The 1980
Hunger Strikes

Europe's most expensive and secure prison is situated ten miles outside Belfast. It costs British taxpayers approximately £40,000,000 to run annually, around £60,000 per prisoner. Its 25ft. high security walls are equipped with sophisticated infrared surveillance cameras. Its watchtowers are manned by British army snipers instructed to shoot to kill. Guards with dogs and helicopters patrol the perimeter walls and surrounding countryside 24 hours a day.

In 1971, it was called Long Kesh "Camp" because it held hundreds of Irish people interned without trial in dilapidated Nissan huts similar to those used by the Germans in the 1940's. Since the withdrawal of political status and attempt at "criminalization" in 1976, prisoners are held in sophisticated, modern cellular blocks in an "H" design to enhance control--the H-Blocks. Anxious to erase political, prisoner of war associations, British authorities renamed the prison HMP The Maze. The prisoners and their communities call it "Long Kesh".

The infamy of Long Kesh was brought to the world's attention in the period 1980-1981, when two historic hunger strikes were undertaken by Republican prisoners protesting against the British government's counterinsurgency strategy of criminalization of political prisoners. This strategy was not only aimed at the individual prisoner, but was an attempt to criminalize the entire conflict and the republican objective of restoring the Irish people's right to national self-determination.

1971 Internment Without Trial

Hundreds of nationalists were arbitrarily imprisoned without charge or trial, beaten and tortured, and retained in Long Kesh camp, a former British army airfield.

1972 Political Status

Republican prisoners in Belfast's Crumlin Road jail embarked on a hunger strike to secure recognition by the British government of the political nature of the actions which had resulted in their imprisonment. They succeeded. Special Category - Political Status was acceded to all those interned in Long Kesh and in Magilligan camps in Derry.

During internment from 1971 through 1975, approximately 2,000 internees were recognized [albeit unofficially] by the British government as political prisoners of war.

1973 "Counter-insurgency" and "Diplock courts"

Internment had created internal resentment in Ireland and international opprobrium. The British government realized it needed to replace internment with a more refined and sanitized method of facilitating what British counter-insurgency strategist Brigadier Frank Kitson called "the disposal of unwanted members of the public."

The British appointed a senior judge, Lord Diplock, to recommend how the legal and judicial system could implement Kitson's plans. He abolished trial by jury for politically-related offenses and seriously diluted the rules of evidence which reversed the onus of proof of guilt by the prosecution to proof of innocence by the accused.

1975 Criminalization Policy Announced

On July 24th, the British announced that special category status would be terminated on March 1st, 1976. Anyone sentenced thereafter, regardless that their offenses were political or identical to those of prisoners sentenced before that date, would not qualify for special category status. In other words, anyone sentenced for political activities committed on or before February 26th, 1975, was a political prisoner. The same offense committed on or after March 1st, was considered a "criminal act".

1976 On "the blanket"

The success or failure of Kitson's and the British government's criminalization strategy depended upon forcing the prisoners to act like criminals by treating them like criminals, by making them wear prison clothing and making them do menial prison work.

To this end the policy of criminalization and its twin sister, normalization, i.e., the government's attempt to paint a veneer of normality about the conflict to the world, both floundered because of the inherent contradictions in the entire process. "Criminalization and normalization" actually reinforced the abnormality of the six county statelet. Its existence depended upon the denial of democracy, relying instead on very special and abnormal surveillance and population control, special powers of arrest under emergency legislation, special methods of interrogation, special internment by abnormally long periods of remand before trial, special no-jury, one-judge courts, special rules of evidence, especially long sentences and special prisons like the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. If everything is so normal, why all the special repression?

On September 14th, 1976 Ciaran Nugent from Belfast became the first Republican prisoner sentenced under the new system. He refused to wear prison-issue, criminal clothing or to conform to the regime imposed by the prison authorities. He said, "They will have to nail a prison uniform onto my back first." In this most "modern" of prisons, the only thing covering Ciaran Nugent's naked body was a blanket. He was soon joined by hundreds of other Republican prisoners who became known as "Blanketmen". As punishment, they were denied any form of physical or mental stimulus. They had no books, news, radio, educational facilities, and no association with fellow prisoners. They were confined to their cells 24 hours a day. Perhaps the worst punishment was that the prison regime added 14 days to their sentence for every 14 days "on the blanket." Every day in protest cost another in jail.

1978 "No Wash" and "Dirty Protest"

In March, two years after the removal of political status, Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks, in Belfast's Crumlin Road jail, in Magilligan in Derry and in Armagh Women's prison escalated the protest by going on a "no wash" protest. This was a direct consequence of the fact that H-Block prisoners were being beaten viciously by warders when they were unlocked to use the toilet and washing facilities.

They initially tried to "slop out" through their barred windows and under their steel doors. When this was prevented by the warders, they were forced to live in cells smeared from floor to ceiling with their own excreta. In the winter months, wearing only a blanket, they froze. They were subjected to degrading and painful mirror searches where warders forcibly spreadeagled their naked bodies over a mirror to probe and search their anuses. They were regularly hosed down in their cells with freezing cold then scalding hot water and forcibly scrubbed with rough brushes that scored and opened wounds in their skins that stung with the harsh disinfectant used. They were then left to try to sleep on soaking mattresses on the floor.

Throughout this torturous period, the Republican prisoners demonstrated an amazingly heroic determination to resist every attempt to break them. Some men spent four years under these conditions: constant beatings, never properly bathing, with long beards and living naked amid the intolerable stench and maggots.

One prisoner was confronted by a warder, "I wouldn't live like you for a million pounds." The Republican prisoner relied, "Neither would I."

1980 The First Hunger Strike

After more that four years on the Blanket, including two on the "no wash" protest, and subjected to unimaginable barbarities, the Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks decided to embark on a hunger strike to secure five basic demands:

The right not to wear a prisoner uniform (the insignia of the criminal)
The right as political prisoners not to do prison work
The right to associate with other political prisoners
The waiver of time added to sentences of protesting prisoners
The right to one weekly visit, letter and parcel
On October 27th, 1980, an initial 7 H-Block prisoners went on hunger strike, being joined thirty-five days later by 3 women Republican prisoners in Armagh. On December 13, another 30 Blanketmen joined the hunger strike.

On December 18th, the British government sent a positive signal to the hunger strikers which coincided with the serious deterioration in the health of the youngest of the initial group, Sean McKenna, who had lapsed into unconsciousness. That day British Secretary of State for the North, Humphrey Atkins, had been due to make a statement regarding the hunger strike in the House of Commons. He postponed doing so and ensured that a 34 page document, which in essence contained the basis of a settlement, was brought to the hunger striking prisoners in the prison hospital.

Atkins' action was an acknowledgement of political recognition. Having studied the document the Long Kesh and Armagh prisoners ended their 53-day hunger strike and looked forward to a more harmonious era within the North's prisons.

1981: Britain Reneges;
Ten Prisoners Die On Hunger Strike

Almost as soon as the spotlight was shifted away from the prisons the atmosphere changed. All phrases contained in the document about the situation not being static, work not being interpreted narrowly and the prison regime being progressive, human and flexible were soon shown as empty platitudes. On January 9th, 1981, before the British parliament, Atkins publicly reneged on his previously stated agreement by reversing the order that POWs receive their own clothes.

The prison regime reverted back to its previous intransigence by refusing to negotiate the scaling down of the blanket protest with Bobby Sands, elected leader of the Republican prisoners. On January 27th, 96 republican prisoners were brutally assaulted as they were transferred to other wings and left overnight in cells without bedding, blankets or drinking water. In effect, the prisoners were back to where they started.

The issues a statement that on March 1st (the 5th anniversary of the withdrawal of political status) they would commence another hunger strike. It was to become a watershed in the history of Ireland's struggle against British rule.

Death in the H-Blocks

As Bobby Sands, Officer in Command of the Republican prisoners began his hunger strike, the prisoners released a statement in which they asserted that "Only the loud voice of the Irish people and world opinion can bring the British government to its senses and only a hunger strike, where lives are laid down as proof of the strength of our political convictions, can rally such opinion, and present the British with the problem that far from criminalizing the cause of Ireland their intransigence is actually bringing popular attention to that cause."

The prisoners ended their statement: "We have asserted that we are political prisoners and everything about our country, our arrests, interrogations, trials and prison conditions, show that we are politically motivated and not motivated by selfish reasons or for selfish ends. As further demonstration of our selflessness and the justness of our cause a number of our comrades, beginning with Bobby Sands, will hunger strike to the death unless the British government abandons its criminalization policy and meets our demand for political status."