Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 38

The Rocky Road To Cappagh
The Hurson family battle crown forces to bury their Martin

Brendan Hurson was alone with Martin as his life slowly slipped away after 46 days on hunger strike. His suffering had been intense, certainly different in nature from the others. His agony started much earlier. He looked as though he had been badly beaten; semiconsciously, he tore into himself with his hands and bit his lips raw. But at the very end, he was peaceful.

Martin Hurson died for Ireland at four o’clock in the morning on the 13th of July.

Now there were six hunger strikers’ dead.

The prison authorities wouldn’t give Brendan a phone to call his father and family until 6:20 A.M., over two hours after Martin’s death. They told him there was only one line out and the RUC had that one tied up. Fr. McGuckin at Galbally got the call, offered to tell the family and come to pick Brendan up at the prison.

Fifteen minutes after Martin died, he was he was removed to the prison morgue and was now in the maws of the Northern Ireland Office. Hunger strikers’ funerals were British government affairs.

No one would tell Brendan where they were likely to take his brother’s body.

At 7:15 A.M., Fr. McGuckin arrived, having come directly to the prison; the priest felt it would be better if Brendan broke the news to the family himself.

Martin’s remains disappear

But Francie Hurson, Martin’s brother, and his wife Sally heard the news on the radio: "Another hunger striker is dead: Martin Hurson of East Tyrone ..."

They got themselves together and took off for the Kesh. At one point on the highway, they must have passed Brendan and Fr. McGuckin on their way home.

They were disappointed to have missed Brendan [the RUC purposely didn’t tell them that Brendan was getting a lift home], but asked to see Martin’s body. "No way," they were told at the gate. The warders and British soldiers laughed at them. They cheered as the car moved off back home.

It was the 13th of July, the day the Battle of the Boyne was celebrated this year because the 12th fell on the Sabbath. Loyalists were on the roads by 8 A.M. flying Union Jacks out their car windows, shouting sectarian slogans associated with the 12th and cheering over Martin’s death. This was as close as an Orangeman gets to heaven while on earth.

Meanwhile, the Hurson family had no idea where the NIO had taken Martin’s remains.

Inside the Kesh

Inside the Kesh, Bik sent a comm out to "Brownie" [Gerry Adams]: "Comrade Mor, we heard around 11 AM about Martin’s tragic death. In all honesty it has been the biggest shock to date and has left me shattered... May God have mercy on his soul. I will have to move immediately with a replacement. It will be Matt Devlin [Tyrone]. He was on the second squad on the first hunger strike. This means that the usual clearance procedure will be skipped over. You’ll have to accept my judgment on him being sound. He is fully aware of exactly of exactly what this hunger strike means - i.e. that he in a short period he stands to loose his life..."

Kevin Lynch and "Big Doc", Kieran Doherty, were now in the crisis stage of their hunger strike.

Hundreds of neighbors gathered outside Francie’s house in Carrickmore, Brendan’s in Galbally and kept vigil for Martin’s return with other members of the family at Cappagh.

Martin’s body removed to Omagh; RUC threatens to dump it.

Finally, the undertaker phoned. Martin’s body was in Omagh. At 11:30 A.M., the RUC called the undertaker and told him that if the body was not picked up by noon, it would be dumped somewhere unannounced. Just as they told Patsy O’Hara’s family.

Of course, it was impossible to get from Carrickmore to Omagh in a half hour. Not only that, only close relatives could accompany the hearse, four cars total. Family and friends piled into their cars and speed to the mortuary.

At 12:30 P.M., family friend Massey McAteer was the first to arrive. What he found was chilling. The mortuary was surrounded by Special Branch and RUC is great numbers. Obviously, the body was still there. But McAteer sensed big trouble, and he was right. An RUC landrover was blocking the entrance to the mortuary. When Francie Hurson arrived on the scene, he was told by the RUC that only four cars with family members would be allowed onto the grounds. Francie smelled an RUC trick. He knew that once the family was onto the grounds, that the gate would be closed and the RUC would take off with Martin’s body to God knows where and by a route of their choice, rather, by a route predetermined by the British government.

Francie parked his car outside and walked into the mortuary where he found a green van backed against a door.

What happened next is unbelievable.

RUC attempt to hijack the funeral cortege

The family were trying to get in through the RUC gauntlet while neighbors and friends in their cars waited on the road. The RUC went to work on the cars outside. They were told to move off and clear the road. A lone young man in one of the cars got out and told an abrasive RUC man to "Fuck off!" The RUC couldn’t believe what they just heard. So he repeated himself! The fella wasn’t moving.

Now, the rest of the Huston entourage took heart at this show of bullish courage and they all now refused to move their cars and stepped forward to meet the RUC. If they wanted a riot, they were going to get one.

While this was going on on the road, inside Francie Hurson was squeezing himself between the mortuary wall and the green van to discover Martin’s body being removed to the van. Francie was putting a stop to this hijacking just as the other family members arrived. He could see the RUC wanted full control of the operation. The Hurson’s wanted their brother in their undertaker’s care and to go home by a route that they chose, not driven through crazed loyalist mobs along the way celebrating both The 12th and Martin’s death.

Francie demanded the body be turned over to the family. The RUC refused. This argument went on back and forth for over an hour as outside the RUC were unleashing Alsatian dogs on the friends and neighbors and getting abuse thrown back at them. The RUC wanted those outside in their cars before they would move off. It was now 3 P.M.! Compounding the problem for the RUC was that the longer they took to get things moving, the more sympathizers were gathering outside on the road. At this point, the family just want to get home regardless of the route.

The rocky road to Cappagh

As they finally moved out of the mortuary grounds in Omagh, a long cortege of cars, RUC landrovers in the lead followed by the van with Martin’s body with Francie right behind it headed off to Cappagh. But the RUC weren’t through. Apparently, they had orders from above and tried to take over the procession at every turn, including ramming RUC vehicles into the following cars, including Francie’s, in attempts to separate form the cortege.

The whole trip the RUC tried to take wrong turns and detours, only to be stopped by Francie, who would pull his car out from behind to in front of the RUC landrovers, effectively blocking the way. As he got out of his car, he was joined each time by family and friends; everybody would get out of their cars to confront the RUC. These aborted detours started pitched battles and abuse between the RUC and mourners. RUC dogs were again used on the people. Finally, after what seemed like days of bickering and fighting, Martin was home again in Cappagh.

Cardinal O’Fiaich: "But I have no power. England has the power"

A thousand people were lining the road when they arrived. The coffin was carried through the winding country roads from Cappagh to the family home a mile away. A piper lead the sad march.

Cardinal O’Fiaich came to the wake the next day. Cappagh was is in his diocese. Oddly, it took courage for the Cardinal to attend a hunger striker’s funeral. He knew he would be hammered in the press and elsewhere.

Francie challenged the Cardinal, sitting together over tea in the Hurson living room, for not doing more to save Martin and the other young Irish men dying for their country one after another. But Francie and the family admired him for honoring Martin and the family by coming to the house. The Cardinal said, "Francie, what can I do? I honor Martin. I’ve come here to the house to be with the Hurson family. But I have no power. England has the power."

There was rioting and attacks throughout the north. Five RUC men and a British soldier were wounded in gun and blast-bomb attacks in Belfast alone after word of Martin’s death reached the streets.

Martin’s place "beside Ireland’s glorious dead"

It was a large funeral considering the remoteness of the countryside and the trouble supporters had passing through RUC/Brit roadblocks and detours. A lone piper walked behind three masked IRA volunteers who fired shots in a military salute over Martin’s grave. Sean Lynch, Martin’s election agent in the Dail election, gave the funeral ration: "I am sure that Oliver Plunkett who was hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn and Joan of Arc, the young French maiden who was burned at the stake, were among those who received Martin and place him beside Ireland’s glorious dead."

Next: Kevin Lynch of Dungiven and Kieran Doherty of Belfast