs, were attacking our areas, trying to deny people civil rights. In the aftermath of that, I returned from college in 1970 and I became involved in the struggle from about 1970 onwards.
MC: That leads me on to my next question actually. I understand that you were studying in a seminary in Wales to become a priest when the troubles broke out, is that correct?
BM: That’s right. I had gone off to a seminary in north Wales. I spent two years studying over there between September ’68 and the summer of 1970. When I returned in 1970 possibly because I wasn’t as settled in the aftermath of that conflict kicking off here, that I came out of it (the seminary) in that period.
MC: How hard was the decision to leave behind the life of a “man of God” to join the IRA?
BM: Many people ask me that, even friends of mine used to say to me, ‘how do you manage that, you’re going from one extreme to another extreme.’ In a sense it wasn’t that difficult, in part because of the development of British theology which was to the fore in the 1960s. With the divine work missionaries primarily being involved in third world countries and conflict regions such as Central and South America, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, areas like that there.
A lot people that were involved in missionary work all over the world became involved at a local level with depraved and oppressed people. So in a sense, for me it wasn’t that big of a contradiction. People would say ‘you’ve turned from religion into blowing up and shooting and all the rest of it’. But in a sense, for me, it was a matter of initially getting involved with the local people of the area that I lived in, for the extensive purposes of the area.
Being against Loyalist forces, being against state forces and then obviously the natural progression of that, moving into an IRA campaign that was initially defensive, becoming offensive after that time.
MC: What were the circumstances that lead to your imprisonment?
BM: I was actually arrested during 1975, at a time when the Shankill Butchers were launching attacks on nationalist areas and killing countless numbers of innocent Catholics. They were kidnapped, killed and had horrendous brutality inflicted on them.
The reason they were called the Shankill Butchers is because they were kidnapping people and sometimes cutting their throats and decapitating them. It was sending a very fearful message to nationalists. People were living in total and absolute abject fear of leaving their areas, and there were a lot of attacks on our areas.
So we had responded at one of the places that they frequented. We attacked that place that they were at, and five people were killed in that and I was arrested in the direct after-event of it.
After court proceedings I was sentenced to life imprisonment in the compounds which we called “the cages” of Long Kesh, which was the political section of the Long Kesh camp.
MC: Describe the situations which lead to the Hunger Strike in 1981. What were the motives behind the strike and what were the conditions like in the prison?
BM: What kicked it off, in a sense, was that the British had introduced political status which they called ‘special category’ status for all prisoners involved in the conflict in 1972. But they decided that because it was such a political identification in an international sphere, they wanted to attempt to criminalise the republican struggle. So they felt that the best way that they could do that, or the most effective way, was to attack the soft underbelly of the republican struggle. They believed that to be in the shape of the prisoners.
So if they could criminalise the prisoners, they could by extension, criminalise the republican struggle. That would be a pretty hefty morale blow to the nationalist base, the republican base. Thus, they could undermine the capability of the Irish Republican Army to wage a struggle. So in March 1st, 1976 they removed political status and determined that anyone arrested after that date would be classed as a common criminal.
As political prisoners we could organise our own education system, we had our own recreation system. We were held in the compound system where we had our command structures. Generally speaking, with the exception of security control, we actually organised our own lives.
So there was an attempt to de-politicise us and to criminalise us. What happened was, Ciarán Nugent, who was the first man processed through the courts, was put directly into these purposely built new H-Blocks. He was told he would have to wear the criminal uniform and do whatever labour that was dealt out by the prison authorities.
He refused to be identified as a criminal and he went on protest. That was the beginning of the blanket protest. The reason they called it the blanket protest was because the British prison authorities removed all the clothing, leaving an empty cell. You had a bed in a cell and that was it. You were denied all reading materials, all access to videos, contact, no tobacco, no parcels, nothing. All because we refused to abide by what they called the criminal regime, because we were political prisoners.
And that protest escalated over a period of time when further prisoners join this. The British Government had challenged the Irish Republican Army and they thought that they could break it. They thought that they could defeat that struggle. Those prisoners, from the start, refused to be used and the protest progressed right through to a hunger strike.
MC: What was the general attitude of the prisoners at the outset of the strike? Was morale high at the time?
BM: Well, first of all, there was a lot of brutality and a lot of young prisoners were under immense pressure. But as the number of prisoners on the protest built up, the morale began to increase. As people began to pay attention and as people began to accept this whole protest mode… morale at different times was high and at other times, it was low.
In 1978 with the no wash protest, when men going to showers were getting beaten up, men emptying their chamber pot were being attacked. So you were almost forced to be in your cell, to wash in your cell, to do your toiletries in your cell.
Sometimes there were mirror searches; your chamber pot was kicked under your bed. So it ended up in this dire situation where urine being forced out of your windows to be emptied. Then the windows were blocked up, so it was spread on the walls.
So coming to the end of the 1978 period morale was at a high period because the protest was beginning to get a lot of substantial attention. However, because of the political situation around the H-Blocks, the British had chosen this as the battleground. Therefore it wasn’t simply a matter of trying to resolve an internal prison situation. This was to do with the biggest political picture.
MC: What sort of criteria did a candidate have to go through to get on the Hunger Strike?
BM: Well first and foremost, when the hunger strike was broached as an idea, the Army Council of the Irish Republican Army was totally and absolutely against it. The IRA on the outside was opposed to it for a number of reasons. They felt people would die. They felt that it could endanger the struggle. But when it was argued vehemently by ourselves within the prison that this was the only way to change the situation, short of surrender which wasn’t an option at all, we sold the argument to the leadership on the outside.
In the beginning there was somewhere between 80 and 100 people who initially volunteered for the hunger strike. The first hunger strike was effectively done with geographical reasons. Every area, where possible, would be represented on the hunger strike. Secondly, the individual in question needed to have clear understanding of the political and personal ramifications of the situation. This meant that the leadership of the inside of the prison and the leadership on the outside of the prison, in particular the Army Council, asked some very hard hitting questions.
They were asked questions such as: Do you understand the effect this will have on your family? Do you understand the political impact you’re having on the struggle? Do you realise and comprehend that in a two months time you will be dead?
As long as the Volunteers in question understood the politics of what we were about and they certainly, to the last man, were determined not to let themselves or the other prisoners in general, to be used as a tool so that damage could be inflicted upon our struggle.
MC: Brendan, am I correct in saying that Bobby Sands was in the cell next to you?
BM: Actually he was in the same wing on a number of occasions and he was a couple of cells down on one occasion. He was also in a cell just across the wing, we were pretty close.
MC: Oh ok. Well he had love of both the written and spoken word, as do you. What can you tell us about Bobby’s ability as a poet?
BM: Well to me, Bobby Sands was a lot of things to many people. You had people like Bobby, and the same goes for all of the other hunger strikers… these were ordinary lads, who grew up in urban areas, that would have been working class areas, or rural areas, farming country. Generally speaking they were ordinary lads, some had formal education. Others had left school at an early age.
Bobby Sands, like the others, had left school at an early age and had gotten involved in the struggle. All of them had been jailed once; this was the second time around for some of them. But within that sense of being an ‘ordinary person’ they rose to extraordinary feats.
Certain talents came out in people… I always viewed Bobby as being a poetic actor. He was a singer and a musician. He was able to craft songs very cleverly with his use of lyrics. A lot of the time, from doing propaganda and publicity within the prison he would evolve day-by-day, non-stop, in writing articles, writing stories, writing reports and doing political lectures, that sort of stuff.
To me his poetry was tremendous, and it was non-stop. He used to send up his work, smuggle it up from cell to cell, just for me to check rhyme schemes and things like that. He had this immense talent of writing and certainly he has a major influence on young people, right through to the present day.
MC: Describe what you felt, if you can, when the news had reached you that Bobby had died.
BM: Bobby’s hunger strike lasted 66 days, during which there were a number of interventions, none of which had proved fruitful. The British had not given any clear indication through any intervention, including the European Court of Human Rights, which had sent a delegation to try and bring some closure to it.... The British hadn’t indicated at any stage that they were genuine, even though in the aftermath of Bobby’s election, many people believed that there was an opportunity there for the British to bring closure to it.
I visited him in the prison hospital about a week and a half before his death and it was a very moving experience. He was lying propped up on his bed on pillows, his eyes were sunken, cheeks were sunken. He found it very difficult to hear properly, to see properly. His speech was slow and heavy, as if it was labored. I spent about 10 to 15 minutes with him by his bedside and I spoke with him. His departing comments at that stage were: “I’m dying a chara, I’m dying.”
In the aftermath of that, when I came back to the cell, we had small crystal radio sets, which we had smuggled inside. We were able to monitor the local British news radio stations. We used to get the news late at night and early in the morning and smuggle, or conceal, the sets after that. That last week there was almost an awful inevitability creeping in that we were going to lose him.
The weekend prior to him dying his family was brought in to the prison hospital and accommodation was provided for them. Then you had the daily medical reports that he was lapsing into a coma and his breathing was labored, that his family was at his bedside….All these sort of things were coming across this small ear piece we had for the radio. There was this awful, awful sense of just waiting for the inevitable.
Late on the Monday night I decided to leave the radio attached, because there was a large copper coin being tied on to a wire pin for an aerial. I just decided to leave it attached and try and get the later news. I got the midnight news, then I got the one o’clock news and I thought ‘Oh, I’ll leave it on and I’ll get up earlier, before the screws get back on duty and I’ll hide it then.’ At the end of the 2am news it was announced, and I remember it as clear as if it was two o’clock this morning, that Bobby Sands - IRA hunger striker and MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone died at seventeen minutes past one. When I heard that I was devastated even though I was waiting for it to happen.
There was a tremendous sense of loss and heartache. I wrapped the pipes of the cells and told the boys down the line….and all the boys were just….numb. It was just this awful, awful feeling.
