James Prior took over in 1981 that a liberal approach was taken to the prisons.
Martin Dillion, THE DIRTY WAR. London: Arrow, 1990, 284- 285.
been a matter of cross-party consensus and in the case of penal policy this was certainly true. It is interesting to note that it was a Labour government that originally sent the troops into Ulster and Labour who abolished
special category status, while the Conservative party had introduced it and the ill-fated power sharing executive.? One can speculate whether this consensus would have
survived had Airey Neave not been killed by the INLA in
:i
March 1979, shortly before the Conservative victory which l might possibly have placed him in the NIO.s He was well |
The cells had to be regularly cleaned, a process which involved the movement of whole wings to new parts of the prison and entailed the use of large numbers of staff. Further, the steam cleaning process which was used to clear up the fouled cells meant that after a few cleans the cells had to be re-painted. Meanwhile, outside the prisons the PIRA was continuing to assassinate prison staff, a tragic loss of life which obviously affected the warders morale. Added to this the cost of protecting them was also great and imposed an increase in the workload of the security forces.
However, the government felt that their hands were tied as they did not believe there was a consensus in the North that would allow them to come up with a compromise face saving formula such as the one adopted at Portlaoise Prison in the Republic after a similar prison protest campaign in 1977. The unionists at this time had an
effective veto on prison policy. The government felt that granting special category status had been a mistake that was rectified by Rees, and that Protestant opinion would oppose any repetition of this mistake.lo
As the prison dispute worsened, the UK was prepared to show some willingness to negotiate on minor issues but would not give way upon the separate status of
paramilitary prisoners. During 1980, O'Fiaich and Atkins were involved in a dialogue in an attempt to resolve the issue before a hunger strike started with the deadlines which this would present. The authorities were prepared
10 Tim Pat Coogan, ON THE BLANKET-THE H-BLOCK STORY. Swords, Co.Dublin: Ward River Press, 1980, 196-197.
11 Clarke, (1987), 113 - 114.
12 Kevin J. Kelley, THE LONGEST WAR, NORTHERN IRELAND AND THE I.R.A. London: Zed Books, 1988, 325.
& Clarke, (1987), 114. 13 Clarke, (1987), 119. 14 TIMES, 28 October 1980.
to negotiate through third parties such as the Church, the SDLP, and relatives g r o u p s . I n fact the only people that they would not talk to were the Provisionals. But as 1980 progressed according to one source close to the
PIRA, David Beresford, this was to change.
In March 1980 Atkins had emphasised that the
government's resolution to break the protest continued.
He announced at Westminster that newly convicted j
1
prisoners who had committed crimes before 1 March 1976 no |■1
longer had the option of special status. Later, on 23 March, minor concessions were made that allowed inmates to wear prison sports gear rather than uniform during exercise periods and the number of letters allowed to prisoners was quadrupled to one per week.i%
The next British concession occurred at the end of August, when Atkins gave the protesting prisoners the same rights to compassionate parole as conforming prisoners. They also had the option of closed visits where the prisoners were separated from visitors by a screen. This meant that the prisoner did not need to be searched before and after the visit.is However, the talks between O'Fiaich and Atkins collapsed. This resulted in the PIRA's attacks upon prison officers being resumed and led to the decision to embark upon a hunger strike on the 27 October 1980.14
In October, before the hunger strike had started, but after its announcement, partly because of the mild criticism from the European Commission for Human Rights, the British offered to substitute civilian style clothing for a uniform. This was rejected by the prisoners as they wanted to wear their own clothing, not what they saw as a different type of uniform. Besides, there was no movement on the other issues that were in the "five demands" that the protesters demanded, especially not on the
differentiation between the paramilitary and criminal prisoners.15 The government would not publicly moderate its position against the prisoners after the start of the 1980 strike. Indeed, a statement issued by the NIC
mentioned that it would not grant status to prisoners who had committed criminal acts of terrorism.i®
In his account of the protest David Beresford claims that the government was actually moderating its attitude by talking with the PIRA. During the latter stages of the hunger strike, when at least one man on hunger strike, Sean McKenna, was approaching his death, a meeting was arranged between representatives of both sides under strict conditions of secrecy. The initial contact was arranged by Catholic Churchmen who may or may not have had official sanction. Beresford states that the
government was represented by the Foreign Office
(probably the Secret Intelligence Service, SIS) while PIRA sent a senior member to argue its side. They eventually met in late December as the threat of the 15 Kelley, (1988), 325.
& Clarke, (1987), 124. 16 Kelley, (1988), 326.
first death was looming. The meeting was held at Aldergrove airport (now Belfast International) near Antrim. The Army Council was given a copy of a face saving solution which the NIO was proposing. It was
arranged for the representative to visit the prison, but the abandonment of the strike preceded him and the Army Council's advice to the prisoners on their response.i? Unfortunately the nature of the above negotiations are such that it will be many years before any conformation of the above story will become available. Until then we must treat it with a great amount of caution.
On 17 December the NIO had announced that it was preparing a compromise proposal but mentioned that the proposed reforms would not be implemented unless the hunger strike was abandoned. On 18 December, in the knowledge of this statement, the secret talks, and the imminent death of Sean McKenna, the remaining five lucid hunger strikers chose to call the fast off.i*
The abandonment of the strike gave the advantage to the government. The proposed face saving proposal was a variant of the October concession of civilian style
clothing. This was felt by the PIRA to be a useful start in the negotiations but by no means a solution.is
Needless to say this view was not shared by 10 Downing Street, which by this time was controlling the response to the crisis. After the fast was abandoned the
government was no longer prepared to discus reforms, probably feeling with some justice that it was unlikely 17 Beresford, (1987), 9-13.
18 Kelley, (1988), 327. 19 Beresford, (1987), 44.
that the hunger strike could be repeated again. However, the government had underestimated the importance placed on the prisons by the Provisionals, and especially the still insecure northerners who badly needed a success for their new political direction. Thus the seeds of the 1981 hunger strike were already being sown, even before the 1980 fast had been properly finished.
6c. THE FIRST HUNGER STRIKE.
The possibility of a hunger strike had been worrying all of those involved in the protest for some time.
Indeed, the prisoners had as early as 1979 discussed the option with the outside leadership. The leadership had counselled against such a move for in the words of Gerry Adams the leadership was "tactically, strategically, physically and morally opposed" to a hunger strike.20 As it is widely thought that Adams was also the Chief of Staff of the PIKA,21 this would not have been advice but a direct military order. The Green Book, which contains the rules and regulations of the Provisionals, lists
embarking upon a hunger strike by a volunteer without the permission of the outside leadership as an offence with a maximum penalty of dismissal from the organisation.22 Both Bobby Sands and Brendan Hughes the prison OCs, were sympathetic to Gerry Adams and the northern wing of PIRA, so they would not disobey a direct order from him.
20 Clarke, (1987), 121.