Vigils mark 20th anniversary of hunger strike
Throughout Ireland last Thursday and over the weekend, the 20th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike was remembered as thousands of people took to the streets.
A public meeting in Dublin on Thursday, 1 March, at which the Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams and former hunger striker Laurence McKeown spoke, was attended by over 1,000 people.
In Derry City, last Thursday 1 March, ten oak trees were planted in Rossville Street in memory of the ten hunger strikers who died in 1981. Members of the families of those who died attended the ceremony, as did former hunger strikers Raymond McCartney from Derry and Jackie McMullan from Belfast. Prior to the tree planting ceremony, Sinn Féin's Cathal Crumley, the Mayor of Derry, hosted a reception for the relatives in the Mayor's parlour in the Guildhall.
In County Tyrone, hundreds of people attended candlelit vigils in various towns and villages. Around 300 people were present at Donaghmore, just outside Dungannon, to hear Sinn Féin's Francie Molloy describe the 1981 hunger strike as ``a period of great pride and great sorrow for republicans''. Simultaneously, people were gathering in Stewartstown, Dungannon and Coalisland. Michelle Gildernew, the party's candidate for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, addressed the large crowd at Coalisland RUC barracks.
``The hunger strike was a defining moment in modern Irish history. It brought the fight for Irish freedom once more onto the international arena and focused world attention on the plight of the prisoners''.
In Belfast, Gerry Adams officially launched the new Web site set up by the National 1981 Hunger Strike Commemoration Committee.
Accompanied by Brendan Bik McFarlane, the OC of IRA prisoners in the H Blocks during the hunger strike, Adams commended the work of the `81 Committee in putting together the Web site.
Meanwhile, the St James Commemoration Committee had erected a makeshift H Block cell at the corner of the Falls Road and the Whiterock Road. Committee members staged a 24-hour token hunger strike. Among those taking place was former hunger striker Bernard Fox from the area and Gerry `Blute' McDonnell, who spent up to 18 years in British prisons, many of them in the H Blocks. It was so cold in their `cell' that the water the token hunger strikers had to drink froze in its bottles that night when the temperature dropped below zero.
Between 7 and 8pm that night, hundreds of people, young and old, lined the road from the Poleglass roundabout to Albert Street in the Lower Falls.
At Carrickhill, a small nationalist enclave sandwiched between Clifton Street and the Shankill Road, hundreds of people also took to the streets. ``I've never seen so many people on the streets in years'', one of the organisers told An Phoblacht.
Over in East Belfast, in the Short Strand, again hundreds of people attended a vigil before going to the community centre for a public discussion on the hunger strikes.
Bik McFarlane, who an hour earlier spoke at a rally in Ardoyne, was on the panel along with former hunger striker Leo Green from Lurgan. Síle Darragh, OC of the women republican POWs in Armagh during the 1980 hunger strike; Seanna Walsh, a former prisoner from the area and close friend of Bobby Sands; and Jim Gibney, one of the key activists in the anti H Block/Armagh Committee, also spoke.
Earlier in the day, Bernard Fox was interviewed on Triple FM radio about his time spent in jail, almost 18 years in all. He was asked to put it all in context.
``The struggle isn't over'', said Fox. ``The struggle has to achieve its goals of a 32-County socialist, democratic republic. So in one respect it is hard to answer that question but on the other hand I am focused on what we have to achieve and the need to continue until we have fulfilled our goals.''
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