Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 28

Frank Hughes:
Capture, Interrogation, and Death on Hunger Strike

People generally had the wrong idea of Frank Hughes. He certainly wasn’t an ideologue and he certainly had a powerful, pure belief in the Republican struggle. He was brave beyond brave and hated that his country and its people were terrorized and enslaved, and no one knows how many British crown forces he either killed or had a hand in killing, but he hated killing. He really hated what he felt he had to do.

"For God’s sake, I don’t want to be shooting them."

Particularly, he hated having to kill British soldiers. He told his brother Mick, "They’re just kids. For God’s sake, I don’t want to be shooting them. I want them to bloody go home in the morning."

"Do you know that I hate what I’m doing?" he told his brother, "I really hate it. But I’m going to keep doing it -- that’s the funny thing about it. Tomorrow night I might blow up ten of them. I hope I do. But, Jesus, I hate doing it. It’s just that I don’t know any other way."

He was taught by his father, Joe, not to be bigoted against Protestants or anyone. The Ulster Defense Regiment was a locally recruited, overwhelmingly Protestant British army regiment. Once he burst in with his gun drawn on a UDR man and told him to say his prayers before meeting his end. While he waited, the man begged for his life, saying he left the UDR. Francis walked away, because he couldn’t be sure. It turned out the man had just left the regiment.

A field near Maghera

Frank and a comrade, heavily armed, rifles at the ready, moved silently through a field near Maghera on a dark, cold night. Frank wore a black beret, combat jacket with the word "Ireland" on the arm. They walked right into a hidden, two-man SAS surveillance post. The SAS men thought they were dealing with UDR soldiers and called out softly that they were SAS. The two IRA men backed up and made the black night light up from the flashes of fire from Frank’s M-14 Garand and the other’s Armalite. The first burst ripped into Corporal David Jones, who was killed. The second SAS man was hit but managed to fire 26 wild shots into the dark. Frank’s companion was wounded, but Frank was hit badly, the bullet smashing through his thigh bone. Survival to fight another day was the only goal now.

Frank ordered his comrade to escape, while he tried to put distance between himself and the engagement scene. He crawled through a number of fields, negotiating barbed wire fences and ditches, his leg was in agony and he was loosing a lot of blood with each movement. His leg was so badly smashed, at one point he lay in a cold, wet ditch with his left leg hinged straight up over his head. It was barely attacked to his body, the bone protruding from the skin. It took him over an hour to agonizingly maneuver it underneath him again. But he kept crawling. He knew the SAS would execute him if captured.

Frank’s capture, St Patrick’s Day: "Up the Provos"

He was found nearly unconscious by regular British army soldiers who had saturated the area. It was March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 1978. He refused to tell them who he was. Brit forces or every ilk converged on the spot. "You’re Hughes," said one RUC man who recognized him from photos. "Look, you have a gun there, Why don’t you shoot me? I’m not afraid to die."

They were all over him now, but he refused to tell them anything. He cursed them as more gathered, knowing they had the great Francis Hughes where they wanted him. "Why don’t you put a bullet through my head, and finish me right?" he told them amid a torrent of more curses.

He was lifted onto a stretcher and just before being put into an ambulance, he raised himself up so that the Brit soldiers and RUC could both hear and see him, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Up the Provos!"

Five days & nights of interrogation

When Frank recovered from two operations to repair his destroyed thigh, an inch and a half of his bone was removed, and his hip, which had to be held together with a steel pin, he was off to Castlereagh for interrogation. There, he drove his interrogators mad.

His ordeal, and there’s, began on January 24th, 1979. He refused to eat or drink for fear of being drugged into a confession, a justified fear. All through the days and nights, through team after interrogation team of repetitive questions and trick after trick, Frank alternated curses with feigned smiles. Even after days of constant stress and not eating or drinking, he held his own. More than his own.

"How did you come to be shot?" they might say. "I don’t talk to strangers," says Frank. Or, "I’ll have to talk to my solicitor about that," when offered a Polo mint. Once they took him into the corridor to stretch his leg after a long interrogation session, "How do you feel?" he was asked. He smiled and said, "You’ll have to ask my doctor about that." He called them everything from "f_ckers" to "whores" to worse or alternatively would just smile at them, but would always say nothing only to ask to speak to his solicitor. They brought in every known big shot RUC/Brit interrogation genius.

"Do you reckon?"

The Detective Chief Superintendent, Bill Mooney, then took his chances. He told Francis, after a long lecture about what would happen to him if he didn’t talk, that they had evidence to connect him to serious offenses. Francis burped in his face, smiled, and said: "Do you reckon?" Mooney, the big, hard RUC man, couldn’t believe what he just witnessed. He gave Frank another lecture, this time about bad manners. Frank laughed and repeated, "Do you reckon?" Mooney was red, white and blue with indignation, but before leaving had to tell Frank that he better think about the seriousness of his situation. Frank was delighted to respond in mock seriousness to the retreating Detective Chief Superintendent, "Is that a question?"

At 10 P.M. on 29 January, after 5 days and nights of intense interrogation, most of which without food or water and having been deprived of the advise of his lawyer well beyond the legal 48 hours, the British torture/interrogation machine ground to a halt and spat out, with good riddance, Francis Hughes.

"Hughes beats them all"

One of the Detective Inspectors involved in the interrogation took aside Kevin Agnew, Frank’s solicitor, and told him, "We’ve had many tough men here. But Hughes beats them all."

He was convicted soon after of the murder of Corporal Jones and causing an explosion at Tamlaught in ‘77 and was sentenced to life plus twenty years.

"Bootsie"

He was called "Francie" in Long Kesh or "Bootsie" due to the built-up boot that he had to ware because of his leg. He used a crutch on wing changes or visits, but had to hobble about his cell. His leg wouldn’t bend.

He had a good voice and like to participate in singsongs and was famous for telling stories of the countryside about "wee folk" and Irish mythology.

He volunteered for the ‘80 hunger strike and was in the group that joined towards the end -- Bobby was concerned that he wouldn’t come off even if order. Of course, he volunteered for the second hunger strike.

Frank was a direct man. He got a comm out to his brother Oliver: "It’s just a small note to tell you that I will be going on the hunger strike ..." On 28 February, he celebrated his 25 birthday. His mother and aunt came to visit him. After teasing and complementing his mother Margaret on her beautiful new outfit, who wanted to look good for her son, he said, "I’ve something to tell you. There’s another hunger strike starting - there’s a fellow on it tomorrow and I’ll be starting it too." There were tears, but not much to say.

Francis begins his hunger strike 15 days after Bobby

He began his hunger strike on 15 March, 15 days after Bobby. He gave a speech out of the cell door to the men in the wing. He told them he wanted to be in the front line of the war. He said he sometimes regretted not holding onto his M14 for a final shootout on the night before he captured, rather than trying to escape, but that he was glad to have gone on the blanket and now he would use the weapon he now had -- hunger strike -- to the end if necessary.

He told them if he died, that they should listen for the sound of his crutch tapping down the corridors of the cell blocks. It would be Frank Hughes keeping an eye on his comrades.

"I’m Noreen, Francis’ sister."

He wasn’t moved to the prison hospital until the 26th day. On 8 May, his mother Margaret visited him and he complemented her on her new hair-do. But he could barely make her out, he was nearly blind. On 11 May, his father Joe visited him and asked, "Do you see me, Francis?" Frank said he could see the general shape but not his father’s face. Joe told him that he wasn’t too bad yet, but Frank replied, "Ah, now, tomorrow or Wednesday will see the finish of it."

At 5:30 P.M., Tuesday 12 May 1981, his sister Noreen, a nurse, took his wrist and couldn’t feel a pulse.

On the fifty-ninth day of hunger strike, Francis Hughes, a legend in Ireland’s long struggle, took his place next to Bobby Sands.

Noreen walked numbly down the hall to where Raymond and Patsy were sitting in wheelchairs. She took both their hands in hers. "I’m Noreen, Francis’ sister. I just want to tell you Francis has died."

Next: Frank Hughes is buried amid confrontations with crown forces