An Phoblacht, 4. May 2006
Remembering 1981:
Former Hunger Striker Laurence McKeown's story
"Around this time, young Protestants with whom Laurence grew up were joining
the Ulster Defence Regiment. "At about 15 or 16, myself and my mates would
be stopped by these same recruits who in, the reality of rural Antrim, were
neighbours.
In the beginning they were embarrassed at asking us what our names were and
where we were going . They knew our names; they had grown up beside us. They
knew exactly who we were. A pattern emerged where these former acquaintances
were ordering us out of cars and lining us up against walls. It wasn't about
religion. It was about one side being armed while the other wasn't". This
was a turning point for Laurence and, at the age of 16, he became actively
involved in republicanism."
25 years ago this week Bobby Sands died after 66 days on Hunger Strike.
Laurence McKeown also took part in the 1981 Hunger Strike, going for 70 days
without food. Here, he talks to An Phoblacht's ELLA O'DWYER about his own
background, jail experience, his impressions of Bobby Sands and the affects
of a prolonged encounter with death at such an early age.
"I was born in the village of Randalstown, County Antrim, a rural place
where, typical of the times, there was no water or electricity. Ours was a
relatively non-political household. My parents were quiet, unassuming people
who lived in a mixed community of Protestants and Catholics, all knowing
each other on first name terms".
In 1969 Laurence was 12 years old: " Bernadette Devlin, John Hume etc. were
on TV regularly and, like many people of his generation, my father was fired
up by the Civil Rights campaign. It touched a nerve. It was a time of heavy
discrimination, most obviously in terms of housing. My father and a
Protestant neighbour he worked with had submitted identical building plans
to the local council. My father's was knocked back and the Protestant's
accepted."
Around this time, young Protestants with whom Laurence grew up were joining
the Ulster Defence Regiment. "At about 15 or 16, myself and my mates would
be stopped by these same recruits who in, the reality of rural Antrim, were
neighbours.
"In the beginning they were embarrassed at asking us what our names were and
where we were going . They knew our names; they had grown up beside us. They
knew exactly who we were. A pattern emerged where these former acquaintances
were ordering us out of cars and lining us up against walls. It wasn't about
religion. It was about one side being armed while the other wasn't". This
was a turning point for Laurence and, at the age of 16, he became actively
involved in republicanism.
"I was arrested on 2 August 1976 and taken to Castelreigh holding centre.
This was at a time when Ulsterisation, criminalistaion and normalisation was
the policy under a Labour government; a time when powers of arrest and
detention were extended and the non-jury Diplock courts were introduced.
"When it came to interrogation, the police had a free hand and people could
be sentenced to life on the basis of statements, oral or signed. I was
ill-prepared for what faced me in Castlereigh."
The physical and psychological torture endured by those who passed through
Castlereagh is well documented. " The uncertainty, the unknown, the waiting"
and the inevitable brutality. Whether through physical or psychological
pressure, the interrogating team aimed to get results. After three days In
Castlereagh McKeown was charged with attempted murder of an RUC man and
causing explosions. He was then taken to Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast and
subsequently to the H-Blocks at Long Kesh. He was sentenced in a non-jury
Diplock court to life imprisonment. At this time other republicans were on
the same path, many of whom would subsequently end up on hunger strike,
people such Bobby Sands, Tom McElwee, Joe Mc Donnell and Kieran Doherty.
I asked him how he felt. Recalling the atmosphere of the non-jury court, he
said: "The worst of it was that my mother was there. The judge asked if
anyone present had something to say in favour of the defendant. I heard this
woman's voice, my mother's saying: "He's my son". It was 1978 before he saw
her again.
McKeown's arrival at the H-Blocks at the age of 19 was as confusing and
torturous as the interrogation period, again the encounter with
"uncertainty, the unknown" and an inevitable period of waiting. Following in
the steps of Kieran Nugent, he became a blanket man. "Kieran was probably a
good man to start the protest. He was, that sort of ...not a hard man, not
macho, but solid".
Instead of being delivered to the protesting block at H5, McKeown was taken
to another block simply because, as he later discovered, the protesting
block H5 was full up- full of blanket men. More and more people were joining
the protest. This was a "lonely time" as the lone protesting prisoner in H2.
He was taken down to the circle and ordered to take off his clothes. He
stripped to his underpants when a screw shouted, "I told you to fucking take
off the heap".
"The first days were the loneliest, I was naked and confused as to why I
wasn't with the other protesting prisoners in H5"- again the uncertainty,
the unknown and the waiting. "Waiting on a beating was worse. There's a kind
of relief when it's over".
Bibles are a compulsorily feature of all British prisons. On arriving in his
H Block cell Laurence spotted the inevitable Bible the bedside locker. "I
opened the book in a haphazard way and found myself reading from something
called the Book of Sirach. The line I was looking at simply stated that
'gold must be tested at the heat of the furnace'. I took some inspiration
from the quote".
As it happened this interview took place in the small garden at the front of
Laurence McKeown's home. In a strange twist of events just as we spoke, a
team of Bible enthusiast neighbours called by to talk about the good book.
As their offer was declined, Laurence McKeown had a flash back to a scene in
the Blocks. The phantom of the 'prison visitor' had come to mind. Prison
visitors, quite like the Bible loving neighbours, work in teams of usually
well intentioned, ungrounded people with little grasp on reality and too
much time on their hands. He described how prison visitors had visited a
blanketman's cell one day: A woman came into the cell which was "riddled
with shit, rotten food and maggots". This messenger of God didn't ask him
how he was coping, how his family fared or how he could possibly survive in
such horrific circumstances. 'Where is your Bible' she demanded, to which
the young man replied: 'I fucked it out the window'.
In later years, the Church was to feature in the Hunger Strike, forming a
pressure group aimed directly at the families of the hunger strikers.
It was clear that Laurence McKeown's prolonged engagement with death during
the Hunger Strike was part of a journey through self awareness that began
well before the Hunger Strike, through the conveyor belt of Castlereagh, the
Crum and the Blocks. The blanket protest was a levelling and grounding
period amongst protesting prisoners. By March 1978 there were a couple of
hundred on the protest. Strip searches, abuse and beatings were the order of
the day. "We were getting bad beatings, they thought to beat us off the
protest. People were being allowed only two showers a week and were being
stopped going out to the toilet". The prisoners decided to withdraw
co-operation even further. The system retaliated with brutality and in a
very short time things had spiralled into the 'no wash' protest. "Shit on
the walls, rotting food and maggots occupied the corners of the cells". Yet,
typical of the political prisoner, even in these dark circumstances they
were actively challenging the system. By 1979 there were many protesting
blocks.
The first time McKeown saw Bobby Sands was in H6. I asked him what he was
like. " It was the first time I seen him. I might have seen him once or
twice before. We'd been through a rough period. But that was a brilliant
period in H6, Jackie (Mc Mullan) was there, Bobby Sands etc. People expect
leadership people of such calibre to be somehow spectacular and
exceptionally charismatic. I remember thinking he was charismatic, creative
and all, but Bobby was also one of the Boys, one of us.
"Bobby understood the historical importance of the period. There were
political lectures reflecting on various IRA campaigns, splits, the Civil
rights movement etc. It was a major period of politicisation. We learned to
think, question and reflect through discussion."
The Blanketmen and then the Hunger Strikers demanded the dignity and
treatment due to political prisoners. This, as encompassed in the Five
Demands, was crucial to the revolutionary process in Ireland. To criminalise
the prisoners was to criminalise the conflict, to acknowledge political
status was to admit that it was a war.
By the 1980's republican prisoners believed that a hunger strike was
inevitable. "The idea of a hunger strike was always there in the background.
In 1979, with the visit of Pope John Paul, the idea of hunger striking was
under consideration". The reckoning was that the Church would have to deal
with the hypocrisy of allowing such a scene of brutality and injustice to go
on. Brendan 'the Dark' Hughes and Bobby had discussed the idea and raised it
with the Movement outside. At that time the proposition was declined for the
logical reason that there was not yet enough mobilisation outside. It needed
more time. Soon the National H-Block Committee was set up and the time
arrived in the early 1980s."
In the aftermath of the end of the 1980 Hunger Strike, when the British
failed to deliver the Five Demands, people like Bobby Sands understood that
the next time around, people would die.
Asked how he felt at the end of the first hunger strike and the start of the
next, McKeown spoke again of a sense of relief. They were again doing
something. The prisoners had become accustomed to biding their time, forever
waiting for something to happen. Sitting with the "uncertainty, the unknown
and the waiting. We had been in the eye of the storm, yet there was a kind
of calm during that time". There had been a measure of hope when Bobby was
elected MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. That was swiftly deflated as Thatcher
legislated against the possibility of any other political prisoners standing
for election."
On 1 March 1981 Bobby Sands began a hunger strike to death, a commitment
that he and others like McKeown had already made during the 1980 strike.
Bobby Sands was dead almost 24 hours before word got to McKeown's landing.
"Fr Toner came into the Dark's cell that morning. The Dark came to the door
and shouted 'Bobby is dead'. It wasn't an angry time. It was more a question
of who would take over after Bobby. Many of the screws were tamed down, I
think even they realised they were living through the middle of something.
The wing was quiet, the atmosphere sombre, even amongst the screws."
While Joe McDonnell lasted 61 days, others survived for a lesser time.
"Mickey Devine went on strike a week before me". Devine was the last of the
'ten men' to die. It seemed like Laurence McKeown's time was up.
In the prison hospital he recalls the differing natures of the prison
hospital staff. "While one might steal your hospital allowance of fags,
other medical staff, though very clinical, were not brutal. Some of these
went on to meet gruesome ends, committing suicide or being killed in driving
accidents through excessive drinking. After 70 days, that same brave woman
who stood in the Diplock court at her son's sentence, took him off the
Hunger Strike. He remembers as he drifted into a coma her saying: "You did
what you had to do and I have to do what I have to do". The family had come
under that 'pressure group'- the church, some neighbourly and well
intentioned and most ill-advised. Happily Laurence McKeown and his mother
had two years of prison visits before his mother died. The same shy woman
who had the courage to shout "he's my son" .