Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 35

"For the Dignity of Man"
8 July 1981: Joe McDonnell Dies
on Hunger strike

The Commission of Irish Catholic Bishops, the ICJP, as anti-republican and pro-establishment a group as could be imagined, held meetings throughout June with the press, the major Irish political parties, Michael Alison [N. I. prison minister] and only when it was really too late with the prisoners. Aware of Joe McDonnell’s failing medical condition, they met with Alison for the third time on 26 June. Then on 30 June, NI Sec’t of State Humphrey Atkins issued a six page statement calling for an end to the hunger strike BEFORE anything could be done regarding prison conditions. The prisoners were outraged that the Brits would even try to run that tired trick passed them, but of course it was all about the press anyway.

The ICJP had arranged a meeting with Atkins for 2 July in Belfast. The new Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, had a plane at the ready to fly the lot of them to London if they could move up the date. They couldn’t or wouldn’t and finally met on the 2nd of July as planned.

The Taoiseach’s fleet of Mercedes pose for the press

FitzGerald had a fleet of Mercedes standing by to take relatives of the hunger strikers, who were meeting with him in Dublin, to Long Kesh to supposedly persuade the men to accept terms of a new breakthrough that of course never came -- all done to appear to be doing something. The press gave the impression that there they were, engines idling, at the ready, hood ornaments aimed at the Dublin-Belfast road for a last minute dash to the Kesh. It was another Dublin show.

The ICJP did however met with Atkins again on the 4th of July. Whatever signs of conciliatory moves hinted to previously by Atkins were now replaced by the hard line. You could almost feel Thatcher slouching in the wings.

On that same afternoon, the prisoners sent out a 21,000 word statement that incorporated the five demands, but without one mention of political status. It seemed that there could be room here to negotiate. The ICJP hurriedly meet with the hunger strikers that afternoon -- for the first time!

The Northern Ireland Office cynically denied a request to have Bik McFarlane, the prisoners’ OC, at the meeting. The ICJP met with the hunger strikers without Bik. On Sunday, 5 July, McFarlane met with the Commission alone. There seemed to be some hope while meetings were taking place. Behind the scenes, who knew what was happening? In the event, nothing was happening.

Meet, promise, renege

On Monday evening, 6 July, the ICJP was called to meet with the NIO. There was speculation among the media that there was some hitch in compromise arrangements that had been put forward earlier by the Brits.

The press was right. The NIO was pulling back on some potentially hunger strike breaking suggestions. The ICJP demanded that they send a senior NIO official to tell the hunger strikers exactly and authoritatively what would be on offer if they came off the strike. The Brits had suggested movement on prison clothing and perhaps more.

The NIO’s response? What’s the rush? Joe McDonnell’s life was in no "immediate" danger. He had been on hunger strike for 59 days.

O’Fiaich face to face with Thatcher

Cardinal O’Fiaich was gravely affected by the deaths of the men. He had blown the whistle on the Brits about conditions in the Kesh. He made powerful statements and worked behind the scenes, but he blamed himself for not doing enough. What else he could have done, he wasn’t sure, but he cried when Raymond McCreesh, one from his own diocese of Armagh, and Patsy O’Hara died.

He was in London to attend a commemoration for St. Oliver Plunkett, himself martyred by the British. He spoke at the open-air commemorative mass of the penal days in Ireland and of the priests ordained by Oliver Plunkett who defied the British by bringing the people through those terrible Cromwellian times: "Golden priests with wooden chalices" they were called.

At 8 PM, he arrived at Number 10. Thatcher arrived at 8:15 sharp. Bishop Lennon was with the Cardinal; he was asked by O’Fiaich to takes notes. This was going to be a serious meeting.

Maggie: Poor Me

After brief generalities, Thatcher started in, loud and shrill. Why were these people doing this to me? What am I supposed to do if they want to kill themselves? Why were they on hunger strike to begin with? She was shouting now; all worked up over what was happening to her. She had asked so many people why they were doing this and nobody could tell her! It was all happening to HER. It was like she was commiserating to herself in the shower after a rough day. The Churchmen might as well have been back in Ireland, or India, for all she took notice of them.

Rantings and ravings

Bishop Lennon dropped his pen. He was afraid he would throw it at her he was so infuriated. He took no further notes.

She was droning now, over and over again the same questions and points and poor me this and poor me that. Lennon interrupted her. She wouldn’t have yielded otherwise. He started to explain the alienation of nationalists in the north and why it existed. She re-interrupted almost immediately, but the Bishop bulled on -- he had a subconscious habit of thrusting two fingers like daggers at his target when making points. Anyway, she yielded. He accused the NIO of inflexibility and the British government of almost criminal inaction which actually drove young people to the IRA.

When it was Thatcher’s turn, she attacked. But what she said indicated that she heard nothing that Lennon said. Or at least she dismissed it as not being worthy of reply. She began a long lecture, or sermon rather, only to be interrupted by the Cardinal or the Bishop who would then be interrupted by her. Back and forth for two hours. Often they sat as she ragged around the large room. She had no idea of the current situation or even the rudiments of Irish history. At one point she declared that Northern Ireland had been set up to begin with to "save" the Catholics from civil war. O’Fiaich was compelled to give her a history lesson and finished by expressing his belief that the "Irish question" would only be solved when there was a 32 county, independent Irish state of some kind, of any kind, as long as the Irish people themselves could determine their own political fate without interference.

She interrupted with pompous indignation, but he would have none of it. He went on, hoping that in some unconscious reptilian part of her, she was listening -- perhaps some of this somewhere was recording, but no.

Thatcher: why do the Irish always have a problem?

Her position, she explained, after the Cardinal’s long history lesson and personal analysis, was that the British were totally guiltless for any problem happening in Ireland.

She complained: why must the Irish always have a problem? She even explained haughtily that "we" fought the Germans and now we are friends. What about that?

The Cardinal looked her hard in her hardly human eyes: "Because, Madame, if you want a simple answer, you’re no longer in occupation of the Ruhr."

Inside the Kesh: only surrogate visits for Joe

Joe McDonnell refused to take visits the whole time he was on the Blanket, because he would have had to wear the prison uniform. But he would send his love and receive news from his wife Goretti through another prisoner who took visits in order to gather and send out information. Raymond McCartney, a Blanketman from Derry City, took regular visits with Goretti and would pass on family news to Joe and his feelings back to her. Joe was ravenous for this information and insisted Raymond tell him every detail. Ray was always taken by surprise how Goretti, a street-wise Belfast woman, would throw a packet of tobacco at him at the exact moment the screw, who was always present during visits, looked away for a second. "Joe was very proud of Goretti indeed," he recalled. He also got himself sent off to the punishment cells, "the boards", when a screw saw a parcel of tobacco pass between Goretti and him. But Raymond survived in good spirits, much to Joe’s relief. He felt responsible. Raymond told him not to bother, and had even managed to hand over a private "comm" to him from Goretti. When Raymond went on hunger strike in 1980, Joe made sure that he knew how much the McDonnell family were praying and thinking of him for his kindness. Now it was Joe on hunger strike and Raymond praying for him.

Raymond, years later, recalled that Goretti was very generous and warm and that "you could always detect in both of them the emphasis they placed on each other, on their children and family."

First visits in three and a half years

The first time he met his family was after he was a few days on hunger strike. He expected only Goretti, but got half the family. It was the first visit he had taken in over three and a half years. His sister Maura and his mother Eileen were there as well as his two children, Bernadette and Joe Og. They said through it all, even as a child, Joe never cried. He cried then. He told a story to his family. "Poor Frankie Hughes, he’s in a bad way," he said and started to laugh, "He’s still singing. He’s on the way out and singing till the end!" It was the day Frank Hughes died.

Later his brother Frankie visited Joe. He had just lost the Dail election for Sligo/Leitrim by only 300 votes. "That’s it for me," he said but thought that Kieran Doherty would be saved: "They’ll not let a TD die."

Joe: "Don’t forget Bernadette and Goretti’s birthdays"

Maura, Joe’s sister, had been in America for weeks trying to drum up international support. The ICJP were running all over the place when she returned, but it seemed nothing but spinning wheels going nowhere.

She saw Joe just before the end. He was in pain, but lucid. "Look after yourselves ... look after Mammy, and Goretti and the kids," he said. As always, he was thinking of everyone but himself. Then he told Maura not to forget his daughter Bernadette’s birthday which was coming up on the 10th of July and Goretti’s on the 13th.

Just after five in the morning, Tuesday, 8 July, 1981, Joe McDonnell died. He was buried on his daughter’s birthday.

On 9 July the Irish Catholic bishops met again with the Irish Taoiseach FitzGerald and announced that new efforts would be made. I wonder what Goretti made of that. Five more would die of these new Irish efforts, all show and righteousness. Towards the end of the "Ballad of Joe McDonnell", are the lines: "Then a hunger strike we did commence/For the dignity of man/But it seemed to me/That no one gave a damn." It must have seemed that way indeed.

Thatcher and her ilk, we knew, regarded us distantly as another species. But to even our own, for the most part, snug in Dublin, the Blanketmen and those dying for Irish freedom on hunger strike might as well have been from Mars. It’s hard, even after 20 years, not to hate these people.

Next: Joe’s funeral becomes an RUC/Brit army shootout