Editing 1981 Irish hunger strike (section)

== Background ==
{{see also|1920 Cork hunger strike|1923 Irish hunger strikes}}

=== Tradition of hunger striking ===
{{Quote box
| quote = He has chosen death:<br />Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring<br />Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom,<br />An old and foolish custom, that if a man<br />Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve<br />Upon another’s threshold till he die,<br />The common people, for all time to come,<br />Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold,<br />Even though it be the King’s.{{sfn|Yeats|2010|p=122}}{{refn|Professor Anthony Bradley has summed up the crux of the play as that "the King is shown to reluctantly register the moral force and political efficacy of Seanchan’s hunger strike, precisely because he is willing to die for his beliefs". Yeats's play was probably originally inspired by the English [[suffragette]] movement, but following the death on hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney in 1920, Yeats rewrote the play's "new 'tragic ending'{{nbsp}}...as it suggests the Lord Mayor of Cork".{{sfn|Bradley|2009|p=21}} Yeats's poem has become, says critic Niall Ó Dochartaigh, "the literary reference of choice for the Irish hunger strikes".{{sfn|O'Dochartaigh|2021|p=165}}|group=note}}
| author = [[W. B. Yeats]]
| source = ''The King's Threshold''
| align = left
| width = 25em
| bgcolor = #98FB98
}}
The use of a hunger strike as a means of protest in [[Ireland]] is a tradition dating to [[Gaelic Ireland|pre-Christian times.]]{{sfn|Sweeney|1993a|pp=421–422}} This was not [[Asceticism|ascetic]], but rather a way of publicly reprimanding those who deserved it. By fasting—possibly to death—on the doorstep of his master, the hunger striker enforced a claim against the other until either the latter gave in or the faster died.{{sfn|McCluskey |2000|p=93 n.64}} This tradition carried on even into the Christian era, and there are documented cases of early [[Irish saints]] fasting against God.{{sfn|Binchy|1982|pp=168–171}} The tradition of {{Lang|ga|Troscad}}—fasting against an opponent—and {{Lang|ga|Cealachan}}—gaining justice through fasting—became codified in the 8th century {{lang|ga|[[Senchas Már]]}}.{{sfn|Fierke|2013|p=108}}

In the 20th century, there had been hunger strikes by Irish republican prisoners since 1917. Twelve men died on hunger strike prior to the 1981 strikes:{{sfn|White|1993|pp=116–118}} [[Thomas Ashe]] (1917), [[Terence MacSwiney]] (1920), [[Michael Fitzgerald (Irish republican)|Michael Fitzgerald]] (1920), [[Joe Murphy (Irish republican)|Joe Murphy]] (1920), [[Joseph Whitty]] (1923), [[Andy O'Sullivan (Irish Republican)|Andy O'Sullivan]] (1923), [[Denny Barry]] (1923) (see [[1923 Irish hunger strikes]]), [[Tony D'Arcy]] (1940), [[Jack McNeela]] (1940), [[Seán McCaughey]] (1946), [[Michael Gaughan (Irish republican)|Michael Gaughan]] (1974), and [[Frank Stagg (Irish republican)|Frank Stagg]] (1976).{{sfn|White|1993|pp=116–118}}

=== Internment ===
[[File:Terence MacSwiney circle.png|thumb|[[Terence MacSwiney]], an Irish republican who died on hunger strike in [[Brixton Prison]] in 1920]]
Although [[The Troubles]] had been ongoing since 1969, [[Operation Demetrius|internment]]—which had been used several times in Ireland during the 20th century by both the British and [[Irish Free State]]{{sfn|Healy|1982|p=213}}—was not introduced until 1971.{{sfn|McCleery|2015|pp=16–18}} Internees were originally held in a disused [[RAF Base|RAF base]] in  [[County Down]], called Long Kesh. Later renamed [[HM Prison Maze]], it was run along the lines of a [[prisoner of war]] camp, complete, says the author Thomas Hennessey, "with imagery reminiscent of [[Prisoners of war in World War II|Second World War POW camps]] surrounded by [[barbed wire]], [[Watchtower|watchtowers]] and [[Nissen hut]]s".{{sfn|Hennessey|2014|p=12}}{{sfn|Beresford|1987|pp=13–16}} Internees lived in dormitories and disciplined themselves with military-style command structures, [[Military exercise|drilled]] with dummy guns made from wood, and held lectures on [[guerrilla warfare]] and politics.{{sfn|Beresford|1987|pp=13–16}}{{Refn|Although conditions in the huts were poor, this was not the government's main concern, but the overall loss of control by the authorities. The civil servant [[John Gardiner, Baron Gardiner of Kimble|John Gardiner]],  reported that {{blockquote|text=prisons of the compound type, each compound holding up to ninety prisoners, are thoroughly unsatisfactory from every point of view; their major disadvantage is that there is virtually a total loss of disciplinary control by the prison authorities inside the compounds{{nbsp}}... The layout and construction of the compounds make close and continued supervision impossible".{{sfn|Coogan|2002a|p=73}}}}|group=note}} 

Convicted prisoners were refused the same rights as [[Civilian internee|internees]] until July 1972, when [[Special Category Status]] was introduced following a hunger strike by 40 [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] (IRA) prisoners led by the veteran republican [[Billy McKee]].{{sfn|McEvoy|2001|p=216}}{{sfn|Walker|1984|p=197}}{{sfn|Darby|2006|p=202}} Special Category, or political status, meant prisoners were treated similarly to prisoners of war; for example, not having to wear [[Prison uniform|prison uniforms]] or do prison work.{{sfn|Beresford|1987|pp=13–16}} 

On 1 March 1976, [[Merlyn Rees]], the [[Secretary of State for Northern Ireland]] in the [[Labour government 1974–79|Wilson ministry]], announced that paramilitary prisoners would no longer be entitled to Special Category Status.{{sfn|Coogan|2002b|p=264}} This was part of Britain's long-term strategy of [[Criminalization|criminalisation]] in the north, the intention being to alter perceptions of the conflict from a [[colonial war]] to that of a campaign against, effectively, [[criminal gangs]].{{sfn|Bourke|2003|p=164}}{{sfn|McKittrick|McVea|2002|p=123}}{{sfn|Curtis|1998|p=51}} The policy was not imposed retroactively and only affected those convicted of offences after 1 March 1976.{{sfn|Hennessey|2014|p=50}} Long Kesh prisoners remained in the huts, but new intakes arrived at eight newly built cellular "H-Blocks", so called due to their layout.{{sfn|Purbrick|2023|pp=22, 26, 31}} 

After the introduction of the strategy of internment in 1971, both IRA violence and recruitment escalated.{{sfn|Sanders|2012|pp=52–53}}{{refn|In the event, this was the most intense period of their campaign, with approximately half the total of 650 British soldiers who died being killed between 1971–73.{{sfn|O'Brien|1993|p=135}} In 1972 alone, the IRA killed 100 British soldiers and wounded 500 more. In the same year, they carried out 1,300 bomb attacks and 90 IRA members were killed.{{sfn|O'Brien|1993|p=119}}|group=note}}

=== Blanket and dirty protests ===
{{main|Blanket protest|dirty protest}}
IRA volunteer [[Kieran Nugent]] had been interned in Long Kesh in 1974,{{sfn|Coogan|2002a|p=97}} but when he was arrested and convicted in 1976, he faced a very different prison regime. On 14 September, he was the first republican to be convicted since the withdrawal of status.{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=26}} As such he was required to wear a [[prison uniform]] as every other, non-political, prisoner did. Nugent refused, telling the warder, "If you want me to wear a uniform, you'll have to nail it to my back",{{sfn|Kenney|2017|p=196}} and wore a blanket in its place.{{sfn|Bréadún|2015|p=58}} This began the blanket protest, in which IRA and [[Irish National Liberation Army]] (INLA) prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms and either went naked or fashioned garments from prison blankets.{{sfn|Holland|McDonald|1996|pp=192–193}} In 1978, after a number of clashes between prison officers and prisoners leaving their cells to wash and "[[slop out]]" (empty their chamber pots), this escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to wash and smeared their excrement on the walls of their cells.{{sfn|Taylor|1997|p=220}}{{sfn|Aretxaga|1995|pp=124, 127}} The scholar [[Begoña Aretxaga]] has suggested that, unlike the hunger strike which followed, "the Dirty Protest had no precedent in the political culture".{{sfn|Aretxaga|1995|p=124}} The protest soon spread to the women's prison at [[HM Prison Armagh|Armagh]], where not just faeces and urine but menstrual blood coated cell walls.{{sfn|Aretxaga|1995|p=124}}{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=83}} These protests aimed to re-establish the political status expected by [[prisoners of war]] and were encapsulated in what became known as the "Five Demands":{{sfn|Wagner-Pacifici|1986|p=157}}{{sfn|Alonso|2007|p=104}}

# The right not to wear a prison uniform;
# The right not to do prison work;
# The right of [[Freedom of association|free association]] with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
# The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
# Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.{{sfn|Taylor|1997|pp=229–234}}{{refn|The last demand was a later addition; at the time of the 'Smash H-Block' conference, the demands comprised the first four.{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=62}}|group=note}}

Initially, the dirty protest did not attract a great deal of attention, and even the IRA regarded it as a side issue in the context of the [[armed struggle]].{{sfn|Taylor|1997|p=217}}{{sfn|Holland|McDonald|1996|p=261}} It began to attract attention when [[Tomás Ó Fiaich]], the [[Roman Catholic]] [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Armagh|Archbishop of Armagh]], visited the prison and condemned the conditions there.{{sfn|Taylor|1997|pp=221–222}} O'Fiaich subsequently told the press, "I was shocked at the inhuman conditions prevailing in H-Blocks{{nbsp}}... The stench and filth in some of the cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls was almost unbearable. In two of them I was unable to speak for fear of vomiting."{{sfn|Taylor|1997|pp=221–222}} In 1979, former MP [[Bernadette McAliskey]] stood in the election for the [[European Parliament]] on a platform of support for the protesting prisoners and won just under 34,000 votes, even though [[Sinn Féin]] had called for a [[boycott]] of the election,{{refn|Sinn Féin were not against elections ''per se''; as the author F. Stuart Ross points out, "the very issues of ''[[An Phoblacht/Republican News]]'' that condemned the McAliskey campaign had asked readers to support Sinn Féin candidates in twenty-six county local elections".{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=26}}|group=note}} and on one occasion, [[Martin McGuinness]] heckled her with a megaphone during a public meeting.{{sfn|Ross|2023|p=137}} Other republicans believed that her standing would be a diversion from the military campaign, and the Maze prisoners released a statement emphasising that, in their collective opinion, only physical force could remove the British.{{sfn|Walker|2006|pp=66–67}}

Although McAliskey had stood solely on a prisoner's rights [[Ticket (election)|ticket]], there was no intention of turning the popular support the campaign had exposed into an organised movement at that time.{{sfn|Walker|2006|p=67}} However, the dirty protests had now lasted nearly three years, and [[morale]] inside was felt to be dangerously low.{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=61}} One ex-blanketman recalled that "the more experienced men spoke for the rest of us when they said they were nearly at the end of their tether".{{sfn|O'Rawe|2005|p=67}} Shortly after this, a "Smashing H-Block" conference took place in [[Belfast|West Belfast]] in October 1979. Over 600 people, from many republican or [[left wing|left-wing]] organisations attended.{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=62}} This led to the formation of the broad-based National H-Block/Armagh Committee on a platform of support for the "Five Demands", and included seasoned activists such as McAliskey, [[Eamonn McCann]] and [[Miriam Daly]].{{sfn|Maume|2015}}{{sfn|Ross|2011|pp=63, p.68 n.69}}

The period leading up to the hunger strike saw [[Assassination|assassinations]] by both republicans and [[Ulster loyalism|loyalists]]. The IRA shot and killed a number of prison officers,{{sfn|Taylor|1997|p=217}}{{sfn|Beresford|1987|p=20}} while loyalist paramilitaries shot and killed a number of activists in the National H-Block/Armagh Committee. These included a [[Ulster Freedom Fighters|UFF]] gun attack which badly injured McAliskey and her husband,{{sfn|Ross|2011|p=111}}{{sfn|Taylor|1999|p=168}} the assassination of Miriam Daly by the [[Ulster Defence Association|UDA]] while her house was under military observation,{{sfn|Maume|2015}} and, of the [[Irish Independence Party]], [[John Turnley]]'s death at the hands of the [[Ulster Volunteer Force|UVF]].{{sfn|Finn|2019|p=146}}{{sfn|McDonald|Cusack|2008|p=97}}{{sfn|McDonald|Cusack|2004|pp=116–118}}