Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 48

The Aftermath
Part 3

Bik, Gerry and Bobby H
By Gerry Coleman

In looking back on this series of articles which started a year ago in October 2000, and these times 20 years ago, the telling of the events on a week by week basis failed to tell the full story of many people who were there, every day, throughout the ordeal.

A mere mention here and again didn't do them justice. Here's a closer look at several who deserve our appreciation for their nobility and steeliness in difficult circumstances.

Bik

Bik was born in Belfast in 1951. He was an excellent student and went on to study for the priesthood. He was in fact in his second year at a seminary in Wales, when he answered a different calling, the Irish Republican Army. The Troubles were on in earnest and Bik felt the need to play his part, but it was far from an easy decision.

Bik was arrested and convicted for the bombing of a bar in the Shankill area of West Belfast where five people were killed. The bar, the Bayardo, was a popular haunt of the UVF, a group fond of murdering random Catholics. Earlier, the UVF had bombed a Catholic bar in Ardoyne. The operation hoped to break the will of the UVF. because of this conviction, Bik was an untouchable as a hunger strike candidate himself.

Bik politics was defiantly Liberation Theology, his hero, Camilo Torres, who was a revolutionary priest who took the part of the people in Columbia until his murder in 1966. He declared that he took "off my cassock to be more truly a priest."

Named OC by Bobby Sands

Despite the turns his life took, Bik always remained a devout Catholic. Every morning in the H-Blocks, he would read from his Bible [the only reading material allowed was the Bible] to the men within earshot. He always read upbeat selections from the Psalms: "... and though you have crushed me and broken me. I will be happy once again." But he didn't have a holier than thou attitude and was very well respected by all of the men. He wasn't, however, a likely OC. More likely Bik would have preferred being involved in the men's emotional or spiritual life; he was also an excellent musician, not there were instruments available. Bik was known to beat a mean cell door accompaniment to an impromptu sing-song. But he served as OC while on remand in the Crum because he was smart, he was dedicated and he could get the job done. He brought the same qualities to the H-Blocks.

He was also in the cell next to Bobby Sands and they came to understand each other's qualities -- they were both artistic and thoughtful by nature and they both were focused republicans. When Bik asked Bobby why he made him OC instead of someone he knew better or one of his friends, Bobby replied, "Because you will let me die." Not a job anyone with Bik's sensibilities would apply for.

Bik's unsought role

Brendan "Bik" McFarlane's role could hardly be said to be unrecognized or unappreciated, but I wonder if we really understand how hard it was for him to seek out and vett volunteers for near certain death on hunger strike, deal with their concerns and their families' misgivings and pain, communicate with and coordinate the Blanketmen inside and keep the Movement outside informed, deal with the prison authorities and the various agencies which attempted to intervene -- from the Catholic Bishops to the Red Cross, not to mention the British and Irish governments and the Northern Ireland Office. He did all this technically without credentials [he was not recognized as OC by anyone but the prisoners] and without a radio or television [he had an contraband radio for a while], newspapers, writing material, mail, a phone, or any other communication tool that you or I wouldn't think to attempt such a job without. Tiny cigarette paper "comms" smuggled in and out were it. He didn't have a desk to write on or a chair to sit on.

Add to this his leadership role in the escape of 37 from the Kesh only two years after the Hunger Strike and Bik is one of the most formidable foes of Britain's attack on the freedom and rights of the Irish people in the long history of this conflict.

Gerry A

Gerry Adams took a steady barrage of personal hits during the hunger strike from the families, media, politicians, and of course Fr Faul and other churchmen. If you read the papers at the time, it was all his idea to begin with and all his fault for not calling it off. Nothing was farther from the truth, but I am sure that didn't help him sleep better at night. He took a pounding that he doesn't talk about, but you know how much it must have hurt him.

Gerry, and other Sinn Fein leaders, repeatedly put the facts of the situation to the men and asked them to review their position. In fact, Gerry had written to Bobby and the other men, three days before he died that the time to end the hunger strike was now and that if they carried on, the Brits would surely let them die. They persisted and the Brits let them die. Yet, Gerry took the blame in the press and from the politicians and clerics. The men in the Blocks were in charge from the start to finish. That is a fact.

Just before Kieran Doherty and Thomas McElwee died, he was allowed to visit the hunger strikers in the prison hospital [set up by Fr. Faul]. But he put it straight to them to come off now before Kieran and Thomas died, everyone's analysis was that the Brits could care less. They told him they didn't come this far to quit now and that they'll get their five demands first. He grew up in west Belfast with Kieran. Gerry told him, "Even if you do, you'll be dead." "The rest of the boys will get them," Kieran said. "You'll never see me again," Gerry told his good friend. "I know what I'm going to do," Kieran replied.

To those that were blaming him, he said, "The price that is being paid by the men is too high a price simply to refuel resistance to the British presence .. It didn't need and doesn't need men to go and lay down their lives in such a fashion for the resistance struggle to be refueled."

Bernadette McAliskey, who attended one Fr Faul's meetings with the families at Toomebridge, was shocked by the Gerry-basting that went on, saying that Adams would never have to suffer in Castlereagh what he suffered in abstensia at the hands of the priests at the meeting that night. The message was "the buck stopped with Gerry Adams." Fr Faul twisted a remark made by Bik McFarlane to imply that this was the case. A complete fabrication. In fact, Bik was referring to conditions for meeting the European Commission on Human Rights, not the hunger strike per se and Denis Faul knew it.

At a Belfast meeting called by Fr Faul that Gerry attended, he was once again attacked. This time he could protest and presented a letter from Bik that put the matter straight, but the meeting went on into the early hours with much acrimony. The debate centered around whether the Movement should call off the hunger strike. Gerry insisted that this was not possible. The men had embarked on the strike in opposition to the wishes of the Movement outside. It was, he said, their obligation to support their decision. They would not undermine their own people, not now, after all of this death and sacrifice. Still, Fr Faul hammered at Adams, twisting his words, mocking his pain, baiting him into statements. It was a despicable performance, perfectly orchestrated. "Gerry Adams -- no Mrs. Thatcher -- has been killing our sons," he said.

Margaret Doherty, Kieran's mother, at one point couldn't take it any longer and walked out: "Father my son is dying. I don't wish to be rude, but if you can be of no support to him I would like to leave and be with my son when he dies. I've stayed with him this long, and I'm not leaving him now."

None of the family members during the hunger strike was harder on Gerry than Paddy Lynch, but never unfairly. Later on he apologized to Gerry for putting him on the spot, but the gesture wasn't necessary. Both men were under tremendous pressure. Paddy once asked Gerry, "Why aren't YOU on Hunger strike?" A fair question for a father to ask. Of course, Gerry wasn't in jail and had a different job to do. The Lynches became solid supporters of Sinn Fein.

Gerry moved on with the work, but the hunger strike never leaves his thoughts for very long.

The Old Man

One sympathetic man was present as each man died. He saw all of their suffering and bravery. He was there as each family stood watch over their loved one. He was a Protestant man, an orderly in the prison hospital convicted for a non-violent offense. He was, as Mason put it, a common decent prisoner in for a tax offense. But he was an uncommonly decent man and he didn't have to be. He went out of his way to be kind to the men dying on hunger strike and often confronted bitter, sectarian screws and other orderlies with simple, non-ideological, non-sectarian decency.

He just couldn't accept the further torture of brave men, human beings essentially like himself. He made sure they were as comfortable as possible, snuck them tobacco and papers, reading material, whatever they wanted if he could. Often it was just a kind remark or a smile to a dying or a frightened man. The men called him Bobby H, or Old Bobby or in Irish "sean fhear", the Old Man.

Taking "snout" from a dying man

One nasty screw would search the hunger strikers' beds in the prison hospital hoping to find tobacco. While Bobby Sands was into his final stages, this "class officer", an ironic title, found one half ounce of "snout" in Bobby's bed. He held the contraband aloft to the screws and orderlies in the ward like a trophy and hectored around as though he had thwarted a major criminal plot. Bobby H stared him down, he just an orderly and the other a prison officer, and said into his face, "I suppose you've really pleased with yourself? That makes you a real hard man, doesn't it? Taking snout from a dying man. Well, I can assure you this -- I'll be giving Bobby Sands a half-ounce of snout before I go off here tonight and you won't be taking that off him."

To be honest, most of the Medical Officers and others present just looked away in embarrassment. It was hard for even dedicated bigots, unionists or screws, as much as they hated the IRA, not to see dignity in these men or at least to sympathize with them as human beings. It was always easier to "allow" a man to die, like Thatcher or the NIO bureaucrats, than to watch one die. Most of the orderlies and medical officers, for example, didn't eat in front of the hunger strikers as a matter of common decency. Once during the later stages of the hunger strike, Bobby H absentmindedly walked into the hospital ward with a hamburger in his mouth unaware that some of the men were out of their cells. He felt so bad, was actually angry with himself, that the boys didn't even give him the good "slagging" he would normally expect; he felt so bad that the joke would be lost on him. They insisted he finish his hamburger.

Once when Bobby Sands first arrived at the hospital, Old Bobby offered to get him what he could and smuggled in some tobacco and three packages of cigarette papers. For the next several days, Old Bobby would ask Sands if he needed anything and he always asked for papers. After delivering a dozen or so packets, he became concerned for Bobby's health. He couldn't figure out what he was doing with the papers, the tobacco was hardly touched. Was he chewing them or eating them or what? He became worried but wouldn't think of going to Medical officers or screws. He confronted Bobby. He would always get to see the hunger strikers when he wanted to, to deliver some parcel or to have a yarn, by contriving to clean and mob the rooms. They were spotless. "Here Bobby son, would you answer me a question?" He put it to him abut the papers and Bobby started to laugh. "Simple, Bob, I write on them," he said. The Old Man just couldn't believe it!

When Bobby was elected MP, there were governors and NIO men around the hospital wing having tea and looking somber. The Old Man danced by with his cleaning gear, brightly announcing that he had to clean Bobby Sands' cell extra special again, "After all, we have an MP on the wing now." The bureaucrats just glared at him as he went straight for Bobby's cell, shook his hand, and said for all to hear, "Well done, son; you deserve it." There's a special brand of courage in that.

He was offered thousands of pounds by the press to tell his story of the hunger strike, all the little secrets. Obviously a man who could use the money, he refused. That was between himself and ten men dead. The men loved him.

Next: The final installment: The Women of Armagh