David Beresford (1948–2016)

In conjunction with re-reading the history of the 1981 IRA/INLA hunger strike in Northern Ireland's Long Kesh prison I happened to look through youtubes's archives--the as yet to be released (in the United States) Steve McQueen movie trailers for his Hunger--which revolves around the same story and I even happened upon testimony from 3 loyalist Long Kesh prisoners (on the 25th anniversary of the event) from that time including the very articulate David Ervine who had their own particular insights which I found to be very interesting. Interesting anyway in the sense that these testimonies lent substance to their 'enemies' argument such that they more than less supported the IRA's view that the criminalization policy set by the Thatcher government in power at the time was wrongheaded in just about every concievable way and that it set any kind of resolution to the conflict back 20 years (in Ervine's view which he states over and over). In a society in which the violence had completely segregated the two communities of catholic and protestant from pre-school on up--Thatcher's government policy would have imposed a version of desegregation starting in the prisons amongst mostly young males with a history of violence against each other--and people who considered themselves not criminals at all (whatever ones opinions of their acts) but soldiers with the faith, convictions and ideals thereof. That the policy was completely misconcieved and a recipe for disaster took a long time for the British govt. to recognize and coupled with their own denial, the rhetoric and spin on the events as they decided to see things they were literally unable to do anything at all but let events run their course. But--understanding the cultures and motivations of their colonial subjects was never a particular strength of the rulers of the United Kingdom.

The protests took several forms--refusal to wear prison uniforms--this included not only Nationalist (catholic) prisoners but loyalist (protestant) as well. Prisoners protesting in this way losing almost all rights--bascially naked in their cells--they could not leave their cells--could only have one visit a month. The dirty protest went a step further and was mostly confined to Nationalist prisoners--it included the destruction and/or removal of all furniture including bedding living in their own feces which would be smeared all over the walls. The in house negotiations between the prison authorities, the British government and IRA to bring these protests to an end took another stage in 1980 when a first hunger strike was called. At the successful conclusion of these talks--an agreement having been reached all the described protests including hunger strike, dirty protest etc. might have ended only politically they were unpopular to the British public at large and under public pressure the Thatcher govt. looked for ways to apply semantics to renege on some of the conditions of their agreement. That was the basis for the second hunger strike which left 10 men dead but in effect revitalized the Irish Republican movement while at the same time leaving that movement to conclude that a Thatcher led government could not be trusted--and it wasn't until John Major replaced Mrs. Thatcher that there was to be any real dialogue between the two sides again---and that is not just mine but also the foundation of the 'loyalist' Mr. Ervine's argument.

To get to Beresford's book--he points to hunger strike as a weapon used by the weak against the strong throughout Irish history--in a sense as a cultural way of settling grievances. In effect it is part of the psychology of a people. To use it is to strike a nerve. Beresford takes us inside the prison and describes the settings. The communications system between those supposedly cut off inside and the leadership on the outside. He is given access to those communications mostly handwritten on cigarette players smuggled outside from which he can make his own timelines. Parallel to that he builds a narrative of events on the outside describing newspaper reports of funerals, the increasing violence and/or violent acts, the efforts of groups attempting to break the impasse, the political maneuverings of the respective sides, the Catholic church's attempts to influence events etc.

Anyway it was a sad story. One that did not need to be anywhere near as sad as it would become. Whether or not one believes the rhetoric of Mrs. Thatcher that they were just criminals and murderers getting their just desserts--the policies set in place by her government did much to make a horrible situation a lot worse and would lead to a lot more death and destruction for a long time afterwards. They use to talk about her intransigent nature. This was without a doubt as prime an example to use as any.… (plus d'informations)