Editing Hunger strike (section)

====Irish hunger strikes between 1923 and 1976====
{{See also| 1923 Irish Hunger Strikes}}
In February 1923, 23 women (members of Cumann na mBan) went on hunger strike for 34 days over the arrest and imprisonment without trial of Irish republican prisoners. The Free State subsequently released the women republican prisoners. Most of the male republicans were not released until the following year.<ref>McCarthy, Pat, (2015), ''The Irish Revolution, 1912–1923'', Four Courts Press, Dublin, p.132, ISBN 978-1-84682-410-4</ref> After the end of the [[Irish Civil War]] in October 1923, up to 8,000 [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|IRA]] prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their continued detention by the [[Irish Free State]] (a total of over 12,000 republicans had been interned by May 1923).<ref>The Forgotten Hunger Strikes". hungerstrikes.org.</ref> Three men, [[Denny Barry]], [[Joseph Whitty]], and [[Andy O'Sullivan (Irish Republican)|Andy O'Sullivan]], died during the 1923 Irish Hunger Strikes. The strike, however, was called off by Republican leadership in the camps (November 23, 1923) before any more deaths occurred.

Under [[Éamon de Valera|de Valera]]'s [[Government of the 7th Dáil|first Fianna Fáil government]] in 1932, military pensions were awarded to dependants of republicans who died in 1920s hunger strikes on the same basis as those who were [[killed in action]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1932/act/24/section/5/enacted/en/html#sec5|title=Army Pensions Act, 1932, Section 5(2)|work=[[Irish Statute Book]]|access-date=July 17, 2017|quote=the word "killed" includes ... death as an immediate result of refusing to take nourishment while detained in prison|archive-date=October 31, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171031012544/http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1932/act/24/section/5/enacted/en/html#sec5|url-status=live}}</ref> During [[The Emergency (Ireland)|the state of emergency]] of [[World War II]] [[Government of the 10th Dáil|another De Valera government]] interned many IRA members, three of whom died on hunger strike: [[Sean McCaughey]], [[Tony D'Arcy]] and [[Jack McNeela]]. Hundreds of others carried out shorter hunger strikes during the de Valera years.

The tactic was revived by the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] (IRA) in the early 1970s, when several republicans successfully used hunger strikes to get themselves released from custody without charge in the [[Republic of Ireland]]. [[Michael Gaughan (Irish republican)|Michael Gaughan]] died after being force-fed in [[Parkhurst Prison]] in 1974. [[Frank Stagg (Irish republican)|Frank Stagg]], an IRA member being held in [[Wakefield Prison]], died in 1976 after a 62-day hunger strike which he began as a campaign to be [[repatriate]]d to Ireland.<ref>{{cite book | last = White | first = Robert | title = Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary | publisher = [[Indiana University Press]] | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-0253347084 | pages = 246–247}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = O'Donnell | first = Ruán | title = Special Category: The IRA in English Prisons Vol.1: 1968–78 | publisher = [[Irish Academic Press]] | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-0-7165-3142-5 | page = 364 }}</ref>

Members of other movements like [[Holger Meins]] of German [[Red Army Faction|Red Army Fraction]] used hunger strikes as a political weapon at this time. Meins went on hunger strike for the first time in 1973 together with other prisoners in protest against the prison conditions. The RAF prisoners wanted to be pooled together and claimed prisoner of war status.  The 1.83m tall Meins still weighed 39 kg in November 1973 and died in prison.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sontheimer |first=Michael |date=2007-11-08 |title=RAF |url=https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/raf-a-948828.html |access-date=2024-06-03 |work=Der Spiegel |language=de |issn=2195-1349}}</ref>