Former IRA hunger striker urges public to attend commemoration in Cork

Pat Sheehan began refusing food on August 10, 1981 and ended 55 days later when the hunger strike was officially called off on October 3

Wed, 21 Jun, 2023 - 19:14

Eoin English

A former IRA prisoner who survived 55-days without food during the 1981 H-block hunger strikes has urged people to attend a national commemoration in Cork.

The event will honour the sacrifice of those who gave their lives on hunger strike for Irish freedom over the last century.

MLA Pat Sheehan, who in 1981 became the 17th republican inmate to join the Maze hunger strikes, began refusing food on August 10 – after nine prisoners had already died – and ended 55 days later when the hunger strike was officially called off on Saturday, October 3.

“I was close to death,” he said.

“The previous Wednesday, I was examined by a consultant from one of the big hospitals in Belfast.

“By this stage I weighed about seven stone, I was almost completely blind, I could make out shapes coming into the room but that was it. I was constantly retching up green bile. I could no longer hold down water. I was completely yellow with jaundice.

“I was told that even if I stopped the hunger strike now, there was no guarantee I would survive.”

But four days later, a decision, into which he had no input, was taken to end the protest and Mr Sheehan recovered without any permanent ill-effects.

Mr Sheehan was convicted and jailed in 1978 and again in 1989 for bombing offences, released under the terms of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, and became an MLA for Belfast West in 2010. He described the day the hunger strike ended as his “darkest hour, the bleakest period” of his life.

“We had lost 10 comrades, 10 of our best men. The future did look bleak,” he said.

'United Ireland is not some pipe dream'

But with the advancement of Sinn Féin in the 1980s and 1990s, republicans engaged more in the political and electoral process, peace agreements followed and Mr Sheehan said this is the first time a generation of republicans have a peaceful and democratic pathway to a united Ireland.

“There is no longer a need for young people to go on active service or go on hunger strike in prison cells — those days are over and gone. United Ireland is not some pipe dream,” he said.

"The direction of travel is only going one way. The Orange state is gone, the unionist majority in the North is gone, the demographics have changed, and people are now more and more open to discussing the issue of united Ireland.”

He was speaking in Cork on Monday as details of the commemorative event were launched beneath the bust of former lord mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, outside City Hall.

Former Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney.

The annual event was due to take place in Cork in 2020 to mark the centenary of MacSwiney’s death in Brixton Prison in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike — a death which helped bring the Irish struggle for independence to international attention.

It was postponed due to covid but has now been rescheduled for Sunday, August 27. It will feature a march through the city centre, with a rally to be addressed by Sinn Féín vice president Michelle O’Neill.

Mr Sheehan said it will remember all those who died on hunger strike in the north, the south, and in England.

Those who will be remembered included Frank Stagg, the brother of former Labour TD Emmet Stagg, who died in 1976, aged 35, having refused food for 62 days at Wakefield prison in Yorkshire, and Michael Gaughan, who died in 1974, aged 24, after 64 without food, in Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight.

Five Cork men, including MacSwiney, Donnacha De Barra, Joe Murphy, Michael Fitzgerald, and Andy O’Sullivan, will be among those remembered.

“The whole aim of the British criminalisation policy was to isolate and marginalise republicans — they thought that if they could detach us from the communities from which we came, they would mop up the rest of the IRA,” Mr Sheehan said.

“What they hadn’t taken into account was the history of republicans in prison was a history of resistance, going back to the Fenians, going back to Terence MacSwiney, Thomas Ashe, Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan.

“It was from people like that that we drew our inspiration, and inspired people like Bobby Sands, not to give in, not to bend the knee to British oppression in Ireland.”