Hunger Strike H-Blocks, Long Kesh, Northern Ireland 27 October 1980-----?

by A Humanitarian Alternative

First Edition

[30 Day Return Guarantee] Price: £195.00 ($ 321.63)

Book Description

Dungannon: Published by a Group of Lawyers and Priests for A Humanitarian Alternative, 1980 It was announced that as from 1 April 1980 there would be no entitlement to special category status for members of paramilitary organisations regardless of when the crimes had been committed. [A policy change announced in March 1976 had ended special category status to people sentenced after that date for scheduled offences. The decision to end special category privileges for paramilitary prisoners led to a protest campaign by Republicans in prisons across Northern Ireland. The protests began on 15 September 1976 when Kieran Nugent refused to wear prison issue clothes and covered himself with a blanket; hence the 'blanket protest'. The protest was to escalate and led eventually to two hunger strikes, one in 1980 and the most serious in 1981.] on 27th October 1980 Seven Republican prisoners began a hunger-strike to protest at the ending of special category status. Many prisoners volunteered to be part of the strike, but seven were selected to match the number of men who signed the Easter 1916 Proclamation of the Republic. The group consisted of IRA members Brendan Hughes, Tommy McKearney, Raymond McCartney, Tom McFeeley, Sean McKenna, Leo Green, and INLA member John Nixon. After a few weeks three prisoners in Armagh Women's Prison joined the strike, including Mairéad Farrell, followed by a short-lived hunger strike by several dozen more prisoners in HM Prison Maze. One of their key demands was that they should be allowed to wear their own clothes rather than prison uniforms. The Republican prisoners viewed themselves as 'prisoners of war' and were refusing to be treated, as they saw it, as ordinary criminals. [The tactic of the hunger strike has a special place in Republican history and it was to have a profound affect on Nationalists in Northern Ireland. This particular strike was to be called off on 18 December 1980. However, it also marked an escalation of the campaign which was to see a larger more serious hunger strike take place in 1981. The Republican hunger strike at the Maze Prison, and other prisons in Northern Ireland, was called off following the appeal by Tomás Ó Fiaich, then Catholic Primate of Ireland, on 17 December 1980. The strike had lasted for 53 days. [There had been suggestions towards the end of the strike that there would be a move towards conceding aspects of special status. Republicans claimed to have a document setting out proposals which would have met many of their demands.] This book let was produced at the beginning of the hunger strike and details the demands and biographies of those who took part Including Sean McKenna, Of the original seven hunger strikers, Sean McKenna's medical condition was the most serious. McKenna was moved to Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast.. First Edition. Pamphlet. Fine. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.

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