Posted by: John Phoenix
»Staff Reporter
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the heroic anti-apartheid strike by a group of young workers in Dunnes Stores, Henry Street, Dublin. We re-publish here special features first published on the 20th anniversary.
• 2004 – Catherine O’Reilly, Karen Gearon, Alma Bonnie and Mary Manning pore through some of An Phoblacht’s file photos from the famous dispute
The two oranges that shook Apartheid
Twenty years ago this month, ten workers from the Henry Street branch of Dunnes Stores in Dublin’s city centre went on strike to protest the selling of produce from Apartheid South Africa. A year later, the group was joined by another worker, Brendan Barron, from the Crumlin store, bringing their number to eleven. The workers had no idea when the strike started that it would last for almost three years, or that it would ultimately result in the government banning South African goods from Irish stores.
Last Monday, the strikers, family members and supporters, met in Dublin for an anniversary reunion. On the night, An Phoblacht’s JOANNE CORCORAN talked to Karen Gearon, the then shop steward, about her memories of the strike.
When Karen Gearon walked out of Henry Street Dunnes Stores 20 years ago, she had no idea how significant the strike she was about to embark on would become.
“Basically, it started when our union passed a resolution at their Easter conference saying that members should not handle South African goods because of Apartheid,” Karen recalls.
“That was at Easter and we got the instruction down in July, about two days before the actual strike started. I was the shop steward at the time, so I passed it round to everybody.
“At the time we were going through a lot of hassle with Dunnes. They treated us very badly as employees, so we were really at our wits’ end. Then this instruction came, and at the time it could have been about anything. It could have been about not selling milk in a carton and we would have followed it.
“We were so naïve we actually didn’t know what goods in the shop were South African,” she laughs. “We had to go around picking things off shelves and checking. We found out it was mainly fruit and vegetables that carried the South African logo.”
According to Karen, management reacted immediately to the buzz of protest on the shop floor.
“They started bringing us up to the office and intimidating us, saying ‘you know, if you continue to do this you’re going to lose your job, you’re going to be sacked’.”
On Thursday 19 July 1984, the staff’s resolve was put to the test. A customer approached Mary Manning, who was on the checkout at the time, with two South African Outspan oranges. Mary gritted her teeth and politely told the customer she couldn’t handle the goods because they were South African.
“Mary was brought upstairs with myself and was given five minutes to reconsider her position,” Karen says. “We weren’t allowed talk to each other during the five minutes. She was kept in one room and I was kept in the other. And then we came back in and Mary said, ‘No, I’m sticking by my position’, and the Dunnes Stores strike began.”
Karen called the union and told staff what had happened.
“More people walked out that day than actually stayed on strike,” she says. “A couple of them went back two days later.
“We decided we wanted to learn more about the issue, and so we started to look into South Africa and what was happening there,” Karen remembers. “The more we learned, the more passionate we felt.
“There were so many people who made such a big impression on us. Nimrod Sejake, who was a black South African exile, joined us practically every single day, and he was amazing.
Karen says one moment stands out in her mind, that to her, made it all worth it.
“A man called Marius Scoone, who was a white South African, came to give us his support,” she says. “His wife and daughter had been killed by the security forces in South Africa and he got up on the podium and praised us for what we were doing. That had a real effect on me.”
Tutu and a trip to South Africa
The strike began to gain serious momentum when Archbishop Desmond Tutu invited some of the group to meet him in London while he was en route to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. Karen, Mary Manning, IDATU union official Brendan Archbold and the meeting’s organiser, Don Mullen, travelled over.
“That was definitely the turning point,” says Karen. “We got massive publicity and he invited us over to South Africa.”
A plan was made to travel to South Africa on the first anniversary of the start of the strike.
“We had no money to carry out our plan, so we had to do a collection,” Karen says.
“One Friday night we went out around Dublin and raised £6,000. That showed us just how much support was out there, because the ‘80s wouldn’t have been an affluent time in Ireland. Anyhow, we booked the trip and were ready to go.”
But when the group checked in at Heathrow Airport that July, they were summoned to the information desk and told they couldn’t get on the flight. “The South African authorities had told Heathrow that they would not allow the plane to land in South Africa if we were on it,” says Karen. “We didn’t know what the hell was going on. We were asked to submit our boarding passes and we refused to do it. They even took our luggage off the plane. But we held on to our boarding passes.
“Then somebody from the South African Embassy came to talk to us, but we refused to meet them, because we didn’t recognise their authority. They wanted us to fill in visa application forms and we refused to do that too, because Irish citizens didn’t require a visa to get into South Africa.”
The flight, which should have taken off at 7pm, was by this stage running three hours late.
“We genuinely didn’t think it was going to happen,” Karen says. “By this point we’d all rung home and told everybody we weren’t going.”
But five minutes after 10pm, the group was rushed onto the plane.
Karen remembers the trip being a nightmare, because the captain told the impatient passengers that the people boarding were the ones who’d held the plane up for three hours. “You can imagine the atmosphere,” she recalls.
When the plane landed in Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg, it was greeted by police and army officials.
“We thought it was normal. We didn’t know what to expect. But then we found out that they were there for us. We got our passports checked and then we were literally surrounded by the army. We were asked if we were the group from Ireland and we said yes, and then we were escorted upstairs. We stayed there for eight hours and were sent home on the same plane.”
The group was terrified, but, as Karen points out, the incident turned in their favour.
“Well, had they let us in, we wouldn’t have got a quarter of the publicity we eventually got,” she laughs.
“When we arrived back in Heathrow, everybody was told to stay in their seats and the police boarded the plane. We thought, ‘Oh shit, we’re going to get thrown out of here as well’. But they were there to bring us to a press conference. BBC, RTÉ, the works, were all there.”
Shortly afterwards, Karen and Michelle Gavin were invited over to New York to address the UN Special Committee against Apartheid.
“I met the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and famous musicians, activists like singer Pat Benatar and guitarist Steve Van Zandt. That was gobsmacking stuff. You have to remember I was only 21 years old.”
Hardship and solidarity
The strike had moments like these, but Karen remembers the hardship endured all too well.
“We were on the picket line every day of every week. One winter it was so bad that we actually had plastic inside our shoes. One of the women (Vonnie Monroe) lost her house because she couldn’t make the repayments on it. We had £21 union pay a week and most of us had been on £100 before that. Luckily, most of us lived at home, which made it easier. We did a lot of collections, many of them with the miners in Britain, who were also on strike at the time. There was a lot of solidarity between us.”
No matter how tough it was, Karen says at no stage did anybody consider giving up.
During this difficult period, the picketers got a boost from the many people who supported them.
“A lot of our supporters would go into the store and fill their trolleys and when everything was rung up at the cash desk, they’d walk out,” Karen says. “They’d keep the South African fruit until last and then say, ‘I support the boycott’, and leave the trolley there.”
They also engaged in overnight occupations of the store, a move the group used twice. “We wanted to make a stand and say, no you’re not going to leave us outside the door.”
Karen remembers some people coming up to the picket line and saying ‘Well done’. But the people walking into the store would be embarrassed and often very hostile.
“We did get the odd comment, people coming to us and saying ‘Fair play to yis girls, I wouldn’t handle them either, not after a black man handled them’. There were a lot of ignorant remarks like that.”
Karen says that because the dispute was centred around the Henry Street store, people tend to forget that other companies, like Clerys and Roches Stores, were actually implementing the boycott.
“All of their staff refused to handle goods that were South African, but their companies did nothing about it,” she says. “That’s what made it different. It was Dunnes Stores that initiated our strike; we didn’t start it.”
Towards the end of 1986, the union, IDATU, decided to lift the picket as a goodwill gesture to the government, who were investigating the possibility of banning South African goods.
“We had a huge fall out with the union and we were trapped in a situation where they had the money,” says Karen. “All of that was happening and we were very disillusioned that Christmas. Eventually, the picket line was lifted and it stayed lifted.” However, the strike didn’t officially end until April 1987.
Some of the strikers went back to their jobs.
“It was horrific, absolutely horrific,” Karen says. “The bad feeling was just so intense in there. Our colleagues had stayed on the job when we left. Some were good friends. They took a very bad view of us. Early in the strike, their canteen was just over our picket line and they would throw tea and tomatoes on top of us. It was very bitter.
Aftermath
“On a personal note, I should never have gone back. About 13 months later, I was offered a management position and so was Mary. But Mary was emigrating, so that was fine. She wasn’t a threat. I wasn’t going anywhere, so they started trying to build a case against me. And they eventually sacked me.”
Karen won her unfair dismissal case, but says “it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
“I was blacklisted, I couldn’t get a job anywhere because I was considered a troublemaker.”
She was forced to move to Kerry, where she still lives, to look for work. But she believes it was all worth it.
“We won,” she says. “All we wanted was for us not to have to handle the goods; the bonus was the government coming out and banning them. We didn’t start the movement, the movement was there before us, but we certainly brought a new life to it, and we raised its profile.
“Before that strike there were about six divisions of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Ireland,” Karen says, and you can sense how proud she is. “By the time we finished there was an anti-apartheid division in every single county and some had three or four. That was an amazing achievement.”
Memories of a union official
The late Brendan Archbold was the IDATU union official in charge of the Dunnes Store Strike in 1984 (the strike actually started when IDATU was called the IUDWC). Still an official with the same union, now called MANDATE, Brendan spoke to us about his memories of the strike.
An Phoblacht: What impact do you think the strike had?
Brendan Archbold: The impact was the symbolic effect it had. In terms of the pure financial effect, I don’t think we set any alarm bells ringing in Pretoria (capital of South Africa). Ireland wouldn’t have been their most important market by any stretch of the imagination. But symbolically, it had a great impact. It was well organised and received publicity from around the world. It was a real stand against Apartheid and sent a shiver through the South African administration.
AP: Is there much difference between being a union official now and being one then?
BA: Some things are the same. Dunnes was a crap employer 20 years before the strike, they were crap employers during the strike and they’re still crap employers. They’ve had three generations of anti-union management. In terms of what’s changed, I suppose you could say today’s society is much more consumer obsessed than it was. It’s that new philosophy, ‘I spend, therefore I am’. I don’t know how the public would react to a strike like that now.
AP: What was the most significant thing about the strike?
BA:I suppose the fact that the group were prepared to go out in solidarity for people they’d never even met, in a time of unemployment and hardship. They have to be admired for that.
Is the boycott tool still effective and are there any goods you believe should be boycotted now?
I think there are a lot of candidates for boycotting at the moment, particularly Israeli goods. And there are a lot of other things we should be doing in solidarity with the developing world, not necessarily by boycotting, but even through supporting the Fair Trade Movement. But I think the boycott is not used as effectively as it could be. The trade unions need to work out a clear plan
Dunnes Strike legacy shows potential of unions
By Caoilfhionn Ní Dhonnabháin
This summer marks 20 years since the start of the Dunnes Stores anti-Apartheid Strike in Dublin. That struggle stands with the 1913 Lockout as a key moment in the history of trade unionism in Ireland.
In July 1984, workers at Dunnes Stores on Henry Street went on strike following the suspension of a 21-year-old cashier, Mary Manning, for refusing to handle fruit from South Africa in opposition to the Apartheid regime. Selflessly, these workers remained on strike for two years and nine months.
At a time of high unemployment, these young workers risked their jobs and their future in an act of solidarity with the oppressed people of South Africa. Their contribution to the fight against Apartheid is internationally recognised and remembered in the Ewan MacColl song, Ten young women and one young man.
One Opposition TD in Leinster House, speaking during the course of that strike, spoke in support of the workers, saying:
“For 18 months, this small band of workers have taken a stand against the South African regime in the way they thought fitting. They are supported by the Trade Union Movement, by most workers and by people in all sections of Irish society. However, apart from finances, three or four of the people involved have severe health problems as a result of being out in inclement weather. It is within the jurisdiction of the Government to force a conclusion in this case. The people concerned have made a stand and they deserve assistance. It is unreasonable to expect them to go back and to handle South African goods — they will not do that. Has the Minister any hope to offer other than to say he is considering the position? The strikers have taken a brave stand for 18 months. Some of them are in ill-health and they deserve help.”
Who would believe the man who spoke those deceptively heartfelt words, Bertie Ahern, would be responsible a few years later for the introduction of the most regressive and anti-union legislation that the State had ever seen. How was it that a person who defended the actions of the Dunnes Stores Strikers embraced the ideology of William Martin Murphy and introduced the 1990 Industrial Relations Act, a piece of legislation that would affect the ability of trade union members to take effective strike action.
Interestingly, the 1990 Industrial Relations Act, which rules out solidarity picketing even by members of the same union and makes it virtually impossible to take action in defence of an individual worker, was introduced at a time when Bertie Ahern was a Minister in the Cabinet of Charles Haughey. Coincidentally or not, the period during which this legislation was drafted, placed before the Dáil and passed is the same period that Charles Haughey received vast amounts of money from Ben Dunne, admitting to the McCracken Tribunal in July 1997 that he had received €1.3 million from the then Dunnes Stores boss.
The Dunnes dispute reminds us that the strike is a democratic political tool, and not merely to gain wage increases. The role that strike played in bringing about a ban on the import of South African produce and in economically isolating the apartheid regime is one of the finest examples of how workers can, through strike action, bring about political change. The establishment here today would have us believe that workers strike merely in their own interests and only to further pay claims. They would have us forget that unions developed to allow workers in solidarity to make it known that an injury to one was an injury to all and to fight for better working conditions.
The Dunnes Stores Strike eloquently demonstrated that industrial action can play an integral role in global solidarity and in participative democracy by giving to otherwise disempowered sections of society a tool for making their voices heard. In unity there is strength and the threat of this strength was the catalyst for the development of so-called Partnership process and the simultaneous introduction of legislation to restrict union activity.
The right to withhold labour is fundamental and yet trade union recognition is not enshrined in 26-County law. Despite the Labour Party, the alleged voice of the unions in this state, having been in government on numerous occasions, legislation to protect this fundamental right has not been delivered on.
Trade unions are increasingly hamstrung by their outdated links with the Labour Party in the 26 Counties. The shared membership of the higher echelons of both lack any radical edge or real commitment to improving the rights of working people. There is a growing gulf between the highly paid union leadership that makes up the toothless ICTU and low paid workers, for whom the Partnership Process has not delivered.
The Labour Party has become complacent about the support it receives from the unions, believing it can carry that support even as it moves rapidly towards the centre, away from its roots, and seeks to become a party that gains significant support from the middle and upper middle classes.
Establishment politicians are quick to decry the low voter participation one moment and the next condemn trade unionists who take strike action, whether to prevent the breakup of our public services, to protest the unfair treatment of a co-worker or in pursuance of proper pay.
As republicans, we are committed to enabling local communities and citizens to empower themselves through participative democracy, by exercising their right to vote or by involvement in community organisations or the trade union movement.
As part of that, we must value the importance of the right to strike.
Unions and strike action have played a vital role in combating brutal and dangerous working conditions, past and present, in tackling child labour, starvation wages and establishing a 40-hour working week.
We must remember the impact and importance of labour actions such as the 1984-’86 Dunnes Stores Strike.
• The strikers with Seán MacBride
Nobel plaudits
Speaking to the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement on 19 March 1985, Nobel laureate and former Chief of Staff of the IRA, Seán MacBride, paid tribute to the Dunnes Stores strikers:
“In an otherwise very dismal situation in Ireland, allow me to highlight one of the very few points in regard to which we can take pride. I refer to the action of one girl, Mary Manning, who in response to the dictates of her conscience and with a sense of moral understanding and responsibility on her own, took the initiative to refuse to handle South African fruit in one of the chain stores in Dublin.
“She has now been joined by several of her colleagues, who are picketing Dunnes Stores in Henry Street in protest against the sale of goods plundered from the people of South Africa.
“Mary Manning and her colleagues have responded to the dictates of their consciences and have been prepared to make tremendous sacrifices in order to defend an ideal and a principle. We should salute them.”
Thomas McElwee – Died on 8 August 1981 after 62 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh
THOMAS McELWEE, aged 23, was born in Bellaghy, south Derry, on 30 November 1957.
Thomas was arrested following a premature explosion in an IRA operation in October 1976 in which he lost the sight of one eye. His younger brother, Benedict, was arrested in the same incident. Thomas received a 20-year sentence in September 1977.
He spent 62 days on hunger strike from 8 June. He died on 8 August 1981.
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The death of Thomas McElwee
• Thomas McElwee’s eight sisters – Kathleen, Mary, Bernadette, Annie, Enda, Nora, Pauline and Majella – carry the coffin of their brother
Thomas McElwee, at the age of 23, was the tenth man to join the 1981 Hunger Strike. From Bellaghy in south Derry, he was imprisoned in 1976 after a premature bomb explosion in which he lost an eye.
Thomas was a cousin of another hunger striker, Francis Hughes, also from Bellaghy. They had been boyhood friends, both going on to join the IRA. On 10 August 1981, for the second time, Bellaghy was visited by thousands of mourners gathered to pay their respects to a deceased Hunger Striker.
McElwee died on 8 August on the 62nd day of his fast. Francis Hughes had died three months earlier, on 12 May.
The RUC and British Army converged on the roads around Bellaghy and six British Army helicopters hovered overhead. Thomas’s brother, Benedict, had been denied a visit with his brother the previous week and was then callously asked to identify the body when he died.
IRA and Cumann na mBan guards of honour lined the path to the McElwee home as the coffin was carried out by his eight sisters. A volley of shots was fired as the cortege reached the road. The crowd in the fields and hillsides cheered as the firing party disappeared out of range of the British crown forces.
Two pipers led the cortege along the five-mile route to the church for Requiem Mass. Thomas’s brother, Benedict, was allowed 10 hours parole for the funeral. In another instance of church interference in the Hunger Strike, the priest at the Mass in Bellaghy Parish Church criticised the Hunger Strikers and called for an end to the fast. Some women in the congregation got up and walked out, disgusted that the priest would use the pulpit on such a tragic occasion to deliver an insulting political speech.
Thomas McElwee’s dying wish was to be buried beside Francis Hughes.
The graveside oration was given by Danny Morrison, then Sinn Féin Director of Publicity.
Thomas McElwee has been described by friends as being “sincere, easy-going and full of fun”. He was also intelligent and determined, something Morrison captured in his remarks on the young Volunteer:
“I know that the McElwee family will understand, just as the families of other dead Hunger Strikers will know what I mean, when I say that their son was invincible from beginning to end, in life as well as in death.”
• IRA Volunteers prepare to fire a volley of shots over the coffin of Thomas McElwee
Morrison went on to criticise the Catholic Church and the SDLP for cultivating defeatism throughout the Hunger Strike rather than pressurising the British Government to come to a just resolution of the protest. He referred back to the sermon delivered earlier at Thomas’s Requiem Mass.
“Those of you who were able to hear Fr Flanagan’s sermon today will have been struck by what is wrong with the Church’s politics. We were asked to pray for an end to the Hunger Strike, for an end to violence and for peace,” he remarked, adding that certainly people should pray for those things. “But there is a bigger prayer which we have to make, and that is a prayer for an end to the cause of violence: the British occupation of our country. It is time the Church prayed and called for that.”
In his oration, Morrison also called for decisive and effective action at ambassadorial and international levels on the part of the Irish Government, who, he said “like many other influential bodies in Ireland which represent the vested interests, have not got the welfare of the prisoners at heart and would quite frankly like to see the hunger strike collapse”.
Morrison also noted and condemned the increasing tendency at the time to blame the republican leadership for the crisis.
“For some time now it has been open season for apportioning blame for the continuation of the Hunger Strike on the leadership of the Republican Movement.” This was, he said, just a variation of former Secretary of State Roy Mason’s theme in 1976 and 1977, in which the implication was that those on the outside had forced the prisoners onto the Blanket Protest.
Identifying the real cause of the problem, Morrison said:
“The roots of the Hunger Strike were built into the British H-Blocks, into the British policy of criminalisation which forced the men on the Blanket five years ago and which led ultimately to republicans resorting to the traditional weapon of hunger strike as the ultimate means of gaining their demands.”
Nor was Danny in any doubt as to the continued determination of the republican POWs in the H-Blocks.
“Their determination has not waned,” he said, stressing that neither should their supporters on the outside lose resolve. “Despair is easy, our enemies want us to despair; to struggle on is a harder task but the reward is there at the end of the road – and Thomas McElwee will be proud of us, as we are proud of him, if we play our full part in winning this prison struggle, in winning, as he set out to win, Irish freedom from the ruins of British rule.”
Kieran Doherty TD – Died on 2 August 1981 after 73 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh
»Staff Reporter
KIERAN DOHERTY, aged 25, was born in Andersonstown, west Belfast, on 16 October 1955.
Kieran was a teenage internee between February 1973 and November 1975. On his release he was an extremely active IRA Volunteer and was finally captured in August 1976. Kieran received an 18-year sentence in January 1978 for possession of weapons.
On 11 June 1981, Kieran was elected as TD for the Cavan/Monaghan constituency in the Dáil general election, receiving over 9,000 first-preference votes.
He spent 73 days on hunger strike from 22 May. He died on 2 August 1981.
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Big Doc’s final journey
• The funeral of Kieran Doherty TD passes through west Belfast
IRA Volunteer Kieran Doherty, TD for Cavan/Monaghan, died at 7:15pm on Sunday 2 August 1981, the day after Kevin Lynch’s death. Kieran had joined the hunger strike one day before Kevin Lynch and survived one day longer.
Kieran Doherty embarked on his fast upon the death of Raymond McCreesh. He managed, with difficulty, to speak to his family almost to the end though his sight had almost completely gone. Kieran (or ‘Big Doc’ as his comrades affectionately called him) had a strong spirit of survival which kept him conscious for most of his 73 days on hunger strike.
Kieran’s body was brought out of Long Kesh and through Andersonstown to his parents’ home in Commedagh Drive at two o’clock in the morning. About a thousand mourners accompanied the coffin and even larger crowds came out on Monday morning to pay their respects. The next day, hundreds of stewards took position on the funeral route as Kieran’s coffin was carried out of his parents’ house, escorted by an IRA guard of honour. An IRA firing party came out of the crowd and, lining the side of the coffin, fired a volley of shots. As British Army helicopters hovered overhead, the crowd cheered at the Brits’ inability to prevent the firing party from honouring their dead comrade.
• Scene during the funeral Mass at St Theresa’s Church; (below) Kieran Doherty’s coffin is carried by his sister Mairéad (left) a family friend Siobhán McKenna (centre) and sister-in-law Betty Doherty (right)
The cortege then moved through Andersonstown, led by two pipers. It may be recalled that during the Hunger Strike some of the clergy had set out to undermine the prisoners’ protest. In contrast to the attitude of the priest celebrating Mass at Kevin Lynch’s funeral, Fr Hansen’s sermon demonstrated a fundamental understanding of the issues at the core of the Hunger Strikers’ protest. While the presiding priest at the Lynch funeral refused to wear his vestments at the graveside because of the presence of a firing party, the priest at Kieran’s funeral recalled having visited Doherty on the 13th day of his fast and remembered it to be a cheerful event. He went on to recount Kieran’s words when he asked him if he would consider coming off the hunger strike. Kieran replied:
“Look, Father, I could not give up. If I did I would go back to criminal status. I am not a criminal. I never was and never will be one.”
Recalling those words at the funeral of Kieran Doherty, the priest said:
“Basically, I had to agree with him.”
He finished off by saying:
“Kieran was very much his own man. He died quietly and very determined, serene and dignified.”
Fr Toner, who was criticised by Bobby Sands in his diary, was in the congregation, listening but apparently unmoved by Fr Hansen’s words.
It was estimated that a crowd of about 20,000 attended Kieran’s funeral.
Chairing the event, Sinn Féin member Jimmy Drumm referred to the ongoing pursuit of the prisoners’ ‘Five Demands’.
“The British Government needs to be moved on the issues of work, association and segregation.” He finished by saying that with the basis of a just settlement “then we and the families will be spared the anguish and suffering of such funerals as this, and the prisoners who have suffered so much will be able to live in tolerable conditions.” Kieran Doherty was the eighth man to die on hunger strike in 1981 and two more would follow.
The oration at Volunteer Doherty’s funeral was given by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Kieran’s Director of Elections during the 1981 general election in the 26 Counties.
Ó Caoláin said that the people of Cavan/Monaghan had taken the 26-year-old to their hearts and that they were proud to elect him as their public representative. Ó Caoláin criticised the Irish Government’s handling of the Hunger Strike, saying:
“Their gamesmanship for petty political scores has been a major factor in the continuing deaths in Long Kesh. The people of Cavan/Monaghan hold the present coalition government directly responsible, through firstly their inactivity and afterwards their open support for pressure to be placed on the Hunger Strikers and their families.”
Ó Caoláin recalled all the other Irish hunger strikers who had died as a result of British intransigence, three of them elected representatives: Terence MacSwiney, Bobby Sands and Kieran Doherty. Again of Doherty, he added that Kieran had taken his place amongst all those who fought for the three tenets of republicanism: “Equality, as embodied by James Connolly, who struggled to achieve a classless society; liberty, the liberty of Patrick Pearse; and the fraternity of Wolfe Tone.”
Death of INLA Volunteer Kevin Lynch – 1 August 1981
»Staff Reporter
KEVIN LYNCH, aged 25, was born in Park, north Derry, on 25 May 1956.
Kevin, an INLA Volunteer, was arrested in December 1976 and charged with conspiracy to obtain arms. He received a ten-year sentence in December 1977.
Kevin excelled at Gaelic games and had captained the under-16 Derry team which won an all-Ireland hurling trophy in 1972.
He stood as a H-Block/Armagh candidate in the Waterford constituency during the June 1981 general election in the South and polled extremely well despite missing out on election.
He spent 71 days on hunger strike from 23 May 1981. He died on 1 August 1981.
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Kevin Lynch laid to rest in Dungiven
THE death of INLA Volunteer Kevin Lynch after 71 days on hunger strike occurred on 1 August 1981. It was followed the next day by that of IRA Volunteer Kieran Doherty.
They were the seventh and eighth men to die on the fast.
Kevin had been lapsing into frequent periods of unconsciousness in the last four days, having already lost his sight, hearing and speech. His family were at his bedside throughout the final days until he died in the early hours of Saturday morning.
His funeral took place the following Monday in his home town of Dungiven in County Derry. Between the return of his body to his home and the removal for Requiem Mass on Monday afternoon, a constant stream of mourners queued outside to pay their respects. The road was decorated with Tricolours and black flags, along with posters of Kevin Lynch.
The RUC and the Ulster Defence Regiment made every effort to disrupt the funeral, holding up cars and forcing buses to park outside of town so that the passengers would have to make their way on foot. Ulsterbus in Belfast cancelled bookings at the last minute. Nevertheless, mourners came in convoys of cars and black taxis.
At mid-day, the coffin, bearing the Tricolour, Starry Plough, gloves and beret, was carried to the nearby church. The procession was led by a lone piper, followed by the Lynch family, relatives of other Hunger Strikers, and senior representatives of the IRSP and the broad republican movement, along with the National H-Block/Armagh Committee.
Five British Army helicopters flew overhead as the coffin entered the church grounds. Applause broke out momentarily as an 18-strong INLA guard of honour marched up to escort the coffin to the church door.
The priest who celebrated the Mass, Fr John Quinn, expressed outrage later when the INLA Volunteers escorting the coffin fired three volleys after it had left the church. So enraged was he that he refused to wear his vestments at the graveside.
This same priest had failed to refer to the suffering of the Hunger Strikers themselves and failed to condemn British intransigence. He tried to imply that the family had been opposed to the military funeral – an opinion later refuted by family members, who criticised the press and those who had made unsolicited comments on their behalf.
At the graveside, the piper played I’ll Wear No Convict’s Uniform. The Last Post was also played and wreaths were laid, including from both the INLA and IRA Army Councils.
• A lone piper leads the cortege; (below) The funeral of Kevin Lynch makes its way through Dungiven
A uniformed INLA Volunteer then read a statement on behalf of the INLA Army Council, stating regret at Kevin’s death and applauding his heroism.
“Kevin Lynch has made the greatest sacrifice, and he has done it in the face of the repressive machinery of British imperialism and in the wake of the greatest gesture of defiance against those who control the prisons and those who rule and ravage our country,” he said.
A short oration was given by Councillor Seán Flynn from Belfast, Vice-Chair of the IRSP:
“Kevin epitomised all that is good in a young Irishman. Playing our national sports of hurling and football, he excelled at both and in 1972 captained his native county to win an All-Ireland medal at hurling.”
He went on to contrast Lynch’s Gaelic spirit with the performance of the Gaelic Athletic Association leadership off the field.
“Yesterday, the Derry County Board and South Antrim County Board asked for a minute’s silence before the All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final between Limerick and Galway. It was no surprise to me when Croke Park refused. President Mac Floinn last week declared that no clubs, grounds or units were to be used for H-Block activity as it contravenes Rule 7.”
He added that work would be done to encourage support for the prisoners’ ‘Five Demands’ amongst the GAA.
Of Kevin’s courage and determination, Seán said:
“It must be remembered that if Kevin had conformed to the British authority he would be a free man today; but to Kevin, Kieran Doherty, Patsy O’Hara, Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson and the continuing Hunger Strikers, they knew if the political prisoners were criminalised then the British Government would attempt to criminalise the struggle on the outside.”
He added that Kevin Lynch knew the consequences of going on hunger strike.
“Deprived of every other means of defending his political integrity, he defended it with his life. Those who imply that he might have been ordered to do so, or could be ordered to cease to do so, fail to understand the depths or the personal integrity – the individual courage and the dedication to the principles he believed in – that made Kevin Lynch the person he was.”
Martin Hurson — Died on 13 July 1981 after 46 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh
»Special Correspondent
MARTIN HURSON, aged 24, was born in Cappagh, County Tyrone, on 13 September 1956.
Martin was arrested in November 1976 and was charged with possession of explosives following sustained physical abuse at the hands of the RUC. He received a 20-year sentence in November 1977, which he unsuccessfully appealed against on a number of occasions.
• — • — • — • — • — • — • — • — • — • — •
An IRA Volunteer, Martin stood as a H-Blocks/Armagh candidate in the Longford/Westmeath constituency during the June 1981 general election in the South, polling extremely well but missing out on election.
He spent 46 days on hunger strike from 29 May. He died on 13 July 1981.
Shock at death of Martin Hurson
THE death of IRA Volunteer Martin Hurson on 13 July 1981, after 46 days on the Hunger Strike, was unexpected. The suddenness of his death, coming only five days after that of Joe McDonnell, came as a shock since two other Hunger Strikers – Kieran Doherty and Kevin Lynch – had been almost a week on hunger strike ahead of Martin.
Martin had replaced south Derry man Brendan McLaughlin, who was forced to come off the Hunger Strike due to a burst stomach ulcer. His health since being moved to the prison hospital had been deteriorating at a far quicker rate than that of his comrades. Throughout the Hunger Strike he had difficulty keeping down the required daily five pints of water. This problem caused him to hallucinate and he suffered from a degree of incoherence in his speech. He rapidly deteriorated towards the end.
Martin Hurson was the sixth H-Block Hunger Striker to die.
Coming two weeks earlier than might have been expected, his death disproved the assessment that the Hunger Strikers were not in danger until around the 60-day stage. Even as the young Tyrone man was dying, the vindictiveness of the prison authorities never abated. Though the family had been sent for due to his serious condition, Martin’s brother, Francie, was refused entry to the prison because he arrived after 10pm! He spent the night outside the H-Blocks gate as his brother died inside.
• IRA guard of honour lifts the coffin of Martin Hurson at the graveside
The following morning, Martin Hurson’s body was removed by the RUC to Omagh Hospital without consultation with the family. This was to deny mourners en route the opportunity to pay their last respects. Despite this, over a hundred cars followed the hearse from Omagh to the Hurson home in Cappagh, County Tyrone.
Relatives, friends and comrades carried the coffin for the last mile home, escorted by a uniformed guard of honour and followed by a large procession of sympathisers.
Later, at the Hurson home, guards of honour from the IRA, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann stood to attention as unending lines of mourners filed past the coffin.
On Wednesday afternoon, Martin Hurson’s relatives carried the Tricolour-draped coffin, with gloves and beret on top, down the country lane from his home to the hearse waiting to take his remains to Galbally Church. A lone piper led the hearse, which was escorted by an IRA guard of honour, followed by Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann. Wreath-bearers headed the thousands of mourners as three British Army helicopters flew overhead.
Following the funeral Mass, the guard of honour carried the remains to the burial plot. Four armed and uniformed IRA Volunteers emerged from the mourners and fired volleys from handguns in honour of their dead comrade. They then stood for a minute’s silence.
• Martin Hurson’s sisters Josephine, Rosaleen and his fiancé Bernadette Donnelly at the funeral
Tyrone republican Francie Molloy presided over the graveside ceremonies. The 1916 Proclamation was read out and a bugler sounded The Last Post as IRA Volunteers stood to attention in salute of their former comrade.
An impassioned and comprehensive oration was given by Seán Lynch, who had been Hurson’s election agent in the 1981 general election. Speaking of Martin Hurson’s past, Lynch described the 26-year-old as “a member of a large family whose mother died when he was only a boy, a young man who played Gaelic football for the local GAA club in Galbally, a lover of all things Irish who was forced to emigrate and who returned and threw in his lot with those who dispute the claim of England to rule over one inch of Irish soil”.
Seán Lynch talked about the sacrifices of freedom fighters of the time, saying they possessed the same “virtue of patriotism, of spiritual, unselfish love of country as it was understood by Mercier, Casement, Pearse, MacSwiney, Stagg, Sands, and Martin Hurson”.
He went on to say their sacrifices would “save the cause of Irish independence from destruction at the hands of foreign enemy and native compromiser, and carry it to victory yet”. There was a certain prophetic note to Lynch’s words and again when he said that the spirit of Martin Hurson shines and “calls like a voice from Heaven, filling young hearts with courage and determination”.
He went on to outline the origins and sources of not only the horrendous conditions endured by prisoners in Armagh and the Blocks but also “all our social and political evils – the British connection”. He also pointed to the “pretence and skulduggery” of the Irish Government of the time who, six deaths later, still refused to support the prisoners’ ‘Five Demands’.
Only three days separated the funerals of Joe McDonnell and Martin Hurson. The proximity of the deaths intensified the depth of frustration and sadness felt by supporters of the Hunger Strikers. Ireland was awash with protests but the British Government still would not budge.
Joe McDonnell – Died on July 8th 1981 on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh
»Special Correspondent
JOE McDONNELL was the fifth Hunger Striker to die due to the intransigence of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her government.
Born on 14 September 1950, the fifth of eight children in a family from the Lower Falls in west Belfast, Joe eventually married and moved to Lenadoon.
Joe volunteered to replace his good friend and comrade Bobby Sands, who he was captured with on active service in October 1976, joining the hunger strike on 9 May.
A well-known and very popular man in the Greater Andersonstown area, Joe had a reputation as a quiet and deep-thinking individual, with a gentle, happy go-lucky personality, who had, nevertheless, a great sense of humour, was always laughing and playing practical jokes and who, although withdrawn at times, had the ability to make friends easily.
He had joined the Republican Movement soon after the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971. He was himself interned on the prison ship Maidstone in 1972 and in Long Kesh from 1973 to 1974.
Arrested and jailed for a commercial bombing operation, Joe was sentenced in September 1977 to 14 years’ imprisonment. He joined the Blanket Protest fro the restoration of political status and was denied visits unless he wore the prison uniform. His wife, Goretti, and their two children had not seen him in the more than three and a half years since he was sentenced up until the hunger strike and his dying days.
In June 1981, Joe was a general election candidate in the Sligo/Leitrim constituency and narrowly missed becoming a TD by 315 votes.
Joe McDonnell died on 8 July 1981 after 61 days on hunger strike.
The death of Joe McDonnell
IRA Volunteer and Hunger Striker Joe McDonnell, from Lenadoon in west Belfast, passed away at 5:15am on Wednesday 8 July after 61 agonising days on the Hunger Strike. His wife Goretti had maintained an almost constant vigil by his side but, with a callous act of disregard for her feelings when he died, the RUC called her in, ostensibly to identify the body.
From Wednesday evening through to the Friday morning, Joe’s body had lain in state in the family home. During this time, thousands of people filed past the coffin to pay their respects to the fallen Volunteer.
In a reflection of the effect the Hunger Strike had throughout nationalist Ireland, those filing past came from throughout the country. There were people from Dublin, Sligo, Leitrim, Crossmaglen, Tyrone and further afield.
Individuals who paid their respects included relatives of other Hunger Strikers – Rosaleen Sands, mother of Bobby; and Pauline McGeown, wife of Pat who was at that time on hunger strike. A particularly poignant visit was that of Jimmy Dempsey, whose 16-year-old son John, a member of Fianna Éireann, had been shot dead by a British soldier in the disturbances following Joe McDonnell’s death. Also present was Joe McDonnell’s brother Frankie, one of the longest-serving Blanket Men who had been released for 12 hours to attend the funeral.
It was a measure of the ripple effect that the Hunger Strike – and more particularly British intransigence and brutality – were having on the nationalist community that at the same time another Blanket Man, Tommy Cosgrove, was out on temporary release to attend the funeral of his sister, Nora McCabe, killed by an RUC plastic bullet, also in the disturbances following the death of Joe McDonnell.
• Joe McDonnell’s wife Goretti, his children and his brother Frankie pay their respects
At midday, the coffin was sealed and a Tricolour and the black beret and gloves of an IRA Volunteer were pinned to it. With British Army helicopters hovering noisily and provocatively overhead, the cortege moved off. Led by a lone piper, it made its way to Oliver Plunkett Church at the top of Lenadoon for Requiem Mass.
After the service the coffin was carried towards Milltown Cemetery. Joe’s three brothers were among those carrying the coffin and it was flanked by his wife Goretti and their children Bernadette and Joseph and other members of the immediate family. When the cortege reached the Andersonstown Road the coffin was place on trestles and an IRA firing came forward and rendered a final salute.
After observing a minute’s silence the IRA firing party disappeared into a nearby garden. A barrage of high-velocity gunfire was heard as it became obvious that British crown forces were attempting to kill or capture members of the IRA firing party. Simultaneously, the British Army and RUC opened up on the cortege with a hail of plastic bullets amidst scenes of pandemonium and panic. In the assault, one of the mourners (a brother of then Sinn Féin Vice-President Gerry Adams) was shot and seriously wounded.
The head of the funeral cortege had moved on a few minutes before the attack and was making its way towards Milltown. Six IRA Volunteers took the coffin on their shoulders for the last leg of the journey to the Republican Plot.
Chairing the graveside proceedings was Eamon McCory of Sinn Féin. He extended the sympathies of the Republican Movement to the family and went on to condemn the SDLP and the Dublin Government who had not applied sufficient political pressure on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As a result, Thatcher was claiming that not one responsible person in Ireland was asking her to concede the prisoners’ 5 demands.
• IRA firing party honour of their comrade Joe McDonnell
After the blessing, conducted by Father Matthew Wallace, John Joe McGirl, Chairperson of Leitrim County Council and election agent for Joe McDonnell in the 26-County general election, gave the oration.
Speaking of the deceased Hunger Striker, he said:
“He has died rather than debase the cause he served, rather than live with the forced tag of criminality on him. His courage is an inspiration, not only to his fellow prisoners, not only to the Irish people who admire such courage – the world stands in wonder and admiration, accepting that men such as Joe McDonnell are not criminals but patriots.”
John Joe McGirl went on to lambast British policy in Ireland, saying:
“The policy of England and the English government towards Ireland down through the years has been one of jailing, shooting and hanging. Today, this week, their policy has changed somewhat. They have left over hanging and replaced it with the rubber bullet, plastic bullet and live round.
“Men, women and children are murdered in the streets of Belfast and Derry and in the occupied part of the north-eastern Six Counties. I want to say here that the responsibility for this lies with the British Government, and I say to the British Government that she has no right in our country and never had, and that the way forward is for her to withdraw her forces from the occupied part of our country and let the Irish people resolve their differences themselves.
“She is not here as a friend, she is here as a treacherous foe, and we recognise her as such.”
In conclusion he said:
“We will build Joe McDonnell a memorial, we will build so many of his comrades who are buried here a memorial, and their memorials will be the freedom and the unity of the Irish people.”
Throughout the 26 Counties there were numerous vigils, reflecting the growing anger of the population, and in the North (as previously mentioned) two people were killed by crown forces in the aftermath of Joe’s death.
More worrying for the British was the continued and growing support abroad.
In the United States there were numerous protests in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco to name but a few. There were also many demonstrations in Australia and New Zealand.
In France, lawyers formed a commission tasked with investigating conditions in the H-Blocks. French parliamentarians wrote to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, asking it to take action in support of the two newly-elected H-Blocks TDs, Kieran Doherty (Cavan/Monaghan) and Paddy Agnew (Louth).
In Italy, an incendiary bomb exploded on the roof of the British Consulate and there were protests and demonstrations in Belgium and Portugal.
• Rioting in Belfast after the funeral of Volunteer Joe McDonnell
Joe McDonnell – Died on July 8th 1981 on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh
»Special Correspondent
JOE McDONNELL was the fifth Hunger Striker to die due to the intransigence of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her government.
Born on 14 September 1950, the fifth of eight children in a family from the Lower Falls in west Belfast, Joe eventually married and moved to Lenadoon.
Joe volunteered to replace his good friend and comrade Bobby Sands, who he was captured with on active service in October 1976, joining the hunger strike on 9 May.
A well-known and very popular man in the Greater Andersonstown area, Joe had a reputation as a quiet and deep-thinking individual, with a gentle, happy go-lucky personality, who had, nevertheless, a great sense of humour, was always laughing and playing practical jokes and who, although withdrawn at times, had the ability to make friends easily.
He had joined the Republican Movement soon after the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971. He was himself interned on the prison ship Maidstone in 1972 and in Long Kesh from 1973 to 1974.
Arrested and jailed for a commercial bombing operation, Joe was sentenced in September 1977 to 14 years’ imprisonment. He joined the Blanket Protest fro the restoration of political status and was denied visits unless he wore the prison uniform. His wife, Goretti, and their two children had not seen him in the more than three and a half years since he was sentenced up until the hunger strike and his dying days.
In June 1981, Joe was a general election candidate in the Sligo/Leitrim constituency and narrowly missed becoming a TD by 315 votes.
Joe McDonnell died on 8 July 1981 after 61 days on hunger strike.
The death of Joe McDonnell
IRA Volunteer and Hunger Striker Joe McDonnell, from Lenadoon in west Belfast, passed away at 5:15am on Wednesday 8 July after 61 agonising days on the Hunger Strike. His wife Goretti had maintained an almost constant vigil by his side but, with a callous act of disregard for her feelings when he died, the RUC called her in, ostensibly to identify the body.
From Wednesday evening through to the Friday morning, Joe’s body had lain in state in the family home. During this time, thousands of people filed past the coffin to pay their respects to the fallen Volunteer.
In a reflection of the effect the Hunger Strike had throughout nationalist Ireland, those filing past came from throughout the country. There were people from Dublin, Sligo, Leitrim, Crossmaglen, Tyrone and further afield.
Individuals who paid their respects included relatives of other Hunger Strikers – Rosaleen Sands, mother of Bobby; and Pauline McGeown, wife of Pat who was at that time on hunger strike. A particularly poignant visit was that of Jimmy Dempsey, whose 16-year-old son John, a member of Fianna Éireann, had been shot dead by a British soldier in the disturbances following Joe McDonnell’s death. Also present was Joe McDonnell’s brother Frankie, one of the longest-serving Blanket Men who had been released for 12 hours to attend the funeral.
It was a measure of the ripple effect that the Hunger Strike – and more particularly British intransigence and brutality – were having on the nationalist community that at the same time another Blanket Man, Tommy Cosgrove, was out on temporary release to attend the funeral of his sister, Nora McCabe, killed by an RUC plastic bullet, also in the disturbances following the death of Joe McDonnell.
• Joe McDonnell’s wife Goretti, his children and his brother Frankie pay their respects
At midday, the coffin was sealed and a Tricolour and the black beret and gloves of an IRA Volunteer were pinned to it. With British Army helicopters hovering noisily and provocatively overhead, the cortege moved off. Led by a lone piper, it made its way to Oliver Plunkett Church at the top of Lenadoon for Requiem Mass.
After the service the coffin was carried towards Milltown Cemetery. Joe’s three brothers were among those carrying the coffin and it was flanked by his wife Goretti and their children Bernadette and Joseph and other members of the immediate family. When the cortege reached the Andersonstown Road the coffin was place on trestles and an IRA firing came forward and rendered a final salute.
After observing a minute’s silence the IRA firing party disappeared into a nearby garden. A barrage of high-velocity gunfire was heard as it became obvious that British crown forces were attempting to kill or capture members of the IRA firing party. Simultaneously, the British Army and RUC opened up on the cortege with a hail of plastic bullets amidst scenes of pandemonium and panic. In the assault, one of the mourners (a brother of then Sinn Féin Vice-President Gerry Adams) was shot and seriously wounded.
The head of the funeral cortege had moved on a few minutes before the attack and was making its way towards Milltown. Six IRA Volunteers took the coffin on their shoulders for the last leg of the journey to the Republican Plot.
Chairing the graveside proceedings was Eamon McCory of Sinn Féin. He extended the sympathies of the Republican Movement to the family and went on to condemn the SDLP and the Dublin Government who had not applied sufficient political pressure on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As a result, Thatcher was claiming that not one responsible person in Ireland was asking her to concede the prisoners’ 5 demands.
• IRA firing party honour of their comrade Joe McDonnell
After the blessing, conducted by Father Matthew Wallace, John Joe McGirl, Chairperson of Leitrim County Council and election agent for Joe McDonnell in the 26-County general election, gave the oration.
Speaking of the deceased Hunger Striker, he said:
“He has died rather than debase the cause he served, rather than live with the forced tag of criminality on him. His courage is an inspiration, not only to his fellow prisoners, not only to the Irish people who admire such courage – the world stands in wonder and admiration, accepting that men such as Joe McDonnell are not criminals but patriots.”
John Joe McGirl went on to lambast British policy in Ireland, saying:
“The policy of England and the English government towards Ireland down through the years has been one of jailing, shooting and hanging. Today, this week, their policy has changed somewhat. They have left over hanging and replaced it with the rubber bullet, plastic bullet and live round.
“Men, women and children are murdered in the streets of Belfast and Derry and in the occupied part of the north-eastern Six Counties. I want to say here that the responsibility for this lies with the British Government, and I say to the British Government that she has no right in our country and never had, and that the way forward is for her to withdraw her forces from the occupied part of our country and let the Irish people resolve their differences themselves.
“She is not here as a friend, she is here as a treacherous foe, and we recognise her as such.”
In conclusion he said:
“We will build Joe McDonnell a memorial, we will build so many of his comrades who are buried here a memorial, and their memorials will be the freedom and the unity of the Irish people.”
Throughout the 26 Counties there were numerous vigils, reflecting the growing anger of the population, and in the North (as previously mentioned) two people were killed by crown forces in the aftermath of Joe’s death.
More worrying for the British was the continued and growing support abroad.
In the United States there were numerous protests in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco to name but a few. There were also many demonstrations in Australia and New Zealand.
In France, lawyers formed a commission tasked with investigating conditions in the H-Blocks. French parliamentarians wrote to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, asking it to take action in support of the two newly-elected H-Blocks TDs, Kieran Doherty (Cavan/Monaghan) and Paddy Agnew (Louth).
In Italy, an incendiary bomb exploded on the roof of the British Consulate and there were protests and demonstrations in Belgium and Portugal.
• Rioting in Belfast after the funeral of Volunteer Joe McDonnell