1981 remembered

[camanchero]

Knew a couple of hunger strikers - before they were locked up. One of them said that as a single man he would rather take the place of a man with a family and kids, that he wanted his own family to rear their kids in peace and he did what he had to do to try to win this right.
He's dead now, but his family have kids that are prospering and the man himself would be taking huge delight in how they are now able to do - with a part of this freedom and equality he and his comrades helped win.
this is what a lot of loyalist/unionists cannot stomach. they dont have anyone with the guts to do anything heroic in their triumphalist history. then again the establishment and aggressors generally never do.

[glens abu]

Knew a couple of hunger strikers - before they were locked up. One of them said that as a single man he would rather take the place of a man with a family and kids, that he wanted his own family to rear their kids in peace and he did what he had to do to try to win this right.
He's dead now, but his family have kids that are prospering and the man himself would be taking huge delight in how they are now able to do - with a part of this freedom and equality he and his comrades helped win.
this is what a lot of loyalist/unionists cannot stomach. they dont have anyone with the guts to do anything heroic in their triumphalist history. then again the establishment and aggressors generally never do.

100% camanchero but sure just let them have their little rants and wear their little poppy in Nov,we will always remember with pride the heros of 81 and the brave soldiers of Oglaigh Na hEireann who fought the might of the British army with all their dirty tricks and loyalist death squads to a standstill.

[Rossfan]

Pity they couldn't have kept it at fighting those   
However bank robbing , intimidation, killing Gardai, Irish soldiers , British and Irish civilians.......  ,smuggling, "tax" on drug dealers / criminals, spreading foot and mouth etc etc means that an awful lot of Irish people never had any time for them.

[glens abu]

And a lot did.

[Nally Stand]

Just to continue what you started yesterday Glens:

Monday 2nd March, 1981
Much to the distaste of the Screws we ended the no-wash protest this morning. We moved to 'B' wing, which was allegedly clean.
We have shown considerable tolerance today. Men are being searched coming back from the toilet. At one point men were waiting three hours to get out to the toilet, and only four or five got washed, which typifies the eagerness (sic) of the Screws to have us off the no-wash. There is a lot of petty vindictiveness from them.
I saw the doctor and I'm 64 kgs. I've no problems.
The priest, Fr John Murphy, was in tonight. We had a short talk. I heard that my mother spoke at a parade in Belfast yesterday and that Marcella cried. It gave me heart. I'm not worried about the numbers of the crowds. I was very annoyed last night when I heard Bishop Daly's statement (issued on Sunday, condemning the hunger-strike). Again he is applying his double set of moral standards. He seems to forget that the people who murdered those innocent Irishmen on Derry's Bloody Sunday are still as ever among us; and he knows perhaps better than anyone what has and is taking place in H-Block.
He understands why men are being tortured here — the reason for criminalisation. What makes it so disgusting, I believe, is that he agrees with that underlying reason. Only once has he spoken out, of the beatings and inhumanity that are commonplace in H-Block.
I once read an editorial, in late '78, following the then Archbishop O Fiaich's 'sewer pipes of Calcutta' statement. It said it was to the everlasting shame of the Irish people that the archbishop had to, and I paraphrase, stir the moral conscience of the people on the H-Block issue. A lot of time has passed since then, a lot of torture, in fact the following year was the worst we experienced.
Now I wonder who will stir the Cardinal's moral conscience...
Bear witness to both right and wrong, stand up and speak out. But don't we know that what has to be said is 'political', and it's not that these people don't want to become involved in politics, it's simply that their politics are different, that is, British.
My dear friend Tomboy's father died today. I was terribly annoyed, and it has upset me.
I received several notes from my family and friends. I have only read the one from my mother — it was what I needed. She has regained her fighting spirit — I am happy now.
My old friend Seanna (Walsh, a fellow blanket man) has also written.
I have an idea for a poem, perhaps tomorrow I will try to put it together.
Every time I feel down I think of Armagh, and James Connolly. They can never take those thoughts away from me.

[Applesisapples]

I'm old enough to have lived through all of our most recent "troubles" including the hunger strikes. I suspect that many commenting here are too young. Those were different days and a large majority of the catholic population would have supported these men and admired their bravery. Indeed the hunger strikes really gave ipetus and encouragement to those in the IRA and SF who saw peaceful politics as the way forward. For all that Adams and McGuinness draw the rath of Unionists it is a fact that they as only they could do delivered the peace process. I'm not sure the outcome is what Bobby Sands and his Comrades would have wanted but they were instrumental to it's delivery.

[TransitVanMan]

The way I like to look at it, is that we currently have the former Commander of the Derry IRA running the show.

By the mid-Eighties the Derry IRA was thoroughly infiltrated and undermined by police and military intelligence.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

I scratched my name, but not for fame
Upon a whitened wall
Bobby Sands was here, I wrote in fear
In boyish shaky scrawl
I wrote it low, where eyes dont go
'Twas but to testify
That I was sane, and not to blame
Should here I come to die.
There's not a source or foreign force
Can break one man that knows
That his free will, no thing can kill
And from that freedom grows

[camanchero]

Pity they couldn't have kept it at fighting those   
However bank robbing , intimidation, killing Gardai, Irish soldiers , British and Irish civilians.......  ,smuggling, "tax" on drug dealers / criminals, spreading foot and mouth etc etc means that an awful lot of Irish people never had any time for them.

as a matter of interest how many of these lads did they kill?

also I suspect that your intimidation above was used more (99% i'd say) rather than 'tax' on the drug dealers.
Any drug dealer I know of was hounded out of their areas - again I have a relation who was one and I have no sympathy for him.

spreading foot and mouth - was that careless cattle selling or something - maybe that annoyed some people alright -but blaming the IRA etc - fer fooks sake 

[camanchero]

The way I like to look at it, is that we currently have the former Commander of the Derry IRA running the show.

By the mid-Eighties the Derry IRA was thoroughly infiltrated and undermined by police and military intelligence.

yeah - heard those tales also ...
and some will have you believe that these infiltrators and British soldiers actually carried out the raids/shootings/bombings etc etc too

think people are confusing this with the british soldiers that were seconded to the loyalist unionist military operations and lead their shooting/bombing sprees etc.

[TransitVanMan]

Back Home In Derry
Bobby Sands

In 1803 we sailed out to sea
Out from the sweet town of Derry
For Australia bound if we didn't all drown
And the marks of our fetters we carried.

In the rusty iron chains we sighed for our wains
As our good wives we left in sorrow.
As the mainsails unfurled our curses we hurled
On the English and thoughts of tomorrow.

Oh Oh Oh Oh I wish I was back home in Derry.
Oh Oh Oh Oh I wish I was back home in Derry.

I cursed them to hell as our bow fought the swell.
Our ship danced like a moth in the firelights.
White horses rode high as the devil passed by
Taking souls to Hades by twilight.

Five weeks out to sea we were now forty-three
Our comrades we buried each morning.
In our own slime we were lost in a time.
Endless night without dawning.

Oh Oh Oh Oh I wish I was back home in Derry.
Oh Oh Oh Oh I wish I was back home in Derry.

Van Dieman's land is a hell for a man
To live out his life in slavery.
When the climate is raw and the gun makes the law.
Neither wind nor rain cares for bravery.

Twenty years have gone by and I've ended me bond
And comrades' ghosts are behind me.
A rebel I came and I'll die the same.
On the cold winds of night you will find me

Oh Oh Oh Oh I wish I was back home in Derry.
Oh Oh Oh Oh I wish I was back home in Derry.

[Myles Na G.]

Knew a couple of hunger strikers - before they were locked up. One of them said that as a single man he would rather take the place of a man with a family and kids, that he wanted his own family to rear their kids in peace and he did what he had to do to try to win this right.
He's dead now, but his family have kids that are prospering and the man himself would be taking huge delight in how they are now able to do - with a part of this freedom and equality he and his comrades helped win.
this is what a lot of loyalist/unionists cannot stomach. they dont have anyone with the guts to do anything heroic in their triumphalist history. then again the establishment and aggressors generally never do.

The IRA won nothing and achieved nothing. They brought death, injury and suffering to thousands of families on this island. They set back the cause of Irish reunification by at least a couple of generations. In the end, they settled for an outcome that John Hume had been promoting for 30 years. Heroes my arse.

[Myles Na G.]

I'm old enough to have lived through all of our most recent "troubles" including the hunger strikes. I suspect that many commenting here are too young. Those were different days and a large majority of the catholic population would have supported these men and admired their bravery. Indeed the hunger strikes really gave ipetus and encouragement to those in the IRA and SF who saw peaceful politics as the way forward. For all that Adams and McGuinness draw the rath of Unionists it is a fact that they as only they could do delivered the peace process. I'm not sure the outcome is what Bobby Sands and his Comrades would have wanted but they were instrumental to it's delivery.

I'm old enough to remember the hunger strikes too. While many Catholics disagreed strongly with Thatcher's policy and didn't want to see the hunger strikers die, that's not the same as saying they supported them or the IRA. Your last point is spot on, though. I don't think any of those men thought they were throwing their lives away to win SF seats in a local assembly within NI. They could've had that in the mid 70s.

[Myles Na G.]

Which one of the heroes was it that took part in the Kingsmill Massacre?

[Nally Stand]

Tuesday 3rd March 1981

I'm feeling exceptionally well today. (It's only the third day, I know, but all the same I'm feeling great.) I had a visit this morning with two reporters, David Beresford of The Guardian and Brendan O Cathaoir of The Irish Times. Couldn't quite get my flow of thoughts together. I could have said more in a better fashion.
63 kgs today, so what?
A priest was in. Feel he's weighing me up psychologically for a later date. If I'm wrong I'm sorry — but I think he is. So I tried to defuse any notion of that tonight. I think he may have taken the point. But whether he accepts it, will be seen. He could not defend my onslaught on Bishop Daly — or at least he did not try.
I wrote some notes to my mother and to Mary Doyle in Armagh; and will write more tomorrow. The boys are now all washed. But I didn't get washed today. They were still trying to get men their first wash.
I smoked some 'bog-rolled blows' today, the luxury of the Block!
They put a table in my cell and are now placing my food on it in front of my eyes. I honestly couldn't give a damn if they placed it on my knee. They still keep asking me silly questions like, 'Are you still not eating?'
I never got started on my poem today, but I'll maybe do it tomorrow. The trouble is I now have more ideas.
Got papers and a book today. The book was Kipling's Short Stories with an introduction of some length by W. Somerset Maugham. I took an instant dislike to the latter on reading his comment on the Irish people during Kipling's prime as a writer: 'It is true that the Irish were making a nuisance of themselves.' Damned too bad, I thought, and bigger the pity it wasn't a bigger nuisance! Kipling I know of, and his Ulster connection. I'll read his stories tomorrow.
Ag rá an phaidrín faoi dhó achan lá atá na buachaillí anois. Níl aon rud eile agam anocht. Sin sin. (Translated this reads as follows: The boys are now saying the rosary twice every day. I have nothing else tonight. That's all.)