1980 Hunger Striker Leo Green: 'We hadn't just not lost - we had won'

TODAY, October 27th, marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the 1980 Hunger Strike by republican prisoners in Long Kesh, who were later joined on the strike by women in Armagh Jail.

Lurgan man Leo Green went without food for 53 days during the 1980 Hunger Strike. He is currently working as part of Sinn Féin's Assembly support team at Stormont.

Leo was arrested in 1977 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent over 17 years in prison.

Three of his brothers spent time in prison, two in the North and the other in the 26 Counties. One of them, John Francis, was interned, escaped in 1973 and was later assassinated by loyalists working in collusion with the SAS in a farmhouse just across the border in County Monaghan.

I can remember so much from that period: the day-in, day-out routine of the protest, the brutality, mirror searching, wing shifts and the screws. The better memories, however, are about the comradeship and the many friendships which began there and have endured.

I remember the intervention by Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and how this lifted the mood and created a degree of optimism for a short period about a resolution but which eventually came to nothing.

That hundreds of prisoners endured such confinement, conditions and brutality over a protracted period is always worth thinking about before you come round to thinking about what happened next. It sets the context and to some degree explains the rationale behind the decision to go on hunger strike.

Leo explained that on a personal level his biggest concern personal level was about how his mother and father would take the news that he had volunteered to go on hunger strike.

I knew they would be supportive but I was particularly worried about the impact my decision would have on my father who had a history of stroke-related illness.

Coming up to the 30th anniversary there's a natural focus on the Hunger Strike but the story of the prison struggle was about much more than that. It's a story about hundreds of prisoners in both Armagh and Long Kesh and a story of thousands of relatives and activists on the outside.

As it turned out, within days of hearing I would be on the hunger strike he did take another serious stroke. His health went rapidly into decline thereafter and he died a few years later.

H Block comrades

Leo was 24 when he was arrested.

I hadn't been in prison previously other than visiting two of my brothers, one of whom spent some time in the Cages. The other had been in Portlaoise.

The Blanket protest had begun before I was arrested. It began in 1976. I was arrested in 1977, spent just over a year in the Crum (Crumlin Road jail) and then when sentenced in 1978 I was moved to H3 in the H-Blocks.

Leo went on to H3 when he entered the H Blocks.

After about a month, our wing was moved to H4. There were quite a few from Belfast on the blanket. On the wing I was on there was a big number from north Belfast including Larry Marley, Bik McFarlane and Rab McCallum. Those from the west of the city included Pat McGeown, Robert McClenaghan, John Pickering, Frankie McDonald, John Gough, Rab Collins, Matt Lundy and Kieran Doherty.

Peadar Cunningham from Short Strand was also there. And there were many others in the other wings in that same block. I'd have to give a special mention to Kieran Nugent. I'm really glad his picture is up on the mural wall at the bottom of the Falls Road.

I laugh to myself sometimes when I think of all these super strategists the Brits had who put together their criminalisation policy - and along comes Kieran Nugent and tells them what to do with their prison uniform. I can imagine his language and I'm very sure he said a bit more than 'you'll have to nail it to my back'.

In all the years I spent in prison I'd say Larry Marley was probably the most memorable all-round character I met. He was heart and soul a republican, down-to-earth, totally committed – a leader. Stories about his endless scheming and his association with escapes would fill a book."

Five years of brutality

Leo said the decision to begin a hunger strike was only taken after almost five years of the blanket protest by prisoners in the H-Blocks and in Armagh.

Those were five years of brutality, confinement, terrible conditions, for hundreds of prisoners. Hundreds of support demonstrations took place on the outside including a significant international focus on what was happening in the prisons. And all of this had not brought sufficient pressure for a resolution.

Throughout this period a hunger strike was viewed as a tactic of last resort. I suppose it was always there at the back of everyone's mind.

And while I didn't think of it like this at the time, with each passing year of protest, with each wave of brutality from the prison administration, and with each deterioration in conditions, the prospect of hunger strike was increasing all the while.

The decision to escalate the protest to a hunger strike was made in the prison and by the prisoners and against all the advice from outside. It wasn't taken lightly. It was only taken when it was felt we had exhausted all other forms of protest and when we had witnessed a number of interventions on the outside coming to nothing.

Hunger strike

The hunger strike began on October 27th 1980. Leo was on hunger strike for 53 days.

I spent the early few days in the wing in H4. All the hunger strikers were then moved to a wing in H3, which was converted into a sort of hospital wing. After a few weeks there we were moved to the prison hospital.

When the first Hunger Strike ended I was relieved that no one had died. I really thought that it meant the end of the protests and a resolution. I wasn't surprised to learn about the initial messing about by the jail administration but I thought that was to be expected and that it would pass.

Gradually it began to sink in that the Brits had no intention of working to a solution that they had sought only to defuse the growing support for the prisoners' demands.

This realisation was quite depressing, particularly as I knew it might mean another Hunger Strike. I knew also that the prospect that someone might die on hunger strike would now be significantly higher.

But the determination to go for a second hunger strike was high. I realised that immediately when we moved back on to the protest wings from the prison hospital.

All the ingredients that had made the hunger strike inevitable in the first instance were still there – the intransigence of the Brits, the attitude of the screws and the determination of the prisoners not to be broken.

Dozens had volunteered to go on hunger strike. And this remained the case even after each death during the 1981 strike.

I thought the right decision was made to end it when it did eventually end. And although we had lost 10 comrades and friends I knew we hadn't lost. We all knew we hadn't lost.

High spirits

Leo explained that there was a lot of humour and craic in the blocks.

There was a lot of humour there. I mentioned Larry Marley earlier. Apart from all the other things I said about him he was also a very funny character. Many a night he kept the whole wing entertained with funny stories about his life outside and up in the cages, particularly the wind-ups he was in the middle of.

When the forced baths started there was a lot of tension about the wing. We knew it was going to happen, so we were alert to every noise from the top of the wing. For a number of days every time some screw or blanket orderly turned a water tap on there was a message sent down the pipes that the forced bathing was about to start.

Forced bathing meant about a half dozen screws dragging and kicking you from the cell to the bath and then scrub you with scrubbing brushes. Waiting for this to happen and listening to it happen to others turned out to be much worse than it actually was.

But I remember Bik McFarlane giving off one night out the door that someone had passed a message down the pipes that morning that the screws had been heard to say, 'Let's start now and get MacFarlane out first.'

All day he waited and every time he heard a noise he thought: this was it, they were coming for him. Bik was quite angry and wanted to know who had sent the message. We never found out but I'd guess Larry might have had a lot to do with it. In any case the rest of us got a great laugh out of it.

Huge progress

Leo reflected on the huge changes in the political situation that have taken place over the past decades.

It was certainly bit strange coming to work here in Stormont initially. And presumably it was the same for other Sinn Féin people who had experienced imprisonment.

Some of the people we've had to work with here were knocking about the NIO during the height of the prison protests. And some of the staff who now work at Stormont are former prison officers who we knew in jail. I'm guessing at this but whereas we would have found it a bit surreal, I'd say some of them found it more uncomfortable than we did.

The fact that many former republican prisoners are working in the middle of our political project both at Stormont and elsewhere is in itself a validation of the stand taken many years ago by republicans against the attempts to criminalise us, our politics and our struggle.

I'm sure some of those who worked in the prisons and took diligently to the task of trying to break the prisoners as part of an attempt to criminalise republicans must look back with a sense of bewilderment when they see so many ex-prisoners up there as elected political representatives and at the heart of politics and driving political change - the likes of Jennifer McCann, Gerry Kelly, Gerry Adams, Carál Ní Chuilín, Raymond McCartney, Martin McGuinness, Conor Murphy, Alex Maskey and Paul Butler.

Some of these former prison officers might even feel shame. I'm sure they're not boasting to their grandchildren about their role in the prison struggle anyway.

The situation in the North has changed enormously and it continues to change. Change never comes easy or quickly enough. But there is no doubt it is happening. The Orange state as we knew and experienced it has gone.

There are those, of course, who cling to the idea of a return to unionist majority rule. But that clearly is never going to happen again. Power-sharing government is in place including all-Ireland architecture in the All-Ireland Ministerial Council.

Policing and justice powers have been transferred from London on to the island of Ireland. The unionist militia is a thing of the past.

The struggle goes on

This is not to say that everything is okay – far from it. Much more change is needed. But change has to be worked at; it doesn't happen of its own accord and it doesn't always come in the form we would like.

There remains a lot to do on the equality front and in promoting the all-Ireland agenda. But the opportunity to do it is clearly there when it wasn't before. And that is perhaps the biggest single change.

Changing political conditions created the opportunity to progress and to achieve our objectives through politics alone. Republicans took up this challenge and are working at it. The opportunities are there but they need to be worked at.

Irish reunification won't come about by wishing for it or by simply demanding it. It will only be achieved if we work for it.

We have made significant progress and we are, I believe, much closer to our goals than we were 10 or 15 years ago. There are many thousands more republicans in Ireland today than 15 years ago. There are many thousands more who understand and are supportive of our political objectives and our strategy. But there still aren't enough.

Building political strength North and South lies at the core of the republican strategy. We have some distance to travel yet in this respect. But we are making progress and we need to keep at it.

Futile militarism

Leo commented on the actions and character of militarist micro-groups on the fringes of republicanism.

The micro-groups are going nowhere. And I'm not even sure they have a desire to go anywhere. From what I know about their activities they are heavily steeped in criminality to the point that any politics that a small few within them may espouse has become totally irrelevant to their actions.

There is no place for criminality in the pursuit of a republican agenda. Nor is there any place for adventurism or ego-driven escapades. They don't have a strategy. Their actions defy logic.

I'm sure that when you strip away the rhetoric and look closely at those individuals who were formally involved in the republican struggle and try to understand why they are now associated with micro-groups you'll find an axe to grind or an ego out of control or a personal interest.

You certainly won't find a credible alternative to what Sinn Féin is doing. These groups are not well received in the republican or nationalist community. And clearly there are big questions about the agenda some of them are pursuing and who exactly is behind it.

The next generation

I think teaching our history is very important. Politics and political struggles are battles for hearts and minds. What the Brits tried to do 30 years ago was to win the battle for hearts and minds.

They sought to invalidate republican objectives by criminalising the republican struggle. Republican prisoners and the prisons, both Armagh and the H-Blocks, became a primary focus for their efforts in this respect. Essentially that was the context within which the prison protests in both prisons and the Hunger Strikes arose.

It is important that young people know about these events and it is equally important that they learn about them from republicans. The battles for hearts and minds will continue as long as we remain in political struggle.

And, of course, it would be a big mistake to think that we can generate support among young people for republican objectives by simply revisiting the prison struggle. Young people will ultimately make their judgment on the republican vision on its relevance to their needs and to their future. And rightly so.

Resilience

Leo said that the key lesson learned by republicans during the period of the Hunger Strikes was that "to get what you want politically you have to be determined, resilient and have an ability to adapt".

Goals are not achieved by simply making demands. You need strategies to achieve goals. And you need to be seeking continually to change political conditions in ways that move political opponents.

You won't always move them to the point where you want them to go but at least to a point away from the status quo. Moving those opposed to change away from or beyond the status quo is progress.

If you keep this process going then more progress can be made. The same situation that confronted the prisoners at the end of each of the Hunger Strikes has been played out time and again since in the political negotiations.

It's one job of work getting the Brits to make commitments and it's another job of work to get them to follow through on these agreements. We've had many examples of this over the years. And there will be more.

But what brings delivery is building political pressure. What brings delivery is resilience, determination and hard work. On the day the second Hunger Strike ended we knew we hadn't lost.

We had secured the key demand on the right to wear our own clothes. That opened up a space within the prisons to make further progress. And, within a short space of time, the rest of the five demands followed.

The price was enormous. But we hadn't just not lost – we had won.