1940 Hunger Strike

First published in
An Phoblacht/Republican News,
Thursday, 23 February 1995

Over the years, many hunger strikes embarked on by republican POWs have ended in  the deaths of some of the participants. The fast which began in Mountjoy Jail  in  February 1940 was no exception.

In the previous 30 years, since James Connolly, the executed 1916 leader, embarked on the first hunger strike in September 1913, a number of fasts have taken place in both Irish and English prisons for various demands.

The fatalities from hunger strikes during this period have included Thomas Ashe in September 1917 in Mountjoy Jail, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, in October 1920 in Brixton Prison, England, and only 17 years earlier in Kilmainham Jail, towards the end of the Civil War, three young Volunteers, Andy Sullivan, Joseph Whitty and Denis Barry.

Mindful of the dire consequences of going on hunger strike, the Volunteers in Mountjoy Jail in the spring of 1940, who were being denied political status, embarked on a hunger strike in support of the demands to be treated as political prisoners, free association for all prisoners and to have two prisoners transferred to military custody.

In late February 1940, in an attempt to bring about a change, the six-prisoner command of ‘D’ Wing in Mountjoy Jail, Seán 'Jack' McNeela, Tony D’Arcy, Michael Traynor, Jack Plunkett, Tomas MacCurtain and Thomas Grogan embarked on a hunger strike with the understanding that they would continue to the end and then be replaced by six more Volunteers.

On 1 March, McNeela and Plunkett, both arrested during the swoops which followed the raid by the IRA on the Magazine Fort in Dublin’s Phoenix Park on 23 December 1939, were sentenced to two years and 18 months respectively on a charge of  “conspiring to usurp the function of government” by operating a ‘pirate’ radio transmitter. On 5 March, D’Arcy and Traynor, both arrested during a raid on the Meath Hotel, Parnell Square, Dublin, the previous month, where an IRA meeting was being held to plan an attack on the North, were sentenced to three months imprisonment for refusing to answer questions.

After being sentenced, the four were transferred to Arbour Hill Prison and on 27 March were moved to St Brican’s Military Hospital next to the prison. They were joined there on 1 April by MacCurtain and Grogan, both of whom were still awaiting trial. (MacCurtain was charged with shooting dead a Special Branch detective in Cork and Grogan with taking part in the Magazine Fort raid.)

On 16 April, Tony D’Arcy, a native of Headford, County Galway, died after 52 days on hunger strike to be followed three days later by Jack McNeela, a native of Ballycroy, Westport, County Mayo, after 55 days on hunger strike. The fast ended that night when the prisoners were informed that their demands had been met.

A hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail, Dublin, which resulted in the deaths of two Volunteers, Tony D’Arcy and Jack McNeela, began on 25 February, 1940, 85 years ago this week.