Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 32

Raymond and Patsy die ;
Joe McDonnell has a precious month

The INLA and IRA prisoners on The Blanket were often in the same cells and were there for the same reasons. They certainly got the same treatment from the screws. But the INLA contingent was small. On the outside, there was often tension between the two: operationally and ideologically. For sure, there was never a doubt of their participation in the Hunger Strike among the first four. Patsy O’Hara’s dedication and strength was so trusted by both sides, that he was an obvious choice to lead the INLA into the Hunger Strike.

"Scatter"

The nickname "Scatter" was an O’Hara boys’ thing. Sean Seamus, Patsy’s oldest brother, was "Scatter" before Patsy inherited the name. The legend was that Sean would holler "scatter!" in the middle of a riot whenever he was preparing to open up his not always trusty Thompson gun on crown forces. Sean was among the young men, boys really, to take harassing positions on the top of the high flats -- the Rossville Flats [an American-style ghetto "project" essentially designed to keep the Nationalist/Catholic community concentrated, controllable and as high in the sky as possible]. Strategically, it controlled "Free Derry Corner" and the entrance to the Bogside where the boys could rain down petrol bombs, stones, and anything else they could manage on crown forces. I once saw a bath tub crash down onto the street below in the general proximity of RUC vehicles, more a demonstration than a deterrent. But it was also vulnerable to Brit fire from the walls and fortifications surrounding Derry center city. To their families, the boys seemed to never come down.

Political and military leadership

Sean was interned for five years until 1976. When he came out, his two brothers Patsy and Tony had already joined the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the INLA. Many young Derry men were with the Official IRA, but switched over to the IRSP/INLA when the Officials declared a truce with the Brits.

Patsy was very serious about his activism. Often he would hold mock interrogations of the younger volunteers to harden them for the real thing. He was also involved in the political side in determining IRSP policy and helping to publish "The Starry Plough", a weekly newspaper.

Meanwhile Patsy was operating as a military leader behind the scenes. But such was the nature of British occupation and "conveyor belt" judicial system, that he spent most of his young adult life in and out of jail, facing one false charge after another.

Haughey

It was decided to start an IRA and an INLA prisoner on the hunger strike at the same time in order to avoid tensions. One outcome was a unique friendship between two men from different organizations observing each other fight for life together. It also brought the two families together in vain attempts to save their loved ones lives.

As the two men were nearing the end, Liz O’Hara and Teresa and Malachy McCreesh visited Charles Haughey, the Irish Taoiseach in Dublin, several times. Haughey asked at a later meeting, "What can I do?" He was told to support the five demands. But he didn’t think it would do much good getting involved in a direct propaganda battle with Thatcher. The families were disheartened to say the least. Haughey had told Liz, in the presence of Teresa and Malachy, at an earlier meeting, "Elizabeth, I promise you that Raymond McCreesh and your brother will not die." This didn’t seem possible now if Haughey wouldn’t act. Who could they turn to?

"Mr. Haughey, stop a minute!"

At a critical stage, with Liz O’Hara literally camping out on Haughey’s doorstep, she received a call to meet with the Taoiseach at 7 AM the next day. She took Eilish Reilly, Joe McDonnell’s sister, with her. Joe had begun his hunger strike when Bobby Sands died, so he was perhaps a month or six weeks from crisis. But if Patsy and Raymond were to die, he would be next. It was beginning to be a pattern that nothing happened until it was too late to do anything.

At the meeting, Haughey spoke directly to Liz O’Hara, "I’m asking you, Elizabeth, at this point in time, to ask Patsy to suspend his hunger strike forthwith, and to put a formal complaint to the Human Rights Commission."

Liz wasn’t buying it. To her it was just like Haughey’s using Marcella Sands to bring in the Human Rights Commission. The only outcome was effectively getting Haughey off the hook. The Commission’s response was embarrassing at best. This was the four time Haughey had meet with Liz and other members of the families.

"Mr. Haughey, stop a minute!" she proceeded to scold him for asking men who suffered for 60 days on hunger strike to come off for nothing but an empty promise. She rebuked him, an Irish Taoiseach, for trying to take away another Irishman’s pride. The two women stormed out. Haughey subsequently called for a general election for 11 June, at a time when both men would be well dead and Joe McDonnell still a month from crisis. Haughey knew quite well the dangers inherent in appearing to be against or ineffective in support for Irish men dying on hunger strike. He was also afraid to anger the Church and the conservative 26 County establishment. He gave 3 weeks notice for the election, the shortest period allowed by law. But an even worse Taoiseach loomed on the political horizon, difficult as that is to conceive.

Joe McDonnell of Belfast

Joe was born in Belfast right in the middle of the nine McDonnell children -- four younger and four older. People who knew him best say he was always upbeat, even as a child. He was the kind of boy, and man, who was always trying to make others happy. Nothing seemed to get him down -- even jail and the H-Blocks.

They tell of how he would take care of his little sister Bernadette, who was slowly dying of a kidney disease. He was only a boy himself, but he spent all his spare time making her as happy as he could. He took her everywhere. And you know how that must have been for a boy to hang out with his little sister, but he didn’t care. He would even play marbles with Bernadette on his back.

The Bravest of all?

Fr. Brian McCreesh is reported to have called Joe McDonnell the bravest of all the hunger strikers, because he joined the strike AFTER Bobby Sands died. He was Bobby’s replacement and knew the likely outcome.

He was also the oldest hunger striker at thirty years of age. He was married to a beautiful woman, Goretti, who loved him as he loved her. He was the father of two lovely children whom he adored. Such a terrible sacrifice. And from a man so upbeat about life that men in the H-Blocks still remember how sometimes he alone, when it seemed that everyone else was overwhelmed by bitterness and depression as the swing shifts and beatings intensified, could bring spirits up with a rebel song or a shout or a joke out his cell door.

He was twenty-six when he went to jail for Ireland for the last time, convicted of possession of a firearm in an operation trying to help a new IRA unit get started. The leader of that new unit was Bobby Sands. The two men received the same sentence, 14 years, for possession of the same weapon.

Next: The fight for Joe McDonnell’s life