Irish Political Prisoners 1920-1962 by Sean McConville

Author:Sean McConville [McConville, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Political Science, Genocide & War Crimes, Social Science, Violence in Society, Capital Punishment
ISBN: 9781000082746
Google: au_eDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-04-23T15:59:44+00:00

Hunger-striking

There was to be no repeat of the mass hunger strikes of the 1920s, but individuals and small groups of internees did refuse food from time to time. These protests were uniformly unsuccessful. Given wartime conditions, tightly controlled information about prison conditions and incidents, suppression of the IRA and harassment of its support organisations and sympathisers, as well as the determined stance of the Northern Ireland government, it was obvious that self-starvation could not become a key to the prison gates. Strikes were undertaken not with the prospect of release but as short-term protests, to vent frustration or perhaps even to break the monotony. They usually lasted for only a few days and caused little concern to the authorities. Cases were sometimes taken up by Nationalist politicians at Stormont, but there seems to have been little other response from the nationalist community.8

The IRA had much experience of hunger-striking. With few exceptions, these actions were unsuccessful, but for there to be even a glimmer of hope strikers had to be few in number, if possible well known, physically and mentally fit and willing to die an awful death. There also had to be strong political support outside, expressed by demonstrations and petitions, and a wide coalition of humanitarian and religious sympathy. If all these conditions could be met, then, by death or near-death, hunger-striking could produce a very considerable gain for the organisation and for the republican cause. At their most successful, these actions could achieve international renown, as with Thomas Ashe (1917) and Terence MacSwiney (1920). Death by starvation or botched force-feeding would invariably embarrass the government and would give rise to domestic concern and Irish-American outrage and lobbying. But such outcomes were rare. Where, as was almost always the case, the strikes were impulsive, ill prepared, general and not coordinated with outside support, they collapsed and damaged IRA morale, credibility and organisation. By 1941, the leadership recognised the very great difficulty of bringing off strikes and issued a general army order forbidding them.9

This order had not prevented the internees — not all of whom were subject to IRA discipline — from staging hunger strikes. Wartime conditions meant that almost any open community support was out of the question. Censorship would muffle it, and association with a republican protest was a gilt-edged ticket to internment. But even had outside conditions been more favourable, the issue on which some strikes were called hardly had weight in the wider world. To prevent contraband being passed, Al Rawdah visits had taken place in a cabin divided by a wire screen. In response to internees’ requests, a portion of the screen was cut out to allow handshakes; some internees climbed on the table and managed to kiss or embrace their visitors.10 Internees understandably preferred this arrangement to the intimidating and forbidding double-mesh visiting box and close supervision at Belfast Prison. They were, moreover, civil detainees, not criminal prisoners. The issue was taken up with the Governor even before the general transfer from Al Rawdah took place on 11 and 13 February 1941.

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