Republican News · Thursday 17 January 2002

A year to remember

BY JIM GIBNEY

sean bhliain agus an bliain nua always instill a sense of reflection in the mind. It is a time when people think about what they have done with their lives in the year past and what they intend to do in the New Year.

For many republicans, the year 2001 will be remembered with mixed emotions: the high from the great election victories in June which saw Sinn Féin replace the SDLP as the main party representing nationalists in the Six Counties, the disappointment from the IRA putting some of their arms beyond use in October. But republicans rose to the challenge on both occasions and advanced the struggle for a united Ireland as a result.

I was at the count in Omagh's leisure centre when Sinn Féin won the West. What a day! I'll never forget the broad, radiant smile on Michelle Gildernew's face as she was carried shoulder high between newly elected Pat Doherty for West Tyrone and Martin McGuinness who held Mid-Ulster with a massive increase in his majority. Michelle's victory was all the sweeter and historic because it coincided with the 20th anniversary of Bobby Sands winning Fermanagh/South Tyrone.

Last year was also dominated by republicans commemorating and celebrating the lives of the hunger strikers. Hundreds of events across Ireland attracted thousands of people. In the crowds and on the platforms were those close to the hunger strikers; their families, their comrades and friends, their supporters.

Many young people who were not born in 1981 turned out to hear the amazing story, and more republicans were born as a result. Others used the year to exorcise long suppressed emotions from that time and felt the better for speaking about the people they knew as ordinary blokes, who they grew up with through the ranks of the IRA as teenagers - yet these same men are now revered as heroes of Ireland's freedom struggle and are beacons of light for people fighting oppression elsewhere in the world.

d while we celebrated the lives of the hunger strikers, many people were dying on hunger strike inside and outside Turkish gaols.

A new film 'H3' by former hunger striker Laurence McKeown and former political prisoner, Brian Campbell, was released to great acclaim. It told the story of the five-year long gruelling protest in the H-Blocks and Armagh Women's gaol, which preceded the hunger strikes of 1980 and '81.

We saw on the big screen for the first time the ingenuity of the prisoners on the blanket protest. How they survived day by day.

I've been calling with Alfie and Margaret Doherty, Kieran's parents, every Christmas since I got out of the H-Blocks in 1988. We always talk about Kieran. They love hearing stories about him from people who were in gaol with him. Margaret told me it brings him to life for her.

I told them of the time in late '76 or early '77 when a sympathetic warder called John Hannah who was a Senior Officer, 'SO', in charge of landing three in 'C' Wing, broke the rules and let me and Kieran and John Pickering have a chess tournament against each other. This involved the warder letting us move between each other's cells over the period of a few days. In the days of 'criminalisation' this was quite a risk for a warder to take.

Our chess set was made from wet toilet paper left to dry and then roughly sculpted to reflect the various pieces. Every time there was a cell raid a warder reduced the chess set to a soggy mess by throwing it into the urine pot. And every time we made a new set. It was this 'never give in' attitude that carried the men like Kieran and women like Mairead Farrell who protested for political status between 1976 and 1981. This year, like every other year, I left the Doherty's household intoxicated, not only with alcohol but humbled by the humanity of this couple who loved their son so much they stood by his wishes though it broke their hearts to do so.

The chess game story set me thinking about Warder John Hannah. For some reason he took a shine to me when I landed in the Crumlin Road Gaol in September 1976. He liked talking to me about politics, literature and such like. I was OC of 'C' Wing and was targeted by other warders for abuse, especially when the IRA shot one of them. On such occasions if John Hannah was on duty he made it clear to the other warders that I was not to be harmed. He saved me from quite a few beatings in those days.

In early '78 I was walking through Belfast and John was driving past me. He spotted me and frantically flashed his car lights to draw my attention to his car. I cautiously approached it only to be met by a beaming smile: "Get in and I'll take you to where you're going" he said, "You can't," I said. "I'm going up the Falls." He smiled, tapped the side pocket of his jacket implying he was carrying a gun, "I'm alright," he said. He drove me home, risking his life this time.

Our paths crossed again on two occasions in the mid-'80s when I was again in the H-Blocks. The second time summed up my experience of the man, now promoted to Principal Officer, 'PO'. I and a number of other republicans were engaged in heated debate in cell 26 when the door burst open and his presence filled the large cell.

"I'd like to recite a poem for you, Jim," he said. I smiled. I knew the score. The others looked on, confused. A tall man with long arms, he swept off his warder's cap, held it camp-like across his chest and recited a number of verses of Oscar Wilde's 'Ballad of Reading Gaol'. When he was finished he winked at me and made an equally dramatic exit out of the cell. That was the last time I saw him.

Some years later he died in prison, not as a warder but as a prisoner himself. He was convicted of helping the IRA target other warders who were responsible for beating republican prisoners during the blanket protest.

I've often wondered how he managed the turnaround from 'PO' to prisoner, a traitor to his own kind, held captive by them until his end.

But anyway, the year has passed and we are into a New Year with many opportunities opening up for the republican struggle to be advanced and strengthened.

The primary focus for republicans all over Ireland this year is to make the long-awaited and worked-for breakthrough happen in the south's general election.

The expectation is high, the republican morale is good, the popular mood is with Sinn Féin. Let's turn all of it into as many votes and seats in Leinster House as the electorate are willing to give us. Blian úr faoi mhaise daoibh.