The 29th of june 1981 after bobby sans and three other ira prisoners had already died in hitchblack prison. But before we speak to our next guest, lets get a quick overview of this weeks show. As always, we are joined by our. And copresenenter michelle gillernew. Michelle is the current mp for fermana, south toronne. She has served in the Northern Ireland assembly as a former minister for agriculture and Rural Development and chairperson of the Health Committee amongst other things. Michelle has been a shenfian activist since her teens and has been elected almost continuously since 1998. And todays guest is lawrence machong. He is a former ira prisoner, author and screenwriter. After serving a life sentence in prison, dr. Lawrence mckung obtained a phd and. Sociology at queens university, belfast. Hes also cofounder of the belfast Film Festival in the mid1990s. Laurence mcyong, welcome to the show. So lawrence, tell us a bit about your child grown up. Well, i grew up outside rondalstown, um, which about 20 minutes from here, very mixed area, religion wise and often his that i never see the conflict, here is about religion, its been politics, but religion has been used as the. Bar is used you tribal difference or skin color or whatever else so it was very idealic sort of upbringing um of britten about it that uh when i was 10 learned to drive a tractor on the a farm that was next to us davy warricks farm lovely neighbors wonderful people um went a very small local School Foreign fluck um which was delited about years later to discover was actually from the original irish which was like wet townland but at the time as angles say version. Just seemed absurd, you know, um, i ended up getting my 11 plus and move from this really to Classroom School to uh smaliky is the largest Grammar School and i hated it with passion and i think thats where my uh sensor rebellion started because i become the mitch school so i traveled to it and uh and hang out done around smithville or and never been to belfast before uh but i just hit it the the school i think it was the this. Moving from this very informal, localized, rural sort of setting to now this, we studying latin and of you go to the gym you have to have different shoes for different. Offices and all the rest of it um so yeah blame that on on my uh my my liter activities but very interesting that i was grown up through that period of uh over the civil rights and uh on be known to me at the time that um certain things were unfold and that had uh well had implication for my own family because mean the whole Civil Rights Movement was about an end discrimination and house and unemployment um and i think but for me the biggest um impact was the activities of the olster diven regiment which was locally recruited militia um the largest regiment in the british army and over 90 protestant and there were people from rondalston who i would have known and played football but we went down down that time we just walk in the town of crowd of us uh that was all had in those days uh and being stop with them and i remember the first night im not the guys name um and him asking me whats your name and where you where you coming from where you going to any . Was embarrass because he being me sing me whats whats your name uh but the second third time it happen the embarrassment had gone and that was as the origins and uh and been stop and just been held and none of us were involved in any any politics or anything at that time um but it it awards a big influence on me and i think it was at that point so by the time i came to 16 realizing that um there are two communities but its not about what church equal to in a sunday its about that one has the uniform. And the weapons legally and and the other doesnt, it has, its iran as that point was 16 decided that i wanted to become part of of of what was happening and to become part of was to join the was to join the ira, which i did whenever i was 17 years of age, you were on that 1981 Hunger Strike, lawrence, youre a walk in miracle, you went 70 days without food, tell us more about that, um, well in the 1981 Hunger Strike there was initially there was only four people ever going to be on it um that began with bob and frank and patsi and remman and um and then a one of them died that there would be be replaced so there was ever only ever going to be four on at one time but in june it was decided to increase the numbers on it so each monday someone you joined it uh not because someone had died but because we were bringing up the number so i joined on the which was the last one out of that four and to join on the 29th of june um but that time um four people had already had already died um i mean the uh a form set of people you can only understand the Hunger Strike in the context of that five years before it um or its a total okay you understand the big political issue criminalization attempts to criminalize the struggle and so on and so forth but it also becomes personalized with just even the the present guards the screws at the door and all and its not like oh youve got a range of choices and cd which one we go for, it was either you walk out by hands up and capitulate and become yes sir, no sir, three packs full sir, or its Hunger Striken and in that context, um, suppose the bigger thing for me when i began it was um a week later the iris commission for justice and peace comment um so i was taken up to the hospital along with b was in the same wing and mickey define was brought from uh h5 so it was an opportunity to see all of the the people there people still. And um important lesson also that they that um everybody was brought in who it was only missing was joe dalland and uh if i hadnt known that i wouldnt have recognized the person come through the door was in a in a oil chair and fat you said but more b more fat than the rest of us and thats which is all the most people were were underneries like i was 10 and half stolen when we got strink and about 13 and a half now or something im not trying masic becuse everybody was marnised after a long time but joe was brought in and his head was like over his head was in a wild and um troubles coming down the side of his mouth and its almost that thing we see someone physically disabled and its almost a think think maybe the mentally as well but when he spoke just this is true ch and everybody got to smoke you all to smoke in the prison hospital w to smoke on the on the protest and the make up for the acj commission for justice and peace was dublin government appointies Catholic Church um sdlp so sort of uh not republicans on the ground and they were come to say that they had been in talks with British Government and they had some like uh not only the basis of the five demands but they recent that even six demands and um the whole thing went on for for for for two days and thats always that people talk about was there was there deals all this never was deal there was always offers of what would be there if you were to end this and that was never going to be enough for us given giving the experience the first and particularly given now that that that four people had already died in the meantime. Youre still tuned into the conversation, your weekly alternative probe of political events and Current Affairs through an arries lens. Im joined by my cohost michelle gilleny alongside our special guest dr. Lawrence maon. Martin harson and died died very suddenly uh and very painfully, thats the thing to remember people died in different ways, but um, if you couldnt keep water down and youre told to drink at least six pounds of water a day and take salt buse you need it for your your brain, um. But if you cant keep the water down if youre being sick then uh all these toxins in your body started with the kidneys come under muscle pressure and happen happen to martin horrison so like for the last couple of his life hes thrushing about hallucinating and hes away in another world and learn later years after his relation talking to brandon his brother brandon was in one side of him holding him down and the priest f morpheous side holding so he wont smash his face against the metal bat end and then he did he did settle and for about. And then he died and and the really when youre in the hospital irony was um youre no longer uh a protest and prisoner because you are in the hospital you wearing pajamas youre not refusing to wear the prison clues remember 40 od days my my side started going hang up with the seam for for most people and seeing at the start seeing very seeing double but very clearly double uh and then that changed into a more hazy fuzzy sort of thing and then it starts to get late start to annoying with that like strip laden which is. But anyway um, but i suppose one of the main thing that we ended up noticing was that someone um, very close to that, often had a b movement, and i remember id read before, but how if youre hung her bells open, and this was almost like in refers the body just letting go before it, and that happened till tom e and rem talking about it, and uh, and afterwards its a real drop and youre ready, youre ready. Totally exhausted, but after that usually nobody came out of their selling in it in the word, the word cells even prison hospital, so to make a diffend and you probably what it two or three days after that and basically what happens, so on it happen to myself and you um yeah, its a very painful and very lengthy couple of hours uh and and literally just made it back to help back to. And and and didnt get out of it after that um and then the parents in families roll out and fe a critical stage and um they come in my father, my mother and sister and brother all of them apart from my mother asked me to come off the strike and said i wasnt and it wasnt my mother was republicans wasnt we just always had a i dont recal any adult conversation with my mother bause i was on the run from 17 and half. Off, then i was in jail when i was 19, um, you get an odd, because all people are visiting, you dont get much time to talk about them were on the protest, so never um had those tabadle conversations that really of like, and both my parents later died in jail, so never never got to have them, but there was just always a very close border, he just showed me unconditional, and she wasnt going to ask me to do something internew was was against me, um, 60th day and i remember them coming in um 69th i dont i dont really recall at all apparently it was responding to voices but was getting confused and it was just sleep or starting to go on conscious a bit um and then on the 7 i think which was a sunday apparently the doctor goes around and checks all your reflexes and said look now youre deep deep comment youre not going to be any response and what the what the had was part of attorney which is that um the prison werent going to forge feels, what if youre next to kinn sa document, power of attorney shift them and they could authorized medical intervention, which is what my mother did, and um again it was only years i thought back on it, what i do recall her s to me on that 68 day was and we were on her own, she had gone out and um she says you know what you have to do and i know what i have to do my was very quiet person and religious in the sense it was quiet fee around religion than your thought and and awful situation for for families and that had been brought on the mean that already been a number of people of wondered if i had been the first would have would have looked on it differently or if somebody had died after me would have looked on it differently but n of those happened uh and mother died less than two years after so this awful thing that families were placed in that dilemma and a big pressure on the from the Catholic Church and particularly from from father fall that a good mother or a good wife would would. Authorized manical intervention, which by application means that youre a bad bod wife for b. Um, regin consciousness and intensive care unit of the Royal Victoria Hospital just few hundred yards. And from from here and uh and then interest to think think pick on it because it was a female voice and was coming coming around said launch youre youre in the tens of hospital we just want to turn you over here slowly and was seven stone at the end of only bones and the hospital that would had you on the sheep skin r but in the hospital obviously dont have those uh and and and m and so i remember which was like its gentle hands on you, you its a female voice, its a gentle touch, whereas for like the previous five years youre just you didnt have any of that at all and the british sols and the bed and all i could say blane, you could see the black figures and again it was just hard open these and then the following day i was taken to the um the militaring of the secure ward the moscow park hospital. Were all the ones were there like pyn and that there and was there for the next few weeks and then moved back to the to the prison previous they had kept people there maybe six seven weeks but i think again that come to point where they were trying to put pressure on on on strike and on the people were still on it um time i was moved back i was Still Holding on the walls to try to walk um ride back into it block four and uh when you rive on that block there be a screw in the the circle and the shot the numbers so somebodys going for a visit would have been right uh one uh 98 here or one on whenever i walked in this guy shout at uh one field Hunger Striker on normally to walk across states route was straight across the the circle but had to walk around the the um the wall just holding to harry see and uh ended ended up then in uh um down on the wing and um people he heard me coming in and i was exhausted literally was i got under the bed and and just lay down and um id ended up with the stagmas from the hunger twitching of the ipaballs but youre going rapidly so to open them you became really nauseous bause everythings just moving like this year um so it was easy just to and someone in the cell next door to me knocked it and ch who it was and um it was cartney, he was on the first strike and i said it was and he got up and shut it out the door and uh everybody was shuting up to welcome in all the rest of it and uh door and it just it was just um i just could just just wipe wiped out and that was like three three weeks three and a half weeks after the longest like ended few days later and um. We had five demands, we could one demand, um, which are replaced not in the context, people say, no, was it successful . Well, you want to n it down to the prison, you fire demands, you get one, you dont really say, well thats thats not, thats not success, but that was never about, simply prison conditions, it was much wider struggle, and if you look it in terms of what we did get it and what the struggle got out of it, and so well no one like that, got loads of weapons and money and political and moral support, and you realized afterwards that. And with the eyes of the world were w on it and particularly with the eyes of the world of of those who had suffered under the empire um and i think for the first time republicans just realized just this support and interest that you had worldwide you when you have fidel castro speaking up with the United Nations you have the Indian Parliament on the minute sentence you have protests across the world never bob did um so in that sense it was major factory for us in the jail we got the right to our own clos which problems that was important and to two levels symbolic um but obviously we wouldnt wear the prison uniform and the blankets on was i wear no config uniform normally serve my time so we never did where the their conflicts uniform but a more practical level it is stick it out for the first time in five years and get in the counting and get out the yard and and and plan and strategize how we want to get the outstand demands which which we did through a whole um series of protests and different ways, but that sorry one, that was the end of of that type of protest, the present republican prisoners, you look at this burning in the camp, various other protests, even the blanket protest itself, its sort of like yeah bring it on, well take this not in a matcher way, but its like terence mcwees, its not those who can affect the most, its those who can. Sure the most with sometimes wonder about because you can you can crush people and crush their spread thank never it never happened to us lords its been an honor to have you in here today thanks for coming its always great. To see you, thank you. As we have come to the end of the series, id like to finish this episode a different note. Much of what weve attempted to do during this last 13 weeks is offer an alternative look at each politics free from the constraints of broadcast editorial control. We hope that youve enjoyed what weve had to offer, so rather than leave you with your usual history segment and like to finish with eulogy from one of our finest literary grids. Leaving the white glow of filling st. And few lonely street lamps among fields, you climb the hills towards newton, hamilton, past the fuse forest, out beneath the stars, along that road, a high bare pilgrims track where sweeny fled before the blooded heads, goat beards and dogs eyes in demon pack blazing out of the ground, snapping and squeeling, what blase . Is ahead of you, faked road block, the red lamp swung, the sudden breaks installing engine, voices, heads hooded and the cold nosed gun or in your driving mirror, tailing headlights that pulled out suddenly and flagged you down where you werent known and far from what you knew, the lowland clays and waters of lochpeg just Church Island spire its soft tree line of you, there you once heard guns fired behind the house long before rising time when duck shooters haunted the marigolds and bullrushes, but still were scared to find spent cartridges, acquid, brassy, genital, ejected on your way across the strand to fetch the cows. For you and yours, and yours and mine, fought shy, spoke an old language of conspirators and could not crack the whip or seize the day, big voiced scollions, herders, feelers round haycocks and henquarters, talkers and bars, slow arbitrators of the burial ground, across that strand of yours. Fours the cattle grase up to their bellies an early mist and now they turn their unbewildered gaze to where we work our way through squeaking sadge drowning in dew, like a dull blade with his edge honed bright, loch beg half shines under the his. I turn because t