Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Everyone Has a Part to Play
- 1 Prison Protests and Broad Fronts (1972–1975)
- 2 Lean Days and Uphill Battles (1976–1977)
- 3 Steps in the Right Direction (1978–1979)
- 4 Building the Campaign (1980)
- 5 Hunger Strike (October–December 1980)
- 6 Bobby Sands MP (January–April 1981)
- 7 Ten Men Dead (May–October 1981)
- 8 A Quiet and Uneventful End (October 1981–October 1982)
- Conclusion: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Bobby Sands MP (January–April 1981)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Everyone Has a Part to Play
- 1 Prison Protests and Broad Fronts (1972–1975)
- 2 Lean Days and Uphill Battles (1976–1977)
- 3 Steps in the Right Direction (1978–1979)
- 4 Building the Campaign (1980)
- 5 Hunger Strike (October–December 1980)
- 6 Bobby Sands MP (January–April 1981)
- 7 Ten Men Dead (May–October 1981)
- 8 A Quiet and Uneventful End (October 1981–October 1982)
- Conclusion: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Whatever else might divide us we have been absolutely clear on one thing, the ‘blanket men’ in the H Blocks and the women in Armagh Gaol are not ‘ordinary criminals’ motivated by self interest but political victims of the failure of the Northern State as a political entity. The Fermanagh South Tyrone election victory has fully vindicated our position.
National H-Block/Armagh Committee, Hunger-Strike Newssheet, vol. 1, no. 4 (12 Apr. 1981)Though the hunger strike had ended, there was little change within the prisons. By the start of the New Year, local H-Block committees were openly expressing their concerns regarding the apparent lack of movement by prison authorities. The Derry ‘Smash H-Block’ Committee warned of a second hunger strike ‘unless the Government ceases at once in playing toady to the prejudices and bigotry of a few petty-minded bureaucrats at the Northern Ireland Office’. Fr Denis Faul would go so far as to argue that this lack of movement was a ‘deliberate British policy aimed at a split among the prisoners themselves and, in turn, dissension among their relatives, friends and supporters’. And so the prison crisis was far from being solved.
On 2 January, the blanket men in Long Kesh issued a statement calling on ‘those in authority in church and state … to immediately and publicly bring pressure to bear upon the British to ensure the speedy resolution of the blanket/‘no wash’ protest and the defusion [sic] of the H-Block/Armagh crisis’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Smashing H-BlockThe Popular Campaign against Criminalization and the Irish Hunger Strikes 1976–1982, pp. 109 - 127Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011