Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 44

Micky Devine
The last to die on the ‘81 Hunger Strike

Micky became an important organizer for the INLA prisoners. That which he only aspired to outside, he accomplished inside the prison. He became a true leader. When Patsy O’ Hara went on hunger strike on 22 March, Micky became OC of the INLA prisoners. But it was Kevin Lynch who replaced Patsy when he died. Micky would be next almost of necessity and he would put himself on. It was something he knew he had to do.

Only his sister Margaret and Frank

People never thought he would last a week on the blanket, much less almost four years. Now, no one doubted he was man enough to do whatever he said he would do, but Micky had nothing like the support all of the other hunger strikers had. He was essentially alone. His father and mother were dead. He had two small children, but his wife and their mother, Maggie, wouldn’t even see him. Yes, he had a true and loving sister and brother-in-law, Margaret and Frank McCauley, but that was all.

Margaret and Frank met Bobby Sands’ mother Rosaleen soon after Micky went on hunger strike. Rosaleen was very concerned, "You have an awful lot to take on you." So they invented a larger family: Teressa and Patsy Moore became Micky’s new "aunt" and "uncle". A pure fiction, but Micky wasn’t complaining. He knew Teressa very well; she was a respected republican activist and leader in Derry City for the INLA/IRSP and her husband Patsy was their welfare officer.

As Micky’s condition worsened, his close "relatives", new and old, took turns in an around the clock vigil at his bedside.

Only one regret: he missed his children

Micky missed his children. He was sorry he wasn’t much of a father for them. It was the part of his life that he wished was different. He didn’t regret his sacrifices for the struggle, or the years on the blanket, or even so much his impending death. Even the break-up of his marriage he understood to a degree. It was a struggle from the start because of the situation they found themselves in -- living in poverty in the middle of a war and then his wife Maggie alone to raise the children with him in jail, but he felt really bad about his kids.

Micky’s father-in-law Norman Walmsley, who grew close to Micky while he lived as a border in the Wamsley’s home, said that he wanted his daughter to stand by Micky, but that it was a difficult situation for her as well. "The real problem was the situation, British rule in Ireland, and the unemployment -- the British never gave a damn about us -- and the poverty. That’s what created all this havoc among the young."

"You canna’ die. You owe me two pound"

On 11 August as he started his final decline, he had a visit with his brother-in-law Frank McCauley and his "uncle" Patsy Moore and he remembered it was his son Michael’s birthday. Patsy got a card and wrote: "Happy Birthday! Love, Daddy" and gave it to the boy. The next day Teressa Moore, his designated "aunt", arrived to see Micky [they had around-the-clock visitation rights now that Micky was critical]. "You canna’ die. You owe me two pounds," she told him. "What for?" "For the two pounds I put inside Michael’s birthday card," she told him. That was classic Derry death-bed humor. But Micky was near tears for his son’s gift and thanked her. Teressa would do things like greet Micky by asking him how his breakfast was. They were always making cracks on each other, and that was good. It helped to lighten things up in a reverse sort of way. Teressa had come to love Micky as though he really was her nephew and naturally Micky wished that he was.

Pressure from the Church

Micky was coming under pressure to come off the hunger strike from a strange source -- the Catholic Church. Micky’s politics being what it was, the church wouldn’t have much influence, but his wife Maggie had been on to Bishop Daly of Derry who was on to Fr Murphy in the Kesh who was on to Micky in his hospital cell. It was a bother he didn’t need.

Margaret said perhaps Maggie should visit Micky. No way. He couldn’t bear to see her; they were legally separated and she was living with another man. She saw him for prison visits in the beginning, but soon took up with a local Derry man. Micky was devastated. Even though he didn’t treat her very well when they were together, he felt differently now. It was too late. After a short time, she stopped coming to the Kesh at all. Her affair began a public scandal. It wasn’t well received for a wife to cheat on her husband while he was in prison, especially a man on the blanket. Two INLA people visited the pair one evening and knocked them about, shearing off Maggie’s long, beautiful hair in the bargain.

In 1979, she had another daughter. It wasn’t Micky’s, that he knew for sure.

Micky wouldn’t see her, not now with him dying on hunger strike. He instructed a solicitor to make his sister Margaret his next of kin. That might become important if Micky became unconscious at the end. He could trust his sister to do the right thing by him and respect his wishes. Patsy and Teressa saw Bishop Daly and explained the situation. It was the last interference he received. Now his small real family and his invented family were behind him 100%.

Micky and his children

Micky badly wanted to see his two children, Michael, age 8, and Louise, age 5. It was an awful experience for Teressa who brought them for a visit on the 15th of August, and for the children themselves who were taken into a horrible jail to see a man, their father, whom they hardly knew. Louise would have no recollection of him. Michael Jr. was a toddler when he saw his father last. What he remembered was another matter. Add to that what Micky must have looked like: close to death, a mere skeleton, hearing all but gone, and totally blind. He was, however, aware of what was happening around him.

The children were reticent and Micky kept trying to pull them closer to him as he lay in his bed. It was a terrible sight. The children didn’t understand and were terrified.

But two days later as Micky was slipping [the men knew the terminal signs by now, he was starting to loose control of his bowels], he asked to see his children again. Teressa said absolutely not, "It is too heartbreaking." He begged her, "Please, please". Finally, she gave in and he was happy.

The next day, the children arrived with Teressa, Margaret and Patsy. Micky wanted to know which child was at which side of the bed. He started to cry. His girl Louise pulled back, but little Michael understood. He started to cry himself and put his arms around his dying father. Teressa couldn’t take it any more and rushed out of the room. Margaret gathered the children. As they walked Micky’s children down the prison corridor, Margaret saw her brother still crying in his bed. Then the cell door clanged shut and Micky was alone. Patsy Moore said it was the saddest thing he ever saw.

"A skeleton of man with tears running down his face"

Margaret came back to comfort him. Twenty years later, she recalled: "The sight I will never forget is when he asked to see his two young children. He was married very young and when he went to prison with a 12 & 1/2 year sentence, the marriage broke down. As I brought the 2 children to his bedside, I sat Michael Jr. on one side and Louise on the other. I lifted Mickey’s two hands and placed them on their heads. [Mickey was now blind.] The children were absolutely terrified. After 10 minutes it was time for them to go. As I looked back I saw a skeleton of man with tears running down his face. To this day I don't remember who I handed the children over to. I had to go back and sit with him and pretend everything was all right."

Micky, Big Tom, and the Catholic church

The Catholic Church and Micky didn’t see eye to eye, to put it mildly. If you were Micky Devine, what would you think? Anyway, Micky had knowledge of the spirit, but wasn’t religious and he knew that churchmen were working against the hunger strike and undermining the H-Block campaign -- what he was dying for. But Micky grew very close to Thomas McElwee while they were in the prison hospital together. As Thomas lay dying, he spoke to Micky about his own faith. He asked Micky if, as favor to him, he would come back to the sacraments. Micky was noncommittal. Which meant not likely.

When Tom died, a priest came to tell Micky personally because he knew of their friendship. The priest asked Micky if he wanted to pray with him for Thomas’s soul. Micky told the priest to pray away. The priest asked if he wouldn’t pray for his own friend. Micky said, "Prayers never helped me much in my life." The priest prayed and Micky listened.

Two days later, Micky called Fr Toner over and asked him to hear his confession. To the priest, this was a near miraculous event. The apocalypse must be near -- Micky Devine went to confession. Frs. Toner and Murphy rushed to tell Margaret who was of course delighted. It even made the papers. The priests had done their job.

Perhaps if the Catholic Church and her priests had supported the physical needs of their flock in the stinking jails, as well as their souls as they died in British hell-holes for "the dignity of man", some of the men’s lives could have been saved and conditions in the H-Blocks and Armagh jail could have become more humane. But the dignity of man wasn’t any of their business.

Fr Faul did his worst; Micky never faltered

As Micky lapsed slowly into unconsciousness, he could hear and comprehend but not speak. Outside, Fr Faul and others were trying to break the hunger strike by any means possible -- except for the one thing that might have done some lasting good -- pressuring the British government for the men’s five just demands. What would the sacrifice of Micky’s life come to if the hunger strike was undermined without achieving better conditions for the men and women in the Kesh and Armagh jail, and above all without establishing beyond doubt that they were Irish Political Prisoners of War, not criminals? Would his death be like his life, just another bad break? Micky Devine had to have thought about these things.

Pat McGeown was loosing ground quickly as Micky died

Meanwhile Pat McGeown was doing badly. It was only his fortieth day, but he couldn’t keep any water down. He was in pain and tormented by the sounds of Micky Devine groaning in pain down the corridor. Then he heard the sounds of a medical trolley taking away Micky Devine’s mortal remains who died for Ireland on the 20th of August 1981. Micky never faltered.

Buried from the McCauley’s

They took Micky’s coffin off the hearse and carried it slowly through the Creggan to the McCauley’s house, accompanied by an INLA color guard. On Saturday, 22 August, there was a funeral Mass said. Micky Devine’s body, however, remained at the McCauley’s. He had specifically requested that he not be given a "right-wing Mass". That was before he returned to the sacraments; nevertheless, it was best this way. The priests would never allow patriotic Irish flags and military symbols to adorn the coffin in a church. I suppose a Union Jack would have been allowed for a dead British soldier serving the crown in Derry City.

He was buried instead from the house with full military honors. He always wanted to be a good soldier. He turned out more than that. He turned out a great man. Who would have thought?

"He did it for his children’s children and the generations to come"

Twenty years later in New York City, Margaret McCauley spoke to a crowded commemoration for the Twentieth Anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike: "His last words to me were ‘Don't sign.’ He died at 10 minutes to 8 in the morning weighing only 5 stone. I brought him home that evening and waked him for 3 days. Did I do the right thing? Well he told me he was doing it for his children, his children's children and the generations to come."

Next: Treachery and deceit as the hunger strike comes to an end.