``It was through the Hunger Strike that we learned our strength, that
we can do this, and the strength gave us the confidence to negotiate,
develop additional ways of struggle, without any fear of compromise.
We learned this, the political skills we need to win, through the
jails.
``It started with the barricade in Shores Road and the parish priest
begging the people to take it down, and they wouldn't. The British
army occupied the school, St. Joseph's College, for a barracks.'' This
was where Gerry Hanratty's education started.
``I was ten years old, playing over the backs of the armoured cars,
tanks. Guns, soldiers, everywhere on the streets. Friends and
families, driven out of Ardoyne, sought refuge in Andersonstown. Our
house was coming down with kids.''
There were some horrific attacks in Crumlin Road Jail. Legs broken,
someone's ear bitten off. I remember Jim Gibney running round the
canteen, with darts sticking out of his back.
| |
Gerry was out on his paper round in 1971 on the morning internment
began. ``I never got my run done. I was just handing out papers to the
people who were out on the street, people who'd been woken in the 4am
round-up.''
``It was riots every day, collecting bricks, bottles, supplies of
vinegar. Seamus Simpson, I saw him shot. It was on the Rosnareen Road.
He was wounded. The soldiers dragged him across the street, knee deep
with the glass of rioting. They dumped him behind a Saracen to die. A
Para was shot on the corner of our street. The Brits went berserk,
raiding all the houses, tearing them apart, CS gas everywhere. It
touched everyone, every house.''
Gerry joined the Fianna in Andersonstown. ``Terry McDermott, just 19
years old, to us just one of the bigger lads, who lived opposite our
house, was shot. His funeral was attacked, the mourners battered, and
then the RUC attacked the funeral mass in the Chapel, St. Agnes', with
rubber bullets through the windows. I saw all this, the rioting, the
arrests, the marches, the funerals. It was a time of sorties all day,
back for tea and sandwiches, then out again.''
Gerry was arrested for the first time in 1975. He landed into Crumlin
Road. ``On Boxing Day the segregation battle started. They started
integrating republicans and loyalists in C3. They called out three of
us to the canteen, where there were a dozen or so loyalists, who set
upon us. Bobby Sands, Frankie Hughes, Kieran Doherty, all of them were
here, in C3. It went on day by day for over two months. It was just
scary. The Prison Service was blatantly, openly, Orangey. We were
Fenian scum. There were some horrific attacks. Legs broken, someone's
ear bitten off. I remember Jim Gibney running round the canteen, with
darts sticking out of his back.''
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The whole history of the jails has been a process of learning. Thirty
years of struggle have given us, and the people, the confidence to
have no fear of developing another way.
|
Gerry was released in 1977 and was rearrested five years later, after
the hunger strike. I remember when Carol Ann Kelly was shot dead in
Cherry Estate. I saw it, right in front of me. The anger in Twinbrook.
The IRA had to stop the women burning down the school where the Brits
were sheltering, and the soldier, just a wee lad, who had shot her,
breaking down at what he'd done. The tears were coming down his face
as his mates tried to pull him back.
``The hunger strike was a turning point. It was a time when people said
to themselves `We can do this'. Through the 30,000 people who voted
for Bobby Sands, we became aware of our strength. It was through the
hunger strike that we learned that the people on the ground had the
ability to change things, to change the state.
``The hunger strike was not just the five demands, it was a direct,
political attack, a direct action against British rule. I came to see
that the whole struggle was political struggle. Just as the escape was
a direct political action against the British government. We learned
our own strength. After the hunger strike we knew they weren't going
to break us. It gave us the confidence to adapt our ways to win.
``I remember Bernadette McAliskey saying during the H Block struggle -
`Republicans are expert at struggle, resistance; when are we going to
become experts in winning?' - It stuck in my mind. We began learning
how to be expert at winning.''
Gerry went to B wing in Long Kesh just five months before the H Block
escape of 1983: ``It's looking back that I saw what we were doing, the
gradual conditioning process of the screws. Prison work? We'll work.
What to an outsider might have appeared as capitulation after the
hunger strike, but which, very slowly, gave us increasing freedom to
move about the jail, and laid the conditions that made the escape
possible. Escape from the most secure prison in Europe. It was a model
for the Peace Process. There are many different ways to skin a cat.
``There were 22 of us on B wing, H7, that morning before the escape.
There were 11 of us left in the evening. It was a slaughtering match
after.''
Released in 1986, Gerry was arrested in 1988 with Gerry McGeough on
the Dutch-German border on suspicion of killing four British soldiers.
They were held in total isolation, didn't even meet each other. No
papers, no shop, no radio, no news. After six months, Gerry went to
Kaisheim prison in the Bavarian foothills, beside the great Danube.
One hour a day exercise, handcuffed behind his back, was the only time
he spent out of a bare, white cell. Isolation. It was an old cloister
- a Colditz on a rock, but in a special high tech unit built for the
PLO after the Munich Olympic Games. Just seven cells, with cameras
everywhere. It was two years solitary, in an attempt to break you.
``It was an officer state. Everything you wanted had to go through to
the central system up to the investigating judge in Karlsrühe. If the
screws had a piece of paper that said I could have a Rolls Royce,
they'd give it to me without a thought. If it said I could not have a
biro I didn't get it.''
d then they had Gerry in for a week of questioning, eight to ten
hours a day. ``But they didn't question me once about the shooting, or
bombs. They wanted to know the mindset of the republicans. The
questioning was handled by a special unit, TE14, whose dedicated role
was to specialise in Irish republicanism.
``The trial, a process of investigation, went on for two years. The
head of the TE14 came into the trial. He gave lengthy testimony about
the IRA which was a `military organisation which was fighting for a
political goal'. He gave an account of the struggle, a journey through
republican history, of the famine, of the struggle of Irish
nationalists and his account formed part of the final summing up of
the case, which itself took three days. The words `terrorist',
`criminal' and so on, were never mentioned.
``Detective Inspector McClure from the RUC was brought over to give
evidence as an expert. `You know this man?' `Yes.' Have you ever met
him?' `No.' `Do you know his family?' `No.' `You know him to be a
member of the IRA?' `Yes.' `How do you know?' `I was told.' `By whom
were you told?' `That's confidential.' `There is nothing confidential
in my court.' `Are you expecting me to believe that you knew him to be
in the IRA on the basis of what someone told you, a person who you
don't even know, whom you never spoke to?'''
The Court ruled that McClure's evidence could not be treated as that
of an expert. McClure was used to Diplock courts. A German process,
for him, was a rude awakening.
``The President of the court said over dinner to defence lawyers, `It's
of no political significance whatsoever to me how many British
soldiers he killed, but if he's convicted of killing a German
policeman, then he'll get life'.''
Gerry was sentenced to two and a half years. After three months
waiting in Dusseldorf, he was packed onto a Hercules Transport plane
and send back to Aldergrove and the Crumlin Road again. The British
were again attempting integration. There were some horrendous attacks,
and many serious injuries. After six months, Gerry got eight years and
went to the H Blocks.
``It was coming up to the first ceasefire. The blocks were a ferment of
political discussion and of education, formal and informal.
Everything was under discussion - socialism, capitalism, armed
struggle, women's struggle, the role of prisoners, the hunger strike,
everything - working to develop ways to get to our political end,
through the gradual realisation of what we're capable of doing.''
Gerry was released and then rearrested in London during the breakdown
of the first ceasefire. ``We had no alternative. Major refused to have
the balls to move. I regret for everyone that there was no
alternative, for all who have suffered, that there wasn't another way.
I wish of course that there had been. This is the lesson that the
British government has to learn out of the 30 years of conflict.
Gerry has been OC in Portlaoise jail since his repatriation from
England. ``The whole history of the jails has been a process of
learning. Thirty years of struggle have given us, and the people, the
confidence to have no fear of developing another way. The OCs who had
to negotiate with the governors over food, or flip flops or whatever -
these were the skills we developed - that came out of the situation,
that have the potential to offer an alternative where the British
hadn't the courage. I regret that they didn't over these 25 years, and
what that has meant for all of us.
``It was a learning curve from awareness of our own strength, which we
realised through the hunger strike, and through 30 years in the
struggle. Learning to use the skills which the struggle taught us.
Learning to become `expert at winning'.''
It's a long way since the British army took over the education
department at St. Joseph's School, in Andersonstown.
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