Our 1916

The eight months of the 1981 hunger strike campaign changed the political landscape in Ireland. It was as Síle Darragh, former O.C. of the republican women prisoners in Armagh Women’s Prison, said recently, “our 1916.” It began on 1st March 1981. When it ended on 3rd October ten hungerstrikers were dead. Bobby Sands had been the first to die on May 5th. He was followed over the following four summer months up to August by Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, and Micky Devine.

On Sunday last people came in their thousands, from all parts of the island of Ireland, and from overseas, to participate in the annual August march and to honour and commemorate the ten who died forty-four years ago in the H blocks and others who starved to death decades before this including Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan who died in the 1970s in prison in England. 

The stories of the ten hunger strikers and of their comrades in the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s Prison, who spent five years on the protest for political status, are many. The brutal physical and mental abuse the women and men endured in defence of the struggle for freedom and in rejection of the label ‘criminal,’ has been articulated in a series of books, poems and articles. These include Ten Men Dead by David Beresford; Seachtain an an Bhlaincéad by Ruairí Ó Dónaill; The Crunch has come by Eoghan MacCormaic, written while he was in the H-Blocks and using the pen name Frankie O ‘Brien; Nor Meekly Serve my Time by some of the POWs; John Lennon is Dead by Síle Darragh; Time Shadows by Laurence McKeown; 6000 Days by Jim (Jaz) McCann: ; Pluid: Scéal na mBlocanna H, 1976-81 by Eoghan MacCormaic; Playing My Part by Gerry Kelly; and the many poems and articles written by Bobby Sands. And there are others including by this writer.

Speaking at the Republican Plot in Milltown Cemetery where Bobby Sands, Joe McDonnell and Ciaran Doherty are buried, Uachtarán Mary Lou McDonald caught the legacy and memory of that time when she described the hungerstrikers as: “Ten brave Irish men who laid down their lives on hunger strike for the freedom of their country. Starved and persecuted they lay in the H-Blocks and with every sinew of their being, they refused to be criminalised, refused to be broken, refused to be defeated.” 

She said: “For them, we will do the work, we will walk the extra yards, we will write our nation’s next chapter – Ireland, united and free… Joined by heroic women in Armagh Gaol, they hungered not only for political status, but for the Ireland envisaged by the proclamation – for the Republic… The legacy of the hunger strikers calls to us today.  To stay true to vision and the dream for which they gave everything. To never despair. Never lose hope. Never give up.”

Perhaps one of the most emotional moments of the day was as the huge march made its way along the Falls Road toward Milltown. A huge banner of Bik McFarlane was unfurled as the march rounded the bend on the Falls Road, just above Beechmount. The blanket men and women who were leading the commemoration stopped and for a minute lifted their clenched fists in silent salute to the friend and comrade who had led them through that terrible year.

In his contribution to Guthanna ’81, published last Saturday, Bik, who died earlier this year, wrote about that experience. His account provides an insight, into t