1981 Irish hunger strike

The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976 when the British government withdrew Special Category Status (prisoner of war rather than criminal status) for convicted paramilitary prisoners.

In 1978, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days.

The second hunger strike took place in 1981 and was a showdown between the prisoners and the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. One of the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands, was elected as a member of the British parliament; Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew were elected in the 1981 Irish general election to Dáil Éireann during the strike, prompting media interest from around the world. The strike was called off after ten prisoners had starved themselves to death, including Sands, whose funeral was attended by 100,000 people. The strike was the driving force that enabled Sinn Féin to become a mainstream political party.

He has chosen death:
Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring
Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom,
An old and foolish custom, that if a man
Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve
Upon another’s threshold till he die,
The common people, for all time to come,
Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold,
Even though it be the King’s.

The use of a hunger strike as a means of protest in Ireland is a tradition dating to pre-Christian times. This was not ascetic, but rather a way of publicly reprimanding those who deserved it. By fasting—possibly to death—on the doorstep of his master, the hunger striker enforced a claim against the other until either the latter gave in or the faster died. This tradition carried on even into the Christian era, and there are documented cases of early Irish saints fasting against God. The tradition of Troscad—fasting against an opponent—and Cealachan—gaining justice through fasting—became codified in the 8th century Senchas Már.

In the 20th century, there had been hunger strikes by Irish republican prisoners since 1917. Twelve men died on hunger strike prior to the 1981 strikes: Thomas Ashe (1917), Terence MacSwiney (1920), Michael Fitzgerald (1920), Joe Murphy (1920), Joseph Whitty (1923), Andy O'Sullivan (1923), Denny Barry (1923) (see 1923 Irish hunger strikes), Tony D'Arcy (1940), Jack McNeela (1940), Seán McCaughey (1946), Michael Gaughan (1974), and Frank Stagg (1976).

Although The Troubles had been ongoing since 1969, internment—which had been used several times in Ireland during the 20th century by both the British and Irish Free State—was not introduced until 1971. Internees were originally held in a disused RAF base in County Down, called Long Kesh. Later renamed HM Prison Maze, it was run along the lines of a prisoner of war camp, complete, says the author Thomas Hennessey, "with imagery reminiscent of Second World War POW camps surrounded by barbed wire, watchtowers and Nissen huts". Internees lived in dormitories and disciplined themselves with military-style command structures, drilled with dummy guns made from wood, and held lectures on guerrilla warfare and politics.

Convicted prisoners were refused the same rights as internees until July 1972, when Special Category Status was introduced following a hunger strike by 40 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners led by the veteran republican Billy McKee. Special Category, or political status, meant prisoners were treated similarly to prisoners of war; for example, not having to wear prison uniforms or do prison work.