July 1981

Thatcher’s ‘offer to hunger strikers’
Former priest reveals how IRA spurned PM’s compromise deal to save prisoners’ lives in 1981

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
The Observer, Sunday 30 April 2006

Margaret Thatcher offered a compromise deal that would have ended the 1981 hunger strike early and saved six of the remaining prisoners who went on to die, according to the man who maintained a secret link between successive British governments and the Provisionals.

Denis Bradley, the link in Derry for more than two decades between MI5 and the IRA, claims that the IRA leadership had been handed a deal in early July 1981 – which eventually the prisoners did accept, but only after six more of their comrades had starved to death. Bradley’s account contradicts claims by loyal supporters of Gerry Adams that there had been no offer on the table in July that could have ended the hunger strike after four prisoners died.
Read the rest of this entry »