July 1981

Families back inquiry into 1981 events
Derry Journal, 30 June 2009

Sir,

We, the families of hunger-strikers, Patsy O’Hara and Michael Devine, support the call by former hunger-striker, Gerard Hodkins, for an independent republican inquiry into the 1981 hunger-strike.

We cannot understand why any republican would have anything to fear from such an inquiry, or why they would not support it.

The Gulladuff meeting between the Sinn Fein leadership and eight of the hunger strikers’ families was very emotional, and we were not unaffected.

However, at that meeting, the Sinn Fein delegation refused our request for an independent inquiry. Why?
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Propaganda on hunger-strike
Derry Journal, 30 June 2009
See also Bobby Sands Trust: Hunger Strikers’ Families Speak Out

Sir,

The recent meeting between familes of the hunger-strikers and Gerry Adams was a very emotional and difficult occasion for all of us, particularly in light of the allegations coming from Richard O’Rawe and the IRSP. All of the family members who spoke, with the exception of Tony O’Hara, expressed deep anger and frustration at the ongoing allegations created by O’Rawe.

Tony O’Hara’s suggestion that we should meet with Richard O’Rawe and Willie Gallagher got no support and we asked Tony to express to Richard O’Rawe and Willie Gallagher our wish for them to stop what they are doing and to give us peace of mind.
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Anderson ‘disgusted’ by hunger strike row
Derry Journal, 30 June 2009

Foyle Sinn Féin MLA has said she is “disgusted” by what she described as republicans exploiting the grief of the families of the hunger strikers to attack her party.

Ms Anderson made her remarks during the annual Derry Volunteers Commemoration event in the City Cemetery on Sunday.

A crowd of up to 1,000 local republicans took part in the march from the Creggan shops to the republican monument in the City Cemetery.

Her comments come amid claims by former blanketman Richard O’Rawe that the deaths of six of the hunger strikers could have been prevented after a deal, which he claims was accepted by the IRA’s jail leadership was rejected by the organisation’s overall leadership.

The claim has been supported by the IRSP and several former prisoners who were in Long Kesh at the time but has been flatly rejected by Sinn Féin.

The families of most of the hunger strikers, including County Derry man, Kevin Lynch, issued a statement last week calling for an end to the controversy.

Speaking at Sunday’s commemoration, Ms Anderson said: “I am disgusted that so many republicans are exploiting the grief of the families to attack us.

“In doing so they have got into bed with the right wing press.

“They should be ashamed of themselves.

“If they have any honour at all they will call a halt to their shameful actions.”

Memory of the dead

The Foyle MLA also said Sinn Féin are continually motivated by the memory of dead IRA volunteers and added that the current political situation could not have been achieved without their efforts.

“Today republicans are wielding unprecedented political power in Ireland.

“It is the volunteer soldiers of the IRA who made all that possible,” she said.

At the commemoration, the Roll of Honour was read by Tiernan Heaney, nephew of IRA member Denis Heaney, and the Roll of Remembrance was read by Aoife McNaught of Ógra Shinn Féin. Wreaths were laid on behalf of Sinn Féin, the Republican Graves Association, Ógra Sinn Féin, and Óglaigh na h’Éireann.

The National Anthem was sung by Sara Griffin.

Sourced from The Derry Journal

30 June 2009
Irish Republican Socialist Party (Derry)

Patsy O’Hara Memorial Attacked

The Irish Republican Socialist Party condemns the attack on the Patsy O’Hara memorial in Bishop Street (Derry) which occurred we believe on
Monday morning at or around 3.30am.

IRSP spokesperson Martin McMonagle described the attack as pointless but sinister.

“Presently we do not know who carried out the attack on the memorial and we would appeal for anyone who seen anyone in that area at that
time to get in touch with the IRSP.

“This attack was carried out by cowards under the cover of darkness. To attack a memorial to one of our hunger strikers is absolutely deplorable. Members of our party have already spoken to residents in Bishop Street and there is a very real feeling of anger at this attack on the memorial.

“This is the second time that this area has come under similar attack. Last year the accompanying mural nearby was paint bombed.

“Patsy O’Hara was and is held in the highest regard by the people of Bishop Street and the entire city and as such we would view this attack on the memorial as an attack on the entire republican community of Derry. Anyone with any information can contact the IRSP on 71353090 or derryirsp@gmail.com.”

Sourced from Republican Socialist News

One reader still has questions about 1981 hunger strike
Andersonstown News Monday, Mala Poist

The recent and very private meeting between Provisional Sinn Féin and families of the 1981 hunger strikers seems to have left us with even more questions unanswered than there was before the meeting.

Firstly, I want to recognize that this is still a very emotional event for the families and no doubt also still very painful. I have difficulty writing this letter for these reasons. But the truth is the hunger strike is such an historic event that anything concerning it will always attract a lot of attention. 

The families recently released a statement through PSF press office asking for the allegations that the Provisional leadership turned down an offer that the prisoners thought was enough to end the hunger strike. For some of the families to say they want the controversy to end will not, unfortunately, make it go away.

The hunger strike and the slow death of the ten men reached all corners of Ireland and even well beyond our shores. Former blanketmen, even surviving hunger strikers and republicans have a vested interest in what happened in July 1981, as can be seen by the amount of them that attended the public, and packed meeting held in Derry’s Gasworks a few weeks ago. Adams and the PSF leadership refused to attend this meeting.

The British go-between to the Provisional leadership, the Mountain Climber, did attend and was open to questions from the public for the first time. He confirmed that O’Rawe’s account of the offer from the British was true. He also confirmed that the offer was rejected by the PIRA. What also came out at this meeting was that the INLA leadership inside and outside the H-Blocks knew nothing about the contact with the British. Two INLA prisoners died after the events of July 1981.

Since O’Rawe’s claims came out the reaction from PSF was fast and furious, so fast that they did not coordinate what they were saying as they contradicted each other in public, and also forgot what was already recorded in the public domain. 

Adams has remained totally silent on the issue since he was interviewed in two TV shows for the 25th anniversary in 2006, where in one show, for the BBC, he spoke openly about his role in the hunger strike and about the Mountain Climber with ease. Then O’Rawe’s claims came out and Adams in the RTé show denied he knew about the Mountain Climber, two totally different versions that are contradictory, both can not be true.

Mountain Climber

The Mountain Climber issue is now well documented, as one of the contacts with the British. But one contact that seems to have slipped under the radar is the contact Adams personally had with the British. In his book Before the Dawn, Adams, in his own words, says that he was on the phone to a British contact when Joe McDonnell actually died. 

Who was this contact and where are the transcripts of these conversations? Why the need for the Mountain Climber if Adams and his “kitchen cabinet” had direct contacts with the British?

There are lots of other questions that need to be answered about the role that Adams and his “kitchen cabinet” played during the hunger strike, for instance, in the same book, Adams also claims that the British always left it until the critical stage, as a hunger striker neared death, and phoned late at night believing that they (the “kitchen cabinet”) would be at a low ebb (now this is not the Mountain Climber contact, as that was all done in writing and only started on the 4/5 July) so he, Adams, got into the habit of cat-napping during the day to be fresh for these calls.

Now what has me confused about all of this is (1) what “critical stage” was there before Joe died that Adams had contact with the British? Surely that would be the first four strikers? (2) Did the prisoners and their families know about this contact, because as far as I can tell this contact is not recorded elsewhere. (3) It is obvious from his own words that Adams played a major role (key role?) in the hunger strike, yet now remains totally silent in public on what that role was. Why?

Finally, to the families I am sorry if this has opened old wounds for you, but this is not going to go away. The hunger strike and the men who died on it are such a massive part of our history that the events of 1981 will always be in the public domain and questions will be asked about the men and the hunger strike, just as questions are asked and examined about other major events in our history that wider society has a vested interest in, and that’s the way it should be.

Gerard Foster
Andersonstown

Sourced from The Andersonstown News

An Phoblacht, Top Stories: Hunger Strikers’ families challenge false claims over deaths

THE families of the majority of the men who died during the 1981 Hunger Strike have rejected as “false” the claims being made about the fast and the deaths of six of the H-Block prisoners.

The families are particularly incensed at the claims – raised by former H-Block prisoner Richard O’Rawe and repeated by the British media  – that Margaret Thatcher’s government offered the protesting prisoners a deal and that this was rejected by the leadership of the Republican Movement out of political expediency.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Wonka Theory of Everything
Anthony McIntyre, The Pensive Quill

What has been noticeable in the continuing debate about the hunger strikes prompted by the publication of Richard O’Rawe’s book Blanketmen four years ago is that in recent months those most critical of the author have appeared ideationally bankrupt. Any new evidence, insights or interpretations all seem to be reinforcing the O’Rawe perspective. At the beginning of April when the Sunday Times produced documentation indicating that Margaret Thatcher despite her unyielding public stance was privately committed to making substantial concessions to end the strike, Sinn Fein was reduced to falling back on the tried and failed rebuttal that the documents originated with British military intelligence.

When much that was new emerged from the Derry Gasyard debate the party claimed that there was in fact nothing new at all and that what charges had been made there had been:

comprehensively rebutted by documentary and witness testimony when they first appeared. The deaths of all the hunger strikers is the direct responsibility of a British government intent on defeating republicanism. It is regrettable that there are some who have preferred to ignore the truth of what occurred and seek to use events then to further their anti-Sinn Fein agenda today.

At the secretive Gulladuff meeting those disagreeing with Sinn Fein’s version of events were said to be driven by an anti-party agenda.

Added to this are Brendan McFarlane’s comments in London that the ongoing debate fits into a wider effort to undermine the current Sinn Fein president and main negotiator on the Sinn Fein side during the hunger strike: ‘all this information is specifically being used to target Gerry Adams and discredit both him and Sinn Féin.’ You would actually think Roland Dahl was writing the party script.

‘You see Charlie’, he said, ‘not so very long ago there used to be thousands of people working in Willy Wonka’s factory. Then one day all of a sudden, Mr Wonka had to ask everyone of them to leave, to go home, never to come back.’
‘But why?’ asked Charlie.
‘Because of spies.’
‘Spies?’
‘Yes. All the other chocolate makers you see had begun to grow jealous of the wonderful sweets that Mr Wonka was making, and they started sending in spies to steal his recipes.’

This amounts to little more than an assertion that that people who are sceptical of the party go to bed at night and get up the following morning with only one thing on their minds – frustrating the political career of Gerry Adams by stealing his chocolate recipe. As if there are not more important things in life than that; going for a pint, watching a game of soccer, reading a book etc. As well, it overlooks the more plausible view of Professor Paul Bew who pointed out some time back that British state strategy under Tony Blair and Jonathan Powell was about ensuring that the Adams leadership stayed in position. That leadership was considered the best bet for the success of British strategy. Talk to any British official and you get something similar. At a conference in an English university a number of years ago myself and Catherine McCartney pulled faces at each other as we listened to a British minister defend the Adams leadership against criticisms of it in obsequious tones the likes of which are normally only witnessed at Sinn Fein Ard Fheiseanna or in a Thursday column in the Irish News.

Whether intentional or not, the ‘everybody is out to steal Gerry’s chocolate recipe’ mantra amounts to a discursive subterfuge which seeks to disguise the usefulness of the Adams leadership to British state strategy in Ireland.

It is noticeable that Danny Morrison, the most prominent opponent of the O’Rawe perspective, avoids the ‘securocrats at work’ argument. Alert to the nuances of the PR game he is presumably aware that it is synonymous with a guilty plea given what the securocrats have been blamed on over the years. This is why both Brendan McFarlane and Sinn Fein have sounded less plausible than Morrison. Few buy into the notion that the British state seriously want to do Adams or the peace process harm. Although spinning it that way helps the credulous see a master plan that doesn’t exist in order to remain blind to the disaster plan that does.

Sourced from The Pensive Quill

AOH on Hunger Strike Families Meeting with Sinn Fein

TO: PEC Committee Members
RE: Hunger Strike Families Meet with Sinn Fein
FR: National PEC Co Chairmen Joe Roche and Ned McGinley
DA: June 22, 2009

Historical Note:

The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America in 1982 passed a Resolution in memory of the Ten Hunger Strikers both IRA and INLA Volunteers in who were martyred in 1981 on Hunger Strike, paying the ultimate price for their ideals.

Ten of those resolutions, now framed, were then carried to Belfast by a Committee lead by National President Joseph Roche to be presented to the Ten grieving Hunger Strike families.

Every family, bar none, sent a member to receive those framed resolutions from the hand of the National President of the A.O.H. in America including Mickey Devine and Patsy O’Hara’s families.

There have been rumors and urban legends regarding the British Government and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher giving in to the “Five Demands” of the Hunger Strikers, which the Hunger Strike Committee received, not telling anyone, and that those ten brave heroes died in vain.

For anyone who remembers or lived in those times believes that Margaret Thatcher, who demanded that the Republican Volunteers be criminalized, would have wilted and given in to the demands I have a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn on the East River to sell them.

Patsy O’Hara, Kevin Lynch, and Mickey Devine (the last to die) were all INLA volunteers, very brave men, who put themselves forward for Martydom.

The Five Demands:

The right not to wear a prison uniform;
The right not to do prison work;
The right of free association with other prisoners, and to organize educational and recreational pursuits;
The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.

Participants who died on hunger strike

Over the summer, ten hunger strikers had died. Their names, paramilitary affiliation, dates of death, and length of hunger strike are as follows:

Name; Paramilitary affiliation; Home Town;
Strike started; Date of death; Length of strike

• Bobby Sands, IRA, Newtownabbey,
  1 March, 5 May, 66 days.
• Francis Hughes, IRA, Bellaghy, County Londonderry,
  15 March, 12 May, 59 days.
• Raymond McCreesh, IRA, Carnlough, County Armagh,
  22 March, 21 May, 61 days.
• Patsy O’Hara, INLA, Derry City,
  22 March, 21 May, 61 days.
• Joe McDonnell, IRA, Belfast,
  8 May, 8 July, 61 days.
• Martin Hurson, IRA, Cappagh, County Tyrone,
  28 May, 13 July, 46 days.
• Kevin Lynch, INLA, Dungiven, County Londonderry,
  23 May, 1 August, 71 days.
• Kieran Doherty, IRA, Belfast,
  22 May, 2 August, 73 days.
• Thomas McElwee, IRA, Bellaghy, County Londonderry,
  8 June, 8 August, 62 days.
• Michael Devine, INLA, Derry City,
  22 June, 20 August, 60 days.

We cannot allow the IRSP’s Richard O’Rawe to sully the great bravery of these men.

Their families know better and there can be little doubt that the election of Bobby Sands, while on Hunger Strike, and the deaths of these 10 brave men led to the political strength of the nationalist/republican cause today and will lead to a United Ireland by peaceful means in the future.

They did not die in vain we will have a United Ireland and the A.O.H. will be there as they were in Belfast in 1982.

Note: AOH = Ancient Order of Hibernians; PEC = The AOH’s Political Education Committee.
Sourced from Irish Aires All

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Dribblers
Anthony McIntyre, The Pensive Quill

Given the level of detail that the ongoing debate on the 1981 hunger strike has generated – four years it has now lasted despite claims by Richard O’Rawe’s critics to have finished him off all of four years ago – it seems most people that I talk to have settled on a workable interpretive framework through which to filter a conclusion. They increasingly opt for the prove all panacea – whether or not the conversation that Richard O’Rawe claims to have taken place between him and Brendan McFarlane in which they said ‘deal’ in response to the British government’s ‘offer’, actually happened. After Derry’s Gasyard debate it is hard to find any but the usual suspects holding the line.

In the four years since the debate began in earnest there have been many cases of premature verdicts announced, based on the telling blow never delivered. The purpose is always the same: cry ‘victory’, mob the man who supposedly rattled home the winner, and the crowd will jump and down in celebration of the goal not scored. The roar of ‘O’Rawe demolished, account comprehensively rebutted’ has gone up quite a few times. For something so ‘comprehensively rebutted’ we find, puzzlingly, his attackers still needing to rebut it.

Earlier this week the key critics of O’Rawe hosted a secret meeting in Gulladuff to which the families of the dead hunger strikers were invited to be addressed by a high powered panel of speakers. The secrecy defeated its own purpose by dint of its inability to keep its own logic a secret. The meeting was hardly just to show the families an action replay of the great victory over O’Rawe that comprehensively demolished him. It represented a fear of cross examination, probing, and cold analytical pursuit of the facts. Others not privy to the secret gathering were barred including the father of a dead 16 year old republican activist shot dead by the British Army in the hours following the death of the hunger striker Joe McDonnell.

To date nothing seems to have emerged from the meeting that would strengthen the hand of those who hosted it. All those comprehensive rebutters for all their comprehensive rebuttals still seem to be taking considerable blows to glass chins that have been left, well, what else other than comprehensively exposed. The man who was supposed to have been on the canvas all those years ago seems to be still in the ring and has been scoring consistently with his jabs against an opposition frequently missing with its jibes. There are signs of growing anger and frustration in the ranks of the opposition that O’Rawe has refused to lie down as commanded and that seconds are crowding into his corner in stark contrast to March 2005 when the book was first launched.

Spectators watching even great players take the ball around their opponent and then around him again and again still want to see the leather hit the back of the onion bag. But dribbling at the mouth and not with the ball at feet has led to O’Rawe maintaining a clean sheet, his net still intact. Pronouncing great victories do not great victories make. Four years after the first great victory today’s proclamations of more great victories sound like Comical Ali’s utterances during the first days of the US invasion of Iraq – loud but empty. The reality check is this: the idea that O’Rawe was counted out is rubbish. Those who did the counting display symptoms of being arithmetically challenged – Ireland united by 2014 and all that.

Sourced from The Pensive Quill

Hunger Strikers’ Families Speak Out
June 21, 2009 · Bobby Sands Trust

Families of those IRA and INLA Volunteers who died during the 1981 hunger strike have issued a statement condemning those who have relentlessly hurt them by making false allegations that their loved ones died needlessly.

The families privately met with Sinn Fein and a representative of the Bobby Sands Trust last Wednesday, 17th June, at the invitation of the party’s president Gerry Adams. Those present included relatives of Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee and Mickey Devine (his nieces and his son Mickey óg). Bridie Lynch, sister of Kevin Lynch, was unable to attend but sent Gerry Adams a note expressing her support. The Hughes’ family were represented by two nephews of Francis. Francis’s brother, Oliver, who was unable to attend, sent a letter to be read out. The meeting took place in Gulladuff, South Derry.
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