International Day of Remembrance for Hungerstrikers Ray McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara

by Tomas Gorman - Irish Republican Socialist Party Sat Apr 08, 2006 18:39

The use of three INLA hunger Strike Martyrs as a recruitment tool is disgraceful. The IRSP has already formally contacted OSF and asked them to desist using their image in such a cynical fashion.

by ogra b,c,d,e..etc Sat Apr 08, 2006 21:52

Liam O Ruairc (whole article here : http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/619/ireland.htm

For many years, the Sands family has been in a dispute with the provo Sinn Féin dominated Bobby Sands Trust over its use of his writings and image to promote Provisional politics. They have even been considering legal action.

His family claim that “the ideals for which Bobby died and on which the trust was founded have been abandoned.” “We simply want his property (prison writings) returned and for (provo Sinn Féin) to cease using him as a commodity”, said a family spokesperson. (See Joe Oliver, ‘Sands family in row over trust’, Irish Examiner June 30 2000; Ed Moloney, ‘Sands’ family considering legal action against the Bobby Sands Trust’, Sunday Tribune, July 2 2000 and Henry McDonald, ‘Republicans feud over hunger striker’s legacy’, The Observer March 18 2001).

It is thus not surprising that they are unhappy with O Hearn’s biography. But if the book contains “numerous factual inaccuracies” as Marcella Sands alleges, these are not immediately evident.

In fact, there is much valuable research in this book. The bulk of it deals with Sands’ prison years and the author has conducted many original interviews with those who were in jail with Bobby Sands as well as prison officers, priests and so on. O Hearn is quite good on the international impact of Sands’ hunger strike - how it influenced South Africans or the Zapatistas, for example. The book provides an interesting read and has little in it that is controversial.

However, “what is lacking here is the sort of serious assessment of Sands’ sacrifice that decades of hindsight should bring.”(Ed Moloney, ‘The IRA’s Empty Victory’, Washington Post, February 28 2006). In particular, the author does not emphasise enough the deep divisions over his legacy. At the end of the book, O Hearn quotes Bernadette Sands’ claim that “Bobby did not die for cross-border bodies with executive powers. He did not die for nationalists to be equal British citizens within the Northern state” (Magill, January 1998).

To which the author replies that if one cannot know what Sands would think were he alive today, the majority of his comrades nevertheless support the Belfast agreement. But the conditions secured by the hunger strikers 25 years ago and for which Sands died were signed away with the 1998 agreement. Republican prisoners are once again labelled criminals by the British government and are forced to fight for their status.

The 1981 hunger strike is now the subject of a serious historical revision. Last year, Richard O Rawe, who was the number two IRA leader and Public Relations Officer in the jail during the 1981 hunger strikes, published a controversial book called Blanketmen (Richard O Rawe, Blanketmen: an untold story of the H-Block hunger strike, New Island Books, 2005).

According to O Rawe, at a key point after the death of four prisoners, the British government made a secret offer to end the hunger strike, which would have given the prisoners 80% of their demands. The prison leadership, including himself, accepted it.

A message was sent out to Gerry Adams that the prisoners wanted to accept this deal. O Rawe believes Adams overruled them because if the hunger strike continued and more people died, then this would provide a platform from which Gerry Adams would be able to launch an electoral strategy and to bring Sinn Fein into electoral politics.

As Ed Moloney points out: “Now, if Richard is right, it means essentially that Mrs. Thatcher killed 4 hunger strikers but Gerry Adams killed six, and he killed six of his own colleagues, or he allowed six of his own colleagues to die in order to advance his political ambitions” (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/29/1420248).

O Rawe’s revelations have been highly controversial, but O Hearn’s book ignores them and sticks to the conventional ‘official’ version of the events. (In his article ‘The limits of memory’ (Village March 12-18 2005), O Hearn blamed O Rawe’s account on “flawed memory”).

O Hearn is right to describe Bobby Sands as an Irish Che Guevara. Aside from political parallels, Sands, like Che, has become a commodified icon

by martin lawrence Sat Apr 08, 2006 22:56

Tomas, it is MISuse of the three INLA volunteers who died on hunger strike in 1981. It is also dishonest for ogra or any other branch of the provo movement to use Republican dead to promote their "nationalism". Republican dead belong to the RM, not some reformist party. The died as members of a revolutionary republican movement, they shoould be remembered as such - not used to sell merchandise by the provos

by Barry - 32csm Sun Apr 09, 2006 13:26

im actually quite annoyed about it , utterly tasteless and disgraceful.

by Narl - RSM Sun Apr 09, 2006 16:50

Patsey O' Hara
Kevin Lynch
Mickey Devine are all INLA hungerstrikers not PROVO hungerstrikers Ogra Sinn Fein get your facts right please!

by Saerbhreathach - Irish Republican Bulletin Board Tue Apr 11, 2006 08:40

It seems to me that Ógra Shinn Féin should be busy addressing the issue that some of their members are being "harassed" or arrested for protesting the PSNI, while their parent organisation are preparing to promote provo-"Sinn Féin" members and their supporters join that same "police force".

Instead they're choosing to insult murdered Irish Republicans by using them to promote their own group... which is downright vile and repulsive.

I guess instead of being young, intelligent activists, they're just more of the idiotic neanderthals that believe "Daily Ireland" isn't just the latest Anti-Republican tabloid.

by Saerbhreathach Mac Toirdealbhaigh Thu Apr 13, 2006 02:35

I am a grumpy bastrd

by john Tue Apr 25, 2006 13:59

To Tomas Gorman of the IRSP.
What do you suggest Ogra do.use the faces of the IRA volunteers on hunger strike and not the INLA volunteers.wise up! if Ogra did use the 7 IRA volunteers onlt the IRSP woulod kick up a stink then as well (and rightly so) i think it is silly to suggest that the 3 INLA volunteers who died on hunger strike should not be on a poster relating to the 1981 hunger strike

by Barry Tue Apr 25, 2006 14:38

whose strategy is in direct contradiction to what all 10 hungerstikers died for . ie Ulsterisation , normalisation , criminalisation of prisoners , making some form of British rule acceptable . Sinn Feins current straegy and that devised by the securocrats who designed the HBlocks ( and as the Donaldson affair illustartes the " peace process as well) has a remarkable overlap . Return to Stormont , accepting partition, making the British police acceptable ( joining them even) , trying everything including surrendering arms to make the failed British state work , criminalising resistance to British rule .

Thats why people like myself find that poster use of those images quite sickening . Ill not even start about Che Guevara.

by Tomas Gorman - IRSP Tue May 02, 2006 22:16

No I dont advocate that OSF use only the 7 PIRA hunger strikers in their posters. It is the fact that all 10 including the three INLA martyrs are being used in a cynical fashion as a recruitment tool for an organisation that they were not members of.

If the poster had read 10 good reasons to be a republican fine. The three INLA volunteers did not die for either the PSF movement nor its current strategy.

by Barry Tue May 02, 2006 22:48

An in depth look at the hungerstrikes which apparently claims Thatcher caved in to their demands after 4 deaths .

by Patrick65 Mon May 15, 2006 01:20

What was the point of ordering these poor sods to strave themselves to death, when today's Republican leaders are sucking up to the Brits and the Huns to get into a partitionist government with them...?