Despite his hard-line views Sir John French, the Lord Lieutenant, buckled, deciding to release, on parole, those on remand and in danger. Photo: Le Petit Journal. [3] Padraig Yeates, Dublin a City in Turmoil 1919-1921, p.105, [4] Peter Hart, The IRA and its Enemies, p.56, [5] Quoted in C Desmond Greaves, The Irish Transport and General Workers Union, the Formative Years, p.263, [6] William Sheehan, ed. Huge crowds gathered outside Mountjoy Gaol to demand the release of the prisoners. It was a tactic of ‘moral force’, refusing food in protest against what activists considered illegitimate arrest. Dublin Castle was deeply divided between coercion and conciliation camps. On August 11, 1920, MacSwiney began a hunger strike in Brixton Gaol. , Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork City and Brigade Commandant 1st Cork Brigade Irish Republican Army died on Hunger Strike after 73 days. Your email address will not be published. The forgotten century-old story of the survivors of a 94-day hunger strike in Cork Prison is told in a new book, published tomorrow. 25 October 1920: Terence MacSwiney[above] T.D. [1]. He had been arrested that August in Cork and charged with possession of: Documents the publication of which would be likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty. … First it was decided to release those prisoners who had not yet been charged with a crime, after a medical inspection. The hunger strike of Terence McSwiney, in particular, was watched with interest by the world's media, as it was… Joe Murphy, my mother’s uncle, died just over 100 years ago in Cork Gaol, after 76 days on hunger strike. It became increasingly common in Ireland that spring for unknown young … This not only ended that strike but the second wave. John French, however, the Lord Lieutenant, who had been since mid 1918 a kind of military governor in Ireland, was against any concessions, preferring to let the prisoners die than to reverse, as he saw it, the progress the military had made since they had commenced mass arrests in January. While the hunger strike tactic had been deployed prior to 1920, the Cork/Brixton strike was distinctive for its length (three months) and the ultimate deaths of three prisoners, including Cork Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney. By April 13, the military were beginning to consider the possibility the possibility of spraying the crowd with machine gun fire from the air in order to disperse them. A month earlier, Gleeson was resident at Mountjoy Gaol. They conceded a clearly articulated ameliorated regime for Irish Volunteers who had been convicted, under the Defence of the Realm Act, of offences that were not ‘criminal per se’ while threatening to allow any new strikers to starve. The 1981 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. Hundreds of republican and labour activists were arrested and interned under the Defence of the Realm Act in early 1920. On Sunday the 9th of May 1920 Francis Aidan Gleeson Óglaigh na hÉireann/I.R.A. Gleeson is forgotten now, but in May 1920 those 10 words drew the crowds, and the uniformed Irish Volunteers to steward them, as his body was removed to Fairview Church on 11 May. For the guerrillas of the IRA it was indeed a great morale boost. Hundreds more arrests followed in February, March and early April. Had it been a year later, Andrews wrote, and his captors Black and Tans, he could well have been summarily shot, as were two of his friends, a year later who ‘were told to run for it and were riddled with bullets as they did so’. On account of his youth, Andrews was told that he did not have to join the fast but he told the older men that he ‘thought it was my duty to strike with the others’. 1920 IRA Hunger Strike. This combination of conciliation and coercion did not bring peace to the prisons. He is the author of Political Imprisonment and the Irish, 1912-1921, which is available in paperback and ebook from Oxford University Press. On the nationalist side too, the cost was dreadful. It was not the fatal cocktail of ‘-aemia’ and ‘-itis’, however, that made Francis Gleeson news. Anguished families, anxious doctors, an angry Irish nationalist public, and an amplifying press (Irish, British and international) were drawn in by the terrible drama. . After a strike in October 1919, 47 men were released from Mountjoy. The ensuing demonstrations across Ireland infuriated elements of the crown forces. The military remarked that, ‘large and menacing crowds, in some cases up to 20,000 strong, congregated outside Mountjoy’. Peadar Clancy, who had held the April 1920 hunger strike was summarily executed by the Auxiliaries in Dublin Castle after his arrest on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in November of that year. In the case of 25-year-old Gleeson, the end had come on 9 May at the Mater Hospital, Dublin. Irish History Online, Irish History articles, interviews, ebooks and podcasts. The 18 year old Todd Andrews, who had been imprisoned for only two days, before the strike started, was very impressed by Clancy’s leadership, amounting almost to hero worship. British Army in Dublin 1920. Hunger strike. Sporadic campaigns of disobedience, escapes, riots, and racket strikes (keeping the whole prison awake at night by constant banging, slamming and singing) continued between April 1918 and July 1919, but the new approach did stop the hunger strikes. Martyrs were valuable, but they were bought with lives. an ecstasy’. A few days later, following his conviction, MacSwiney was transferred to Brixton prison, London, where he continued to strike in parallel to 11 men at Cork. It became increasingly common in Ireland that spring for unknown young men to become of sudden public interest due to the manner of their dying. Seeking information on my uncle, Daniel Healy,Tralee, who participated in the Wormwood Scrubs Hunger Strike during April/May 1920. Clancy ‘left on me the indelible impression of a superman, a man whose commands I at least would have had a compulsion to obey’. Through further bungling, the convicted were released alongside those on remand, while the great majority refused to give parole. The Army’s view was perhaps overly optimistic from their own point of view. In the autumn of 1919, however, first individuals, and then groups, began to hunger strike again. Via Bibliothèque nationale de France, Image: Belfast Newsletter, 4 February 1921, READ: Hunger strikers would rather die than accept ‘criminal’ status, READ: Carrying a cross for Ireland - Thomas Ashe in profile, Charlotte Despard condemns British reprisals in Ireland as ‘lynch law of the worst kind’, Arson attacks in Lancashire blamed on Sinn Féiners, Body of ‘convicted spy’ dumped in Cork City, NEWSLETTER: Subscribe and get Century Ireland straight to your inbox, What the Census tells us about Irish language use, RTÉ History Show: The Women’s Suffrage Movement, Explainer: The Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Sir John French then tried indicate that this had been his intention. He was one of a group of prisoners transferred to Wormwood Scrubs from Belfast Jail in late April 1920,. At one point Royal Air Force planes flew at rooftop height over the protestors in an attempt to intimidate them. After The Rising, a series of hunger strikes took place in which some well-known members of Irish society had passed away in their attempts to bring the question of an Irish republic into question. Those captured, however, included many important IRA figures, including Peadar Clancy, deputy commander of the Dublin Brigade.[3]. By April 9, 90 men were on strike. The Irish Labour Party had his case raised in Parliament by the British Labour Party and on March 26, O’Brien was released.[7]. Where was it fought? Mountjoy and Wormwood Scrubs proved an end of sorts. 3:00 to 3:10 pm, Break . Mountjoy was a disaster from the government’s point of view. The crowd almost immediately began to attack the RIC and military with stones and other […], Your email address will not be published. O’Brien, an official of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, was arrested on March 3 and was deported to Wormwood Scrubs prison in England. This amounted to hundreds of IRA prisoners, 100 in Cork alone for instance, as well as the ninety hunger strikers released in Dublin. After the strike: The revolutionary careers of Cork participants in the 1920 Wormwood Scrubs Strike . [2] Richard Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, a Life of Sir John French, p.354. - Commander KENWORTHY (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister if he will state how many Irish prisoners are on hunger-strike in Cork Prison; how many have already died; whether he is aware that in the case of the late Michael Fitzgerald witnesses were produced to prove his innocence, but their evidence was not taken; that in … On the 11th of August, a mass strike was once again initiated, this time in Cork Jail, when 60 IRA members, most of whom were held without charge or trial, … One of the nine survivors of the Cork Prison hunger strike in 1920, he died in 1965 at the age of sixty-eight. The British capitulation to the hunger strikers was a cardinal error on their part, making them appear at once tyrannical and also weak-willed and easily beatable. Then, having endured several months of ‘hunger strike mania’, during which group after group of Irish Volunteer prisoners forced their release, the authorities in Dublin Castle changed policy. Irish Republicans had copied the tactic of hunger strike from women’s suffrage activists. The British troops, he remarked were friendly, one even told him ‘keep your heart up Paddy’ as he was driven by lorry first to the Portobello Barracks and then to Mountjoy Gaol. On 17 October, Michael Fitzgerald was the first to die at Cork prison. The young Andrews saw it as rite of passage that every Irish rebel went through. MacSwiney, and another of the Cork prisoners, Joseph Murphy, died on 25 October. Two other Cork Irish Republican Army (IRA) men, Joe Murphy and Michael Fitzgerald, died in this protest. 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; See also: 1920 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1920 List of years in Ireland Events. [15] The trade unionists had seen many of their own members arrested and acted on their own initiative, apparently without consulting with Sinn Fein or the IRA. They were well aware of the radicalising effect the death of Thomas Ashe had had in 1917 and had no wish to see fresh republican martyrs in the prisons. In an attempt to save some face, French the Lord Lieutenant proceeded to formally release all the prisoners around the country to make it appear as if it was a preconceived policy of pardon. It forced the British authorities to backtrack. A thunder of knocks, no time to dress (even for women alone) or the door will crash in. Sir Nevil Macready, who had just arrived as the new General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the British Army in Ireland, was astonished to discover ‘the chaos that prevailed’. As one prisoner wrote in his diary, ‘you will find they will climb down’. In Kenmare, in Kerry trade unionists first ensured that the town’s businesses were shut and then paraded to the church where they said the rosary for the release of the prisoners. 2020 marks the centenary of the hunger strike of Irish republicans in Brixton Prison and Cork Men’s Gaol. But the British policy of wholesale internment was overturned, in April 1920, not by force of arms but by an extraordinary combination of hunger strike, popular mobilisation and ultimately a work stoppage by the Irish trade unions that, for two days, brought the country to a standstill. On April 5 36 of them refused food, followed by 30 more the day after. The first he knew of his arrest was when his mother appeared at his bedroom door with a candle, followed by a polite but businesslike young British lieutenant, who told him to dress and take a few belongings. Summer 1920 saw the last successful series of hunger strikes in Irish prisons. It should be no surprise then that, in early 1920, the most aggressive prisoners calculated the risk to life sufficiently low as to make hunger strike worthwhile if concessions could be won and the authorities humiliated. Who won... More », On Thursday 25 February @PresidentIRL will host the second in the #Machnamh100... More », William Orpen - painter of war and peace | Alyson Gray writes about the Irish... More ». The crowd almost immediately began to attack the RIC and military with stones and other missiles, […], […] gathered in Derry to celebrate the release of prisoners from Mountjoy prison in Dublin after a mass hunger strike by prisoners there. If, like Gleeson, you were an IRA prisoner in the spring of 1920, then it was very likely that you would be faced with a decision, to hunger strike or not, because a great wave of strikes reached its peak then. On 25 October 1920, a new name was added to the martyrology of Irish nationalism. With this idea Arthur Griffith signalled the end of the Cork hunger strike in early November 1920. [8], Their demands were for political status, but more concretely: better food, separation from ordinary criminal prisoners, no compulsory prison work, books, a weekly bath, the right to smoke and five hours exercise per day.[9]. [2], In Dublin alone there were over 1000 raids and 86 arrests in January, including 6 members of the Dail; the republican parliament declared in 1919. The immediate cause was not usually the stuff of fame, nor even brief recognition: ‘toxaemia, following nephritis and acute appendicitis’. On that date, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Alderman Terence MacSwiney, died in Brixton prison after a hunger-strike which had lasted 74 days. Andrews was arrested as part of a general ‘round up’ by the British Army from January 1920 onwards. Between 14 and 16 April 90 were freed; 31 of them convicts, including Francis Gleeson. Now they used it to demand the status of political prisoners. 3:10 – 4:05 pm, Opening Plenary . On April 21 the Irish republican prisoners who had been deported to Wormwood Scrubs prison in England also went on hunger strike and shortly afterwards, they too were released, mostly returning to Ireland. More than that, over the summer of 1920 British policy in Ireland hardened, exemplified by the arrival of the Auxiliaries, the deployment of more troops, and the passing of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act. Trouvez les Irish Hunger Strike images et les photos d’actualités parfaites sur Getty Images. In early April 1920, a young IRA man, Christopher ‘Todd’ Andrews was arrested by British troops at his family home in Terenure, Dublin. The IRA had been attacking police barracks across the country since January. The most highly publicised strike began on Easter Monday, 5 April 1920, when thirty-six Irish Volunteer prisoners in Mountjoy pledged 'not to eat food or … [1] CS Andrews, Dublin Made Me (2008) p.144-145. The propaganda costs (during the strikes, because of the funerals, and for a long time afterward), as well as the further radicalisation of Irish opinion, were heavy prices to pay. RTÉ is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. Niall Murray, University College Cork . In the prisons this was matched by a determination to hold the line against hunger strike. There followed a remarkable foul up on the British side. Outside the unionist dominated north, Ireland came to a standstill for two days. The perception on the outside, though not the reality, was that the prisoners were on the verge of death after six days of fasting. As a consequence of the strike, the British opened talks with the hunger strikers’ leader Peadar Clancy and offered him concessions, including political status and release on parole, both of which offers he refused. who also went under the name Redmond died from complications after an appendices operation at the Mater Hospital Dublin, the complications were a liver infection as a result of a hunger strike undertaken by the dead man in Mountjoy.
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