Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 3

The Blanket Protest: The Early Days

The IRA-British truce of 1975 was typical. The British government and military used it to talk with the Republican Movement out of one side of its mouth while it commanded its colonial institutions to enact an in depth "counter-insurgency" offensive against the IRA out of the other side. The strategy was nothing new: get them into jail by any means and break them inside.

The battle returns to the prisons

It never had worked in the past against Irish prisoners going back hundreds of years. Resistance while imprison was a hallmark of the struggle. But the Brits had the latest psychological and technological advances in state terror to bring to bear against the wills and spirits of these men and women and they were going to use them. This time they were convinced they could break the Republican Movement in the jails. "Ordinary" Prisoners

A key aspect of its new strategy would kick in after 1 March 1976 when convicted IRA men and women would be treated as common criminals and serve their sentences in the newly constructed, cellular H-Blocks of Long Kesh where they could be controlled, isolated and crushed. Ciaran Nugent was the first man sentenced under the new regime. When he refused to wear the prison clothes presented to him, he began a phase of the Republican freedom struggle which would have monumental consequences.

"They threw me in one blanket and told me to sleep well"

Most of the men to follow were only in their late teens and early twenties. Ned Flynn was a perfect example of a young man who was among the first to follow Ciaran onto the Blanket Protest. He was given a three year sentence and he had a good idea what to expect. When he reached the Kesh, he was given a uniform which he refused to wear. He recalls, in "Nor Meekly Serve My Time", one of the finest books on the prison struggle from 1976 through the hunger strike of 1981, what it was like for first wave of men on the "blanket":

"I was brought into H1 and put into a cell along with non-political prisoners. I immediately took everything off, sat on the floor and told the screw that I was a Republican POW and I would not be wearing prison clothing or conforming to any prison rules. They made me walk naked from C wing to B wing, where I was put into an empty cell. They threw me in one blanket and told me to sleep well."

Alone in the Wing

He called out for Ciaran. Nothing. He was alone in the wing. The screws tried waking him on the hour by banging on his cell door. He couldn't sleep anyway because he could not get the chill out of his body curled up on the floor with only a blanket for relief.

Scores of "visitors" came by over the next week with false news that Ciaran Nugent had given up the protest after only a few days. Flynn was told he might as well quit because he was all alone and, in any case, nobody cared. This became such a constant that he actually came to believe that Ciaran had caved in, but as he put it, "I knew that some of my comrades were coming behind me and they would take the same road that I had." He was right.

The treatment that these early Blanketmen went through was not only psychologically damaging. For their protest, they were periodically thrown into solitary confinement in the punishment block and had their sentences increased a day for every day spent as a "non-conforming" prisoner. And, of course, there were the incessant beatings. Many of the men actually recall that the beatings themselves were not as bad as the constant fear of them and not knowing when you were next.

"No"

Another of the early Blanketmen, Jackie McMullen, tells of his reception at Long Kesh:

"About 7 or 8 of them gathered round me as if jockeying for the best position to get a swing at me. I knew I was in for a beating; it was only a question of how bad it would be. The screw in charge, the PO, told me to put the uniform on. I said 'no' and got a wrack across the face. He started screaming and cursing, told me again to put it on; I refused and got thumped again. Each time he ordered me to put it on, I said 'no' and got a slap in the face or a punch. I was knocked to the ground a few times but was dragged back up by the screws who were all the time yelling and screaming insults at me. They were also trying to make me address them as 'sir' and each time I refused, I got thumped."

Jackie was made to strip naked in front of the screws and walk "burning with humiliation" to his cell past conforming prisoners and more screws. He said that this was worse than the beatings. When he got to his cell he was handed a blanket and left to shiver and freeze in the cold, empty cell.

The Protest Grows

The number of the protesting prisoners continued to grow, from 2 to 10 to 30. By the end of 1976, there were over 100 men on the blanket. Wings A and D were segregated for those over 21 and B and C wings were for those under 21 who were to receive particularly horrific treatment. The Brits believed the younger men could be broken.

All were locked up 24 hours a day except to wash, slop out and collect their food. These functions they had to do naked, not even being allowed to wear their blankets outside the cells. They were deprived of the basic necessities that most humans beings take for granted. Once every 2 weeks they had to go naked to see the prison governor who would add 14 days onto their sentences. How easy it would have been to give in during one of these visits and just be moved to a conforming wing. They were virtually isolated, not even having the comfort of family visits which they could not take unless they wore the prison uniform. They had no idea whether or not their suffering was having the least effect in the outside world.

The Abuse Intensifies

The screws were often drunk on duty; there was a bar for the warders right in the Kesh. The men were particularly nervous when the screws would return drunk from their breaks. That was when they got the worse beatings and abuse.

The food, the beatings, the constant sickness due to the cold, and the general sense of isolation, got to the point that several of the men went on an unsanctioned hunger strike during that first year. Their demands? A decent portion of food and an end to the beatings. By the third day of the strike, the administration began to take them seriously. By the fourth day of the fast, word came down that the food would be better and the beatings stop. This was true for awhile, but in typical Brit style they soon reneged and things got even worse. The prison authorities' attempts to break the protest were getting them nowhere, so they intensified their abuse once again.

As 1977 came to a close, more and more Republican prisoners were being processed through the conveyor belt of military style Diplock courts and RUC torture centres into Long Kesh where the Blanket Protest grew in size and intensity. By early 1978, there were as many as 250 Republicans on the Blanket and the authorities were forced to open H3 as a second non-conforming Block.

The new year brought not only new men into the struggle, but a decided increase in brutality and abuse by the screws in an attempt to break them.

Next: The situation intensifies and the "No Wash" Protest begins