Alex Maskey visits Ballybay hunger strike exhibition

Birch Court in Ballybay played host to a major exhibition on the theme of the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike on Saturday 9 August. The event was attended by several hundred people throughout the day and was described by the organiser, Ballybay Town Councillor Gene Duffy, as "a huge success". He explained that the event was organised to recognise the contribution made by the people of Ballybay to the success of the anti-H Block campaign in the county and to the unprecedented election of Kieran Doherty as TD for Cavan-Monaghan in July 1981. Councillor Duffy stated that "while people from all political backgrounds were active in the anti H-Block campaign in Monaghan, that period paved the way for the development of Sinn Féin as a significant political force in the county, and ultimately, as a rising party throughout the country as a whole. Its importance in that sense cannot be overstated.

"We had three separate elements to the day," he said. "Firstly, Councillor Pádraigín Uí Mhurchada reflected on the contrasting emotions of the period - the anger and frustration as successive London and Dublin governments failed to move conclusively to meet the prisoners' five demands, and the sense of pride associated with the courage displayed by the hunger strikers and their families.

"Then Laurence McKeown, who himself went 70 days without food, gave an emotional talk on the character of Kieran Doherty, revealing that he had been interned as a 16-year-old schoolboy and had only enjoyed a few months of freedom from his 16th birthday until his death at the age of 25. Laurence also sought to challenge perceptions around the idea of 'the men of violence', as republican prisoners were consistently brutalised by prison guards in an organised capacity. Despite this, they consciously refused to be drawn into a retaliatory position, preferring instead to treat their captors with dignity and respect when republican prisoners eventually gained control over much of the prison administration in Long Kesh.

"The second element to the day's events concerned a display of photographs from the collection of local man, John McAviney. These related to the many protests in the county in the 1976-81 period in Clones, Monaghan, Blayney, Carrick and Ballybay, and to protests at that year's county and Ulster finals. These were of great interest to the many Monaghan people who managed to attend, and we were delighted that such a significant collection could be viewed again after a gap of 22 years." (This collection of photographs is currently on display in the Fáilte building, the Diamond, Clones.)

There was a great turnout for the appearance of Belfast's Alex Maskey. Alex spoke of the influence of the hunger strike on him personally and how it had forced him to reconsider what he had previously held to be firm principles on republican involvement in electoral campaigns. Alex was honest enough to admit that he had opposed Bobby Sands' participation in the Fermanagh-South Tyrone by-election, but, recognising his mistake, Alex himself became the first Sinn Féin councillor to be elected to Belfast City Council a mere two years later, in 1983.

The success of that strategy is obvious, as Alex is now joined by 13 Sinn Féin colleagues in the council (the largest single political grouping), and he became the first republican Lord Mayor of Belfast in 2002.

He also highlighted the lessons learned from how, despite a huge degree of support from ordinary people for the protesting prisoners, they ultimately could not shift the governments, highlighting the need for republicans to organise properly to obtain political power and electoral influence to ensure that never again could such a significant section of the community be ignored or villified.

Duffy paid tribute to all those who had contributed to the anti-H-Block protests in the past. "The genesis of the current peace process emerged from the 1976-81 period," he said. "It is important that this connection is recognised, and that the important role of Monaghan republicans in this process is celebrated."