Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-block Hunger Strike

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As their numbers increased and the blanket protest strengthened, news of beatings, deprivations and maltreatment began to leak out of the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and the women’s prison in Armagh. A vivid and emotional first hand account of life in the H-Blocks on the blanket protest and during the hunger strikes. They are locked in their cells for almost the whole of every day and some of them have been in this condition for more than a year and a half. The hunger strike ended on December 18th when the British government presented to the seven men who had fasted 53 days two documents.

This left one censored letter in and out of the prison each month as their only contact with the outside world, until after several months some prisoners compromised by agreeing to wear uniforms for visits to maintain contact with the paramilitary leaderships outside the prison. Even though I abandoned the book after the first 20 pages or so, I am aware that he endured horrific conditions for the Cause in prison and I know he was a brave and loyal brother of his IRA clan. As prison rules required the prisoners to wear prison uniform when leaving their cells, they were confined to their cells for twenty-four hours a day. This resulted in the blanket protest escalating into the dirty protest, as the prisoners were unable to " slop out" (i. If they choose to live, the conditions available to them meet in a practical and humane way the kind of things they have been asking for”, said Atkins.The writing is pretty dry before the narrative on the hunger strike really begins and this made it hard for me to get started at first. This was a very emotional read especially as a young Irishman to see how men my age sacrificed their lives for a cause they believed in so strongly. Thus, following a period in which the prisoners cooperated to their utmost with a stubborn regime, on January 27th 96 prisoners smashed up cell furniture in a fit of frustration. the story of the selfless sacrifice of the Irish Republican hungerstrikers needs to be known, as does their betrayal by the politicians who went on to capitalise from their suffering and deaths. The stench and filth in some cells, with the remains of rotten food and human excreta scattered around the walls, was almost unbelievable.

This recognition was reinforced when on Friday, December 19th, all of the H-Block O/Cs were brought out of their blocks for a further meeting with Bobby Sands in H-Block 3.On Wednesday, December 10th, when a senior member of the colonial Northern Ireland Office, a Mr Blellock, met the seven H-Block hunger strikers in the prison hospital and read out to them the prison reforms that were then available but refused to answer questions or negotiate with Brendan Hughes, former O/C of the blanket men.

He explains the events that led to the dirty protest - where prisoners smeared excrement over their cell walls - and on ultimately to the hunger strike. To those of us who observed it from the outside, an authoritative account of what was going on in there, amongst the men, and who was in charge. Long Kesh, by name and appearance was known worldwide as a concentration camp and the large number of political prisoners drawn from all over the Six Counties enjoyed, through family, community and local connections, maximum support.There can be no doubt that these men were committed to their cause but the cause they died for was not the prize that Gerry Adams had in mind. I was talking about British government offers and how the prison leadership had accepted an offer to end the hunger strike and of how our acceptance had been overruled by an outside IRA committee. Especially seeing as the Sands family have never endorsed the Trust and have pubicily asked for it to be closed down on numerous occasions. This inside account of the 1981 hunger strikes by one of the IRA prisoners’ leaders is without doubt the most significant; it will force a complete reassessment of this pivotal epsode in modern Irish History.