Bobby Sands Nothing but an Unfinished Song

Review

Bobby Sands Nothing but an Unfinished Song

Twenty five years ago in May, Bobby Sands, MP, died on hunger strike
in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. Over the next few months, nine
other young republican prisoners followed him, demanding jail reforms.
Niall Mulholland reviews Bobby Sands Nothing but an Unfinished Song
by Denis O’Hearn (Pluto Books).

The 1981 hunger strikes provoked enormous sympathy from Catholics
towards the prisoners and huge anger towards the vindictive,
intransigent Thatcher government. Deep alienation amongst Catholics
prepared the way for the rise of Sinn Fein, which today is the largest
nationalist party in the North.

For my generation of Catholic youth, 1981 was an intense,
radicalising year. Today, the hunger strikes are still a highly-charged
subject and Bobby Sands is an iconic symbol of ultimate resistance to
extreme prison repression. By a distressing twist of history, the 25th
anniversary coincided with a desperate hunger and thirst strike by
Afghan refugees in Dublin.

This book is a well-paced, often harrowing, read that captures the
horrors of prison life and the charismatic Bobby Sands – who, by the
time of his death, at 27, was a talented writer, propagandist, poet and
song-writer.

Troubles

Sands was brought up in a mixed Catholic and Protestant council
estate near Belfast and played football with Protestant friends.
However, the start of the Troubles led to increased sectarian tensions,
and the Sands family were forced to flee their home, moving to West
Belfast.

As the Troubles worsened, Sands joined the local Provisional IRA, to
hit back against state repression. Like many working-class youth, Sands
was let down by the leaders of the labour and trade union movement, who
failed to take a lead in the civil rights struggle, allowing right-wing
nationalists and unionists to dominate ‘politics’. O’Hearn says Sands
was "enthusiastic but militaristic". After a few minor local IRA
actions, Sands was arrested, convicted, in 1972, and sent to Long Kesh
prison camp, on the outskirts of Belfast.

Political transformation

Jail transformed Sands into a "radical student". While the Provos’
"conservative leaders" of Cage 18 held "burnings of Marxist books and
pornographic magazines", Sands and other young prisoners "…were
reading and talking about the Communist Manifesto, Trotsky, Animal Farm,
Frantz Fanon…everything." Sands studied struggles of the oppressed
worldwide. His heroes were Che Guevara, and Liam Mellowes, the 1920s
left-wing IRA leader.

Sands also learnt to speak and write fluently in the Irish language,
which he then taught to other prisoners (partly so they could
communicate without the prison warders understanding).

Sands argued that armed struggle was not enough and called for "grass
roots" politics in local communities. On his release, in April 1976, he
tried to put this into practise. According to a fellow republican,
"Bobby’s attitude was different from other IRA men. He believed strongly
in socialist revolution and political mobilisation".

But whatever Sands’ intentions, democratic self-organisation and
resistance by a united working class, in a modern, urban society, was
incompatible with the IRA’s secretive organisation and individual terror
methods. The campaign of bombs and bullets could never defeat the might
of the British state – in fact, it provided excuses for the state to
increase repressive powers – and only deepened sectarian divisions
amongst workers.

It was also counter-productive to developing mass, class struggles.
This was brought home by a terrible incident, when an IRA volunteer
friend of Sands was shot dead by the army while driving a car in West
Belfast. The car went out of control, killing three children. This
sparked the ‘Peace People’ mass movement, which temporarily put the
republican movement on the back-foot.

Crackdown

After a failed IRA robbery, Sands was once again imprisoned. Under a
Labour government, the state cracked down on jails, to try to break the
morale of prisoners. The right to wear their own clothes, and other
concessions, were withdrawn from those convicted of offences arising out
of the Troubles committed after 1 March 1976.

Republican prisoners responded by refusing to wear prison uniforms
and were left naked in their cells with only a blanket. The protest
escalated under a brutal prison regime. In March 1978, the ‘no-wash’
protest began. Prisoners lived in intolerable cell conditions – the
walls smeared with their own excreta – and were subject to constant
humiliating body searches, beatings and torture.

Despite the inhumane prison conditions, Sands developed as a writer
and organiser. His optimism and determination spread infectiously to
other prisoners.

Although there was considerable sympathy among Catholics for the
prisoners’ plight, the IRA’s campaign stunted an effective support
campaign. Militant (the forerunner of the Socialist Party) took up the
issue of the H Blocks within the labour movement and the working class,
in Ireland and Britain.

Class position

Militant called for an end to oppression in the prisons, for the
right of all prisoners to wear their own clothes and to have a choice of
work or study. Militant also called for a labour movement review of the
cases of all those convicted of offences arising from the Troubles to
determine who was a political prisoner.

This position found a good response among both Catholic and
Protestant workers. A resolution moved on the British Labour Party NEC,
by the Young Socialist representative and Militant supporter, Tony
Saunois, committed Labour to this position. But the trade union leaders
in Northern Ireland did not campaign on the issue of prisons. The result
was a sharp rise in sectarian polarisation

After several years, the Maze protests had not won prisoner rights.
The increasingly desperate inmates organised a hunger strike. In October
1980, seven prisoners refused food. In return for vague promises from
the government, they called it off in December. Characteristically,
Margaret Thatcher refused to move and the prisoners were left angry and
demoralised.

But Thatcher vastly underestimated the prisoners’ desperation and
determination. Sands, now the IRA’s OC (officer commanding) in the Maze,
led another hunger strike from 1 March 1981, although the republican
leadership again opposed it.

Defiance

His courageous and defiant stand inspired the Catholic community and
the H-Block protests drew mass support across the North. When the
independent nationalist MP for Fermanagh/ South Tyrone died suddenly,
Sands was nominated to fight the seat. His victory, with over 30,000
votes, registered the deep sympathy and support amongst Catholics.

O’Hearn’s book covers the last weeks of Sands’ life in harrowing
detail. His sense of smell grew as he became feeble; prison warders
taunted him with ever-larger portions of food; Sands’ body organs failed
until his bowels burst, leaving him in terrible agony.

After 66 days starvation, Sands died on 5 May. Over 100,000 attended
his funeral and Northern Ireland was convulsed by heavy rioting and
brutal state repression. His death had a big international impact:
"motions of sympathy, minutes of silence, and days of mourning were
declared in national parliaments of Italy, India, Portugal, Iran and
elsewhere…"

After Sands, nine other prisoners died (six IRA members and three
INLA) : Francis Hughes, Patsy O’Hara, Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell,
Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee and Mickey
Devine.

Without a prospect of prison reforms, families of the remaining
hunger strikers intervened to end the fasts in October. No concessions
were given but the Thatcher government had only won a Pyrrhic victory.

The hunger strikes restored the morale of the republican movement.
There was no mass influx of youth to the Provisionals but enough
recruits for a long campaign. Most importantly, Thatcher’s refusal to
budge deeply alienated Catholics and prepared for the political rise of
Sinn Fein. Later, prison reforms were introduced quietly.

Unease

Some commentators criticised O’Hearn’s book for its perceived
pro-Gerry Adams leadership position. Another author, Richard O’Rawe, the
IRA public relations officer in 1981, sparked controversy amongst
republicans with the recent publication of his book, Blanketmen: An
Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike (New Island Books, 2005).

O’Rawe said a deal was offered by the British government, in July
1981, which addressed most of the prisoners’ demands for political
status. O’Rawe claims the IRA Army Council effectively prevented the
prisoners from accepting the deal to ensure republicans kept the
sympathy of Catholics and won a Westminster seat.

However, Brendan "Bik" McFarlane, the IRA commander in the Maze
during the hunger strikes, completely refutes O’Rawe’s claims.

Whatever the truth, this very public row reflects growing unease and
opposition by republicans to the Adams leadership, including those
opposed to the leadership’s continuing shift to the right.

For socialists, the way forward in Northern Ireland lies in
developing a powerful, united working-class movement that opposes
sectarianism, injustice and capitalism, and which fights for a socialist
solution – the ideal which Bobby Sands and many young working-class
republicans believed they fought for.