July 1981

The men behind the wire grow all the more noble as time reveals its truth
Irish News letters page
Carrie Twomey
29/09/09

Manus McDaid claims in his most recent letter, entitled ‘(S)he who paid the piper’ (September 16), that he never heard of the claim that the last six hunger strikers could have been saved by a deal on offer from Thatcher – the same terms that the prisoners got at the end of the hunger strike – but instead were sacrificed for Sinn Fein’s gain.

Yet it was only June when he was expounding on the same topic – making similar misleading points about the ending of the first hunger strike – in a previous letter to The Irish News (‘Tread lightly on the dreams of heroes’, June 13).

Perhaps Manus suffers from goldfish syndrome.

This would entail swallowing whole whatever crumbs are being served, then promptly forgetting their content, a memory sustained only, if at all, until the next line is fed.

The first hunger strike ended not because of British duplicity but because of the humanity of the late Brendan Hughes.

The second hunger strike continued far longer than it needed because of the inhumanity of those managing it on the outside, to whom the hunger strikers were merely more cannon fodder for their ambitions.

This heartbreaking fact does not in any way whatsoever impinge on the integrity of the hunger strikers.

In fact, it makes them all the more noble as they had little idea of the manner in which they were being abused by their own – and remained committed to their beliefs to the end.

The same cannot be said and will no longer ever be believed about those who led them.

Sourced from the Irish News

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Victory to Blanketmen
Anthony McIntyre, The Pensive Quill

It might have been a long flight for Richard O’Rawe, most of it a climb. It is said that aircraft are most strained during the ascent but once in the sky the cruise is relatively easy. The author of Blanketmen now finds himself cruising at a moral altitude well above that of his critics.

For long we had been regaled with delusional tales of how O’Rawe had been comprehensively demolished and that each new non-discovery by his opponents had finally concluded the debate in their favour. Truly underwhelming stuff where wish was parent to the thought.

Even before this week’s Irish News special on the 1981 hunger strike O’Rawe’s integrity had been both salvaged and enhanced. With Brendan McFarlane feeling compelled to reconfigure his account of the pivotal 1981 prison conversation between himself and O’Rawe in the wake of serious erosion of his original account, the die was cast. After that few believed that O’Rawe had made it all up. They may not have attributed any malign motive to McFarlane but simply acknowledged that O’Rawe’s narrative possessed a consistency that unlike the counter narrative was not chameleon in character. The pendulum of culpability swung decisively away from O’Rawe.

His vindication secured, that the Irish News debate took place at all was further validation of the position of Richard O’Rawe. That the claims made in his book Blanketmen almost five years ago are being given such exposure this week in a newspaper read by more Northern nationalists than any other were beyond his wildest expectations at the time of publication. It was also something Sinn Fein would have viewed as a nightmare had they any inkling. Now all O’Rawe has to do is turn up. His critics, by contrast, have no option but to turn up; a sign of how the balance of power of persuasion has undergone a significant shift. And where they needed to raise the level of their contribution they singularly failed. The issue has now been pushed to a new plateau. Had the original allegation in Blanketmen been about the existence of either the unicorn or the mermaid that would have been the last anyone heard of it. What kept it going to the point where O’Rawe’s narrative is now the dominant one, having successfully challenged and displaced the previous one, was the ring of truth that resonated from it.

There are echoes of the Birmingham Six emanating from this controversy. When convicted it looked as if their goose was cooked. Few gave them a snowball’s chance in hell. When challenged the British judiciary jerked and jumped as if they had had been tapped with a cattle prod. Howls of indignation met the challenges of those seeking to establish accuracy. ‘How dare anyone question us’ was the standard arrogant refrain. All critics were told to shut up and just accept the view of Lord Denning that all they had to offer was an appalling vista. They were smeared as terrorist sympathizers. It got the judiciary nowhere as they were swamped under an avalanche of probing and investigative journalism.

Seems something similar is taking place here. The regime of truth which had little true about it is being dismantled month by month. The old chant from within the bowels of the H-Blocks, ‘Victory to the Blanketmen’, has meaning like never before.

Sourced from The Pensive Quill

Independent inquiry may end ‘festering sore’
Was there a deal?
By Seamus McKinney
29/09/09

SENIOR IRSP figure Willie Gallagher says he cannot understand why any republican would not support calls for an inquiry into the handling of the hunger strikes.

Mr Gallagher, who has been criticised by Sinn Fein for his involvement in the campaign, said only an independent inquiry could put an end to what he said was a “festering sore”.

“We note that of the four republicans whom the families specifically called on to back an inquiry; Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Bik McFarlane and Richard O’Rawe, only O’Rawe has publicly stated that he is willing to give his backing to the inquiry,” he said.

“The silence of the other three has been noted and can only but be interpreted as damning.”

The Strabane man said the only conclusion he could draw from their silence was that they were concerned about what might come out.

Mr Adams and Mr Morrison have spoken about the controversy at a private meeting with families of the hunger strikers in Gulladuff and publicly.

Mr Gallagher said the IRSP was not pursuing the issue to embarrass Sinn Fein.

“However, we totally refute the claims by Sinn Fein that in looking for answers into how our hunger strike comrades died, we are somehow being dishonourable,” he said.

“That is highly insulting and it is hard to understand how anyone could reach such a conclusion.”

The IRSP ard comhairle member denied Sinn Fein claims that evidence put forward at a meeting on the issue at Derry’s Gasyard centre was “manufactured” by people with an anti-Sinn Fein agenda.

“The IRSP demands answers as to why the 5 July Mountain Climber (IRA/British government go-between in 1981) offer – which was accepted by the IRA jail leadership – was rejected and who outside the prison rejected it,” he said.

“We also want to know why the INLA jail leadership and their outside representatives were kept in the dark about the Mountain Climber negotiations and the offer.”

Sourced from The Irish News

O’Rawe warned of backlash from republicans – journalist
Was there a deal?
By Allison Morris
29/09/09

VETERAN reporter Ed Moloney has said that he warned Richard O’Rawe about an inevitable backlash from former republican associates if he went ahead and published his book.

O’Rawe’s claims that the Sinn Fein leadership sabotaged a possible resolution to the protest in order to further the party’s political fortunes has caused a storm of controversy which has gained momentum ever since.

Having covered the unfolding situation at the Maze prison as a journalist, from the blanket protest through to the first and later the second Hunger Strike on which 10 men died, the former Irish Times and Sunday Tribune northern editor said claims contained in Blanketmen came as no surprise to many.

“I not only read Richard’s book at an early stage I helped edit it and advised him strongly at the time not to publish it,” he said.

“I told him they, and by they I mean primarily the Sinn Fein leadership, would make his life very difficult.

“Knowing Richard, where he lived and the background he came from, I was aware from previous personal experience that it would get very rough for him.

“But I got the impression this had been eating away at him for some time.”

Mr Moloney, who lives in the US, is expected to reveal new material on the republican movement in a book due out early next year.

The book includes a series of interviews with top republican Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes before his death last year.

Hughes had been a former OC of the IRA’s Belfast brigade and was leader of the 1980 republican Hunger Strike in the Maze.

During his conversations with O’Rawe, Mr Moloney said he was aware that he had delayed publishing his book Blanketmen until the peace process was firmly embedded.

“He did this so he couldn’t be accused of causing the Sinn Fein leadership problems,” Mr Moloney said.

“Covering the Hunger Strike as a journalist, even back then at a republican grassroots level, there was a general feeling that it had just gone on for far too long,” he said.

“Ten deaths was excessive and went way beyond anything that they had previously asked their prisoners to do.

“To leave the decision up to the prisoners themselves was thought by some to be a tactical move.

“Each man carried the weight of the dead comrade who went before them on their shoulders and so the protest continued.”

Mr Moloney said it was fairly well recognised that the 1981 Hunger Strike was the Provos’ Easter Rising.

“So many horrendous horrible acts had gone before it that this supreme sacrifice and unfaltering belief was a kind of justification for the IRA’s campaign,” he said.

“It was also the very start of the modern peace process and the beginning of Sinn Fein’s electoral and political strategy.

“More recently, evidence uncovered by Liam Clarke [who reported details of British government documents which were released to The Sunday Times earlier this year following a freedom of information request], if not entirely settles the matter, then takes us to a point where explanations are certainly required.

“There have been changes to some people’s stories that are so significant it begs the question why?

“That is what in my opinion now needs to be cleared up.”

Sourced from The Irish News

Deal claims ‘completely wrong’: O Bradaigh
THE HUNGER STRIKE
By Staff Reporter
29/09/09

VETERAN republican Ruairi O Bradaigh last night disputed former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald’s version of events surrounding the 1981 Hunger Strike.

Mr O Bradaigh, who was president of Sinn Fein at the time, also appeared to contradict claims by Martin McGuinness about the role of the party at the height of the crisis.

A former chief of staff of the IRA, Mr O Bradaigh was Sinn Fein president between 1970 and 1983 before being replaced by Gerry Adams.

He broke away from the party at its Ard Fheis in 1986 after a majority of delegates voted to drop a policy of abstentionism if elected to the Dail.

He held the position of president of the break-away Republican Sinn Fein since its inception 23 years ago but announced this week that he was stepping down from the post.

Recalling events in 1981, Mr O Bradaigh, who was banned from entering the north, described Dr FitzGerald’s claim that a deal was scuppered by the leadership outside the jail as “completely wrong”.

“I must reject what is being said. Sinn Fein at the time were not involved in making settlements,’’ he said.

“Their role was to campaign for the prisoners. Sinn Fein was not involved at all.

“I don’t believe either that the [IRA] army council was aware that there were terms on offer either.”

Mr O Bradaigh said Sinn Fein was not standing back allowing prisoners to die.

“Sinn Fein felt their job was to get out there… I was galloping all over the country and was in touch with people, at home and abroad trying to get support,” he said.

Writing in yesterday’s Irish News, Martin McGuinness said he was the conduit for an offer from the British government about ending the Hunger Strike protest.

Sourced from The Irish News

All evidence points to dark dealings
THE HUNGER STRIKE
By Gerard Hodgins
29/09/09

THE blanket protests and Hunger Strikes are sacrosanct in republican history. The commitment and courage of the men and women who participated in those prison struggles can never be questioned.

Richard’s [O’Rawe] assertion that the leadership blocked a deal on the Hunger Strike in order to further political ambitions and in the process prolonged the agony doesn’t sit easily in the republican conscience.

So uncomfortable is this fact that most republicans tend to follow the Adams/Morrison narrative that Richard just wants to sell more books and so makes a sensationalist claim about dirty dealings

between the Provisional leadership and the British government in order to increase sales.

This despite the fact that a prima facie case exists that Richard’s assertion has validity: Gerry Adams has (writing in one of his books) previously referred to a happy ending narrative rather than a tell-all story now, yet he won’t elaborate on what this cryptic sentence means.

Gerry Adams has referred to the British coming back with the deal again around the July 18/19 1981.

Gerry Adams has referred to how he got into the habit of catching sleep during the daylight hours during that summer of 1981 because the British would contact him via telephone late at night.

Yet Gerry Adams refuses to put meat on these statements. What is he hiding? What was the true extent of contact between the leadership and the British?

For daring to ask questions like this puts one beyond the pale of the dominant republican narrative. Suddenly you find former comrades in the upper echelons are referring to you as a revisionist, a drug-dealer, a dissident, an antirepublican: no slur is too great, no act too low.

When I learned a meeting was to take place in Gullaghaduff I went along accompanied by Jimmy Dempsey whose son John was killed by the British army the morning Joe McDonnell died.

We both had questions we would like to ask, we were both politely but firmly refused entry to the meeting and I personally was subjected to threats and menaces by a senior Provisional, all because I wanted to ask questions about events in 1981.

When this genie was first let out of the bottle in 2005 the leadership figures were adamant there were neither deals, offers nor anything else. Today they are not so certain.

Bik [Brendan McFarlane] categorically denied that any such conversation took place between him and Richard O’Rawe about accepting a British offer.

Today he says different and remembers “a huge opportunity” and “potential” in the conversation he initially didn’t have with Richard.

On the face of it the evidence points to dark dealings going on in the background of the Hunger Strike, dealings of which nobody on Hunger Strike was aware.

Whether we ever will know the truth of those times is doubtful. The acquisition of any level of power and maintenance of that power is rarely a tale of honour alone.

Sourced from The Irish News

Speculation mounts on the identity of Maze spy
Was there a deal?
By Staff Reporter
29/09/09

THE revelation that the Republic’s government had an operative inside the Maze prison during the 1981 Hunger Strike has led to wide speculation about the identity of the ‘spy’.

Throughout the Troubles it was traditionally the British government or IRA that were accused of having spies within the government or security forces on either side of the border.

The only recorded claim of anyone ever being accused of spying for the Republic’s government in the north came in 2004 when John Hume and three other members of the SDLP were accused by the RUC Special Branch of having spied for the Republic.

A Special Branch report submitted to the Bloody Sunday Tribunal named Mr Hume, Austin Currie, Paddy O’Hanlon and Ivan Cooper as spying for then taoiseach Jack Lynch in the 1970s.

“It is also worth recalling previous intelligence to the effect that Mr Lynch’s intelligence officers in Northern Ireland are Messrs Cooper, Currie, O’Hanlon and Hume,” it said.

Mr Hume described the claim as “absolute rubbish”.

“It’s totally ridiculous and has nothing to do with Bloody Sunday,” he said.

“It underlines the total ignorance of senior RUC men in those days about relationships between nationalists and southern politicians.’’

Mr Hume claimed the SDLP kept in regular contact with all parties in the Dail to work out an agreed approach to Northern Ireland.

“When we were founded as a party in the early 1970s, it was common sense that we would build relationships with the parties in the south,” he said.

“How in heaven’s name could we have been agents of the Irish government?

“If we were, what did they think we were doing?”

While there has been a plethora of books in recent years written about MI5 and even the FBI’s role in the Troubles, little or nothing is known about the southern intelligence service’s role in Northern Ireland.

The southern secret service is understood to be made up of Garda Special Branch, the army intelligence unit G2 and the diplomatic corps of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

It is unclear who heads the secret service in the Republic, how many staff it has at its disposal, or where the department is based.

In 2002 the Republic’s then justice minister Michael McDowell denied that the government even had a secret service.

“There is no secret service structure in this jurisdiction,” he claimed.

However, in the same year it was revealed that the Republic’s secret service agency’s lack of spying activity meant it was forced to hand back £431,665, after spending less than half of its £735,000 spy budget.

Irish government officials refused to state why its secret service had spent only half of its spy budget, stating: “It’s a secret.”

Sourced from The Irish News

First confirmation of Republic’s intelligence operations in north
Was there a deal?
By Bimpe Archer
29/09/09

FORMER taoiseach Garret FitzGerald’s revelation that the Republic’s government had a mole in the Maze prison is the first reference to emerge from the Troubles of such operations.

The 83-year-old would not be drawn on the identity or position of the Irish government’s source within the jail.

However, the person was not the only agent from the Republic operating in the north at that time.

One well-placed nationalist source said the Republic’s military intelligence – also known as G2 – was active in the north.

However, he said the unit was unlikely to have had a permanent member placed in the jail during the Hunger Strikes.

G2 did not enjoy the resources of the British intelligence services.

“It wasn’t very big or well-funded, nothing like MI6, and it tended to be largely military intelligence,” he said.

“Garda Special Branch wasn’t operating in the north.

“But there were G2 agents on the streets of Belfast and Derry, picking up whatever information they could find.

“I’m sure the British knew but there wouldn’t have been much knowledge on the unionist side.

“They certainly didn’t make themselves known.

“As far as the Maze goes, they would have made contact with a person involved.

“This it the first time I heard about a mole in the prison.”

Lord Maginnis, who was the Ulster Unionist Party candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in the second by-election in 1981 which resulted from the death of Bobby Sands, said unionists were not unaware of such practices.

“If [Dr FitzGerald] says there was, there was,” he said.

“I always believed in the old saying: ‘There are no secrets in Northern Ireland’.”

G2, or the Defence Forces Directorate of Intelligence, was set up to provide operational intelligence and security to help the Republic’s forces internationally and maintain security at home.

As with most such agencies, staff actively monitor “relevant” political, economic, social and military situations to support military operations.

A relatively small service, G2 does work with foreign governments and intelligence agencies.

The Irish Defence Forces as a whole include intelligence as part of officer training, although those in G2 receive further specialist training.

It came to public notice during the Second World War when it was prominent in the detection and arrest of 13 German spies in Ireland. During this period the IRA was also a target of G2 and remained so in the decades following.

Sourced from The Irish News

Duddy ‘never given written statement’
THE HUNGER STRIKE
By Staff Reporter
29/09/09

THE go-between working with the republican leadership during the Hunger Strike has revealed that he was never given a written copy of the statement which the British were prepared to release to the hunger strikers.

Brendan Duddy, who acted as go-between between Sinn Fein and the British government since the early 1970s, said information was always given by telephone because then British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had vowed never to talk to republicans.

Known to both sides by the code name ‘The Mountain Climber,’ he continued his work right through to the ongoing peace process.

Mr Duddy, a former member of the Policing Board, spoke about taking part at a meeting in Derry earlier this year where the families of hunger strikers had gathered.

At that meeting at the Gasyard Centre he was questioned at length by members of the audience – which included Richard O’Rawe and leading figures from the time.

The Derry man told the meeting the information he received from the British was always by telephone and never in written form.

He said this was because Mrs Thatcher had vowed never to talk to republicans.

Mr Duddy stressed that it was never his role to interpret or advise on the content of the information he received.

He told the meeting: “What I cannot do is speak for what the past or current leadership of the IRA, Sinn Fein or Provisionals did.”

Mr Duddy said negotiations about the prisoners’ demands continued from the end of the first hunger strike in December 1980 right up until they reached a climax in the days before Joe McDonnell died.

He was asked why he only gave details of the negotiations and possible deal to the IRA and did not pass them on to the INLA. He said his contact work had always been with the IRA.

“It was not a matter of not making the approach to the INLA. My contact was as a result of working with Ruairi O Bradaigh, Daithi O’Connell and Sean Keenan among others,” Mr Duddy said.

He confirmed to the meeting that the documents detailing the British statement as received through a Freedom of Information request was an accurate version apart from “one or two minor points”  of the statement he was given by the British. But he stressed no written form was given to him at the time.

He also confirmed that he supplied the response from the IRA to the British government that the statement was not enough and had to be “added to”. Mr Duddy said he could not recall anyone talking about the “tone” of the statement at any time.

Sourced from The Irish News

Documents say Thatcher ‘would not risk initiative’
THE HUNGER STRIKE
By Staff Reporter
29/09/09

SUPPORT for Richard O’Rawe’s claim that a British government deal was on offer to the hunger strikers in July 1981 came through documents which emerged earlier this year.

The documents were obtained by The Sunday Times under a Freedom of Information request.

They include a letter from 10 Downing Street on July 8 to the Northern Ireland Office, an undated telegram, a further letter from Downing Street to the NIO on July 18, a letter from the NIO to Downing Street on July 21 and a British government document regarding the hunger strike.

The July 8 letter from Downing Street was issued during the last hours of hunger striker Joe McDonnell’s life.

In that letter details of a possible British government deal with the IRA were outlined.

“Your secretary of state said that the message which the prime minister had approved the previous evening had been communicated to the PIRA,” the letter stated.

“Their response indicated that they did not regard it as satisfactory and that they wanted a good deal more. That appeared to mark the end of this development and we had made this clear to the PIRA during the afternoon.

“This had produced a very rapid reaction which suggested that it was not the content of the message which they had objected to but only its tone.

“The question now for decision was whether we should respond on our side. He [the secretary of state] had concluded that we should communicate with the PIRA overnight a draft statement enlarging upon the message of the previous evening but in no way whatever departing from its substance. If the PIRA accepted the draft statement and ordered the hunger strikers to end their protest the statement would be issued immediately.”

The letter dated July 18 further emphasised a possible deal with the IRA. The letter provided a discussion on whether or not a government official should be sent into the prison to tell prisoners what would be on offer if they came off hunger strike.

It said: “The official would set out to the hunger strikers what would be on offer if they abandoned their protest. He would do so along the lines discussed with the prime minister last week.

“He would say that the prisoners would be allowed to wear their own clothes, as was already the case in Armagh prison, provided these clothes were approved by the prison authorities.

“He would set out the position on association; on parcels and letters; on remission and on work. On the last point he would make it clear that the prisoners would, as before, have to do the basic work necessary to keep the prison going.”

It said the official would not be empowered to negotiate.

“He would simply be making a statement about what was on offer to the hunger strikers if they abandoned the hunger strike,” it said.

The letter further said “there could be no guarantee that acting in this way would end the hunger strike”.

“However, there had been one or two indications that the hunger strikers were hoping to come off their strike,” the letter said.

But, apparently persuaded by the secretary of state, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher decided against this course of action.

The letter stated: “The prime minister decided that the dangers in taking an initiative would be so great in Northern Ireland that she was not prepared to risk them. The official who went into the prison could repeat the government’s public position but could go no further. The secretary of state agreed.”

Sourced from The Irish News