Irish Republican Media - Blanketmen, Dirty Protest, and H3

Bobby Sands and the other H block protestors.

Provisional IRA and INLA prisoners (the first was Ciarán Nugent) began the blanket protest in which prisoners would refuse to wear prison uniform and either went naked or fashioned garments from prison blankets. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to "slop out" (i.e. empty their chamber pots), this escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners not granted political status refused to wash and smeared the walls of their cells with excrement. These protests aimed to re-establish their privileges by securing what were known as the "Five Demands":

The right not to wear a prison uniform;
The right not to do prison work;
The right of free association with other prisoners;
The right to organise their own educational and recreational facilities;
The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.

On March 1, 1981, under the new PIRA Officer Commanding in Long Kesh, Bobby Sands, a second hunger strike began, with Sands himself the first to refuse food. The political atmosphere outside the prisons became electric, all over Ireland, with widespread rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.

Shortly after the beginning of the strike, the independent Irish republican MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone died and precipitated a high profile by-election. Sands was nominated as an Anti H-Block candidate, and was elected to the House of Commons on April 9, 1981 with 30,492 votes to 29,046 for the Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West.

Three weeks later, Sands died from starvation in the prison hospital. The announcement of his death prompted several days of riots in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Over 100,000 people lined the route of his funeral.

Over the summer, nine more hunger strikers also died. The names of these people, their paramiltary affiliation, hometown, dates of death, and length of hunger strike are as follows:

Bobby Sands, Provisional IRA, Belfast (Twinbrook), 5 May, 66 days
Francis Hughes, PIRA, Bellaghy, 12 May, 59 days
Patsy O'Hara, INLA, Derry, 21 May, 61 days
Raymond McCreesh, PIRA, Camlough, 21 May, 61 days
Joe McDonnell, PIRA, Belfast (Lenadoon), 8 July, 61 days
Martin Hurson, PIRA, Cappagh, 13 July, 46 days
Kevin Lynch, INLA, Dungiven, 1 August, 71 days
Kieran Doherty, PIRA, Belfast (Andersonstown), 2 August, 73 days
Thomas McElwee, PIRA, Bellaghy, 8 August, 62 days
Michael Devine, INLA, Derry, 20 August, 60 days

There was extensive international condemnation of Britain's handling of the hunger strikes. As a direct consequence, Sinn Féin emerged as a serious political force in the 1982 elections to the Prior Assembly and the 1983 general election. Thereby, it indirectly paved the way for the Good Friday Agreement many years later.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Ireland
• Irish
• IRA
• Belfast
• Bobby
• Sands

[limerickandproud]

never forget!

[zebrahead32]

frogman296 -repsect to you frogman,those men suffered so much for irish freedom

[rickysadz77]

i hope that cunt thatcher would watch this

[kathryn8169]

tiocfaidh ar la.. may ireland one day govern itself and be free from british tyranny

[glenroob]

Whereabouts online can I find the uncut BBC documentary that the clips of dirty protest rooms in this video were taken from? I've been wanting to watch it for a while. It seems impossible even to find clips of the prisoners which have sound.

This was a good start though - thanks! :)

[ddurnion1]

who is singing this song

[mccann08]

god bless them they went through helll!

[splankitydunk]

god rest the H-block martyrs tiocfaidh ar la

[glenwold]

We will never forget our patriots.

[Chslosers]

RIP

[deanishere11]

Whats the stuff on the wall

[glenwold]

Ciaran Nugent died I think it was the 90s. Perhaps he could never get over the horrors inflicted on him by the British occupier and their orange lackies..