Meath Live interviews Anthony McIntyre.

Tomorrow, July 13th. sees the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Hurson on the 46th day of his hunger strike in the H blocks of Long Kesh.

The Tyrone man was one of ten IRA and INLA volunteers to die in that horrific period.

Drogheda resident Anthony McIntyre was in the H blocks at that time and sat down to recall events with Meath Live.

He told us that by the time of the hunger strikes in 1981 in some ways the worst had passed:

The enduring strategy that manifested itself in every minute of the day was deprivation. No books, radios, games, newspapers, or televisions.
The greatest challenge for the prisoners was to overcome the boredom. On top of that was the daily violence or threat of violence. I don’t recall a day passing in 78-79 where there was not a report of someone being assaulted. It eased up a lot in 1980. By the time of the hunger strike in 1981 there was virtually no prison staff violence being employed.

McIntyre was imprisoned for 18 years in Long Kesh. He spent 4 of those years on the no-wash or blanket protest, this was a 5-year protest set up by IRA and INLA prisoners. They viewed themselves as political prisoners, although former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and the British government disagreed.

They refused to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts and therefore covered themselves with blankets. The blanket protest escalated into a “dirty protest” as the prisoners were unable to empty their chamber pots so they resorted to smearing excrement on the walls of their cells.

Life after the blanket protest was equally mundane:

I spent it reading, studying for a degree, soccer (supporting and playing), there was a great sense of bonding that arises from the conscious culture of political resistance.

While he may advocate more peaceful ways now McIntyre still rails against injustice when he believes it exists and is no fan of the Special Criminal Court system:

I don't like them, I think they constitute a major threat to justice. The state will often find reasons to introduce more draconian measures but I tend to find those arguments less than convincing. Trial by jury was always considered a bulwark of a democratic system and I think it unwise to cede it to politicians at the behest of the police.

McIntyre has been a critic of Sinn Féin for some time, and claims he is not surprised that they appear to have changed their position on the Special Criminal Courts: 

I am not surprised. SF will alter its position in order to obtain office. It sees the SCC as a vote winner and as a party it is not going to risk votes for principle.

Recently, it was revealed that former British Army Parachute Regiment soldier, Soldier F, who was charged with the murders of two men and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday 1972, would not stand trial. This has been deeply upsetting for many who have been fighting for justice for years.

However, while McIntyre can’t forgive the actions of the army that day he told us: 

I don’t see what was to be gained by prosecuting him. If the war is over why the insistence on taking prisoners? I think he is a psychopathic thug like his colleagues but I believe that any prosecution was bound to fail and that the British would have trumpeted the verdict as evidence that their troops were not guilty of murder on Bloody Sunday.
I think the desire to prosecute risked attenuating the very widespread view post Saville that the state had been guilty of mass murder. I fail to see how having written into the record a judicial verdict of not guilty was ever to the benefit of the relatives and those who want the truth to prevail. The truth has long since been won.

Finally moving away from all the tragic topics, we asked McIntyre what he is up to these days: 

I blog at The Pensive Quill (TPQ), which is a free inquiry site rather than a republican one. It features unionist columnists on a weekly basis. I am a member of Atheist Ireland and the Humanist Association of Ireland and I aim to write more about and campaign on behalf of Voluntary Assisted Dying. I am an ardent secularist and want to see religion kept well away from the public square.

 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

The Big Interview ➖ Anthony McIntyre


Meath Live interviews Anthony McIntyre.

Tomorrow, July 13th. sees the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Hurson on the 46th day of his hunger strike in the H blocks of Long Kesh.

The Tyrone man was one of ten IRA and INLA volunteers to die in that horrific period.

Drogheda resident Anthony McIntyre was in the H blocks at that time and sat down to recall events with Meath Live.

He told us that by the time of the hunger strikes in 1981 in some ways the worst had passed:

The enduring strategy that manifested itself in every minute of the day was deprivation. No books, radios, games, newspapers, or televisions.
The greatest challenge for the prisoners was to overcome the boredom. On top of that was the daily violence or threat of violence. I don’t recall a day passing in 78-79 where there was not a report of someone being assaulted. It eased up a lot in 1980. By the time of the hunger strike in 1981 there was virtually no prison staff violence being employed.

McIntyre was imprisoned for 18 years in Long Kesh. He spent 4 of those years on the no-wash or blanket protest, this was a 5-year protest set up by IRA and INLA prisoners. They viewed themselves as political prisoners, although former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and the British government disagreed.

They refused to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts and therefore covered themselves with blankets. The blanket protest escalated into a “dirty protest” as the prisoners were unable to empty their chamber pots so they resorted to smearing excrement on the walls of their cells.

Life after the blanket protest was equally mundane:

I spent it reading, studying for a degree, soccer (supporting and playing), there was a great sense of bonding that arises from the conscious culture of political resistance.

While he may advocate more peaceful ways now McIntyre still rails against injustice when he believes it exists and is no fan of the Special Criminal Court system:

I don't like them, I think they constitute a major threat to justice. The state will often find reasons to introduce more draconian measures but I tend to find those arguments less than convincing. Trial by jury was always considered a bulwark of a democratic system and I think it unwise to cede it to politicians at the behest of the police.

McIntyre has been a critic of Sinn Féin for some time, and claims he is not surprised that they appear to have changed their position on the Special Criminal Courts: 

I am not surprised. SF will alter its position in order to obtain office. It sees the SCC as a vote winner and as a party it is not going to risk votes for principle.

Recently, it was revealed that former British Army Parachute Regiment soldier, Soldier F, who was charged with the murders of two men and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday 1972, would not stand trial. This has been deeply upsetting for many who have been fighting for justice for years.

However, while McIntyre can’t forgive the actions of the army that day he told us: 

I don’t see what was to be gained by prosecuting him. If the war is over why the insistence on taking prisoners? I think he is a psychopathic thug like his colleagues but I believe that any prosecution was bound to fail and that the British would have trumpeted the verdict as evidence that their troops were not guilty of murder on Bloody Sunday.
I think the desire to prosecute risked attenuating the very widespread view post Saville that the state had been guilty of mass murder. I fail to see how having written into the record a judicial verdict of not guilty was ever to the benefit of the relatives and those who want the truth to prevail. The truth has long since been won.

Finally moving away from all the tragic topics, we asked McIntyre what he is up to these days: 

I blog at The Pensive Quill (TPQ), which is a free inquiry site rather than a republican one. It features unionist columnists on a weekly basis. I am a member of Atheist Ireland and the Humanist Association of Ireland and I aim to write more about and campaign on behalf of Voluntary Assisted Dying. I am an ardent secularist and want to see religion kept well away from the public square.

 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

14 comments:

  1. Anthony-Ever since seeing that brutal opening scene from the film Hunger I've often wondered about the screws who brutalized blanket men and what happened to them after the protest. Did you come across any after the demands were met and the prison had returned to a relatively normal situation? If so was it awkward, any apologies or regrets from them? Ever bump into any on the outside after 92?

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  2. They would come on the wings at different points. On occasion some of them would have been in charge of the wing but the dynamics had changed. A couple of really bad ones were not allowed back on by the prisoners. Those that came on did what they had to do and were let get on with it. One in particular who ran a wing turned out to be really easy to deal with. The attitude in general seemed to be that it was something that happened and it was best left there, even when we spoke to them about it. We gave then no hassle and they gave us none. By that point they had no attitude and neither did we. I listened to Jake Jackson talk recently about it in a very good podcast. His attitude was that it was brutal but we were shooting them on the outside and for that reason he had no interest in taking part in campaigns that would lead to prosecutions for any of them. I thought he made the point every well and it summed up my own perspective. I bumped into a couple of them after release but nothing said.

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    1. Just listened to that podcast. Found the account of the scaldings that the prisoners were subjected to horrific. In any context power can always corrupt and dehumanise subject and holder.

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    2. Jake describes it very well. The scalding happened on our wing as well to Brendy McClenaghan. It was a violent place to be - not that there was violence all day every day - but the threat of it was always there and on most days something happened to somebody. The wing could palpably relax at night once the jail closed down. H3 was the most violent where there was a sustained assault to break younger prisoners. They held out remarkably. Pat Kerr was in charge of H3 when the violence was at its height.

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  3. @ AM - do you have the podcast name to hand? I'd like to listen to that.

    I read an interview with a former screw (possibly in one of Colin Crawford's books, I can't recall correctly) who openly acknowledged the brutality, saying that he himself took no part in it and had good relationships with many republican prisoners. He said he felt confident he could go for a pint in a republican area if prisoners he dealt with saw him.

    I think it was the same screw who said he deeply resented the abusive ones because of what they were doing, and that it made guards as a bloc less safe and open to attack.

    Living in a prison institution governed and operated by a group of people who were under lethal attack by comrades of the prisoners - a more psychologically tense and dramatic scenario can scarcely be imagined.

    I asked Laurence McKeown the same question as Ryan did at a screening of Hunter, and he pretty much said the same thing - he said prisoners told some governors that certain screws "safety could not be guaranteed" on IRA wings.

    I've noticed Paddy Joe Kerr being mentioned on this blog a few times. His killing seems something of an anomaly: happening in 1985, a number of years following the hunger strikes.

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    1. Yes, Laurence is right. That is how it happened.

      Pat Kerr might have been an attempt to push back a reassertion of Prison staff authority. Brian Armour 3 years later seemed as such. I am not sure either would have been targetted were it not for their form during the protest years.

      Pat Kerr allegedly got himself into a bit of bother over brutality against the loyalists in the closing months of 82. According to the grapevine he had been pulled over the coals by the NIO for it and is reported to have made the point it was ok to use brutality against republican prisoners on NIO orders but a different matter when it came to loyalists.
      Now they are both dead and no one will get to hear their side of the thing.
      A friend wrote to me this morning saying that he felt the brutality continued during the hunger strike. I recollect none of it where we were.

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  4. thanks, fascinating. Trying to understand the mentality of people who can give their kids breakfast, kiss the wife goodbye and head to work for a shift of beating defenseless naked prisoners always boggled my mind.

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    1. I think it is easy done once it becomes routinised. I am of the view that the ordinary men of Police Battalion 101 live within us and that given the wrong circumstances most of us can be brought to do just about anything.

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  5. Brandon-Freddie Toal in this article alleges Kerr was killed because he had the power to stop the abuse but never did. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/oct/19/northernireland
    AM-I remembered Seamus Finucane compared Armour to Reinhard Heydrich and Josef Mengele in Toolis's book Rebel Hearts. Just looked it up now page 138 calls him "an animal". Probably had something to do with the IRA taking him out so many years after the protest.


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    1. Brian Armour certainly brought himself to their attention through his behaviour during the protest. I am not sure that was foremost amongst their reasons by 1988. It would have meant that there was nobody prepared to make a case to prevent his fate. Seamus is one of those who had good reason to view him in a very negative light. While comparisons to Heydrich and Mengele are wide off the mark, we had a view at the time that some of them were sadistic enough to fit the bill.

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  6. Alex McCrory comments

    Enjoyed reading your interview on TPQ.

    It is true that by the time of the second hunger strike the beatings had eased off? I think the decision to curtail the beatings was a change brought about by weariness felt by the screws that after years of deploying violence against the prisoners, a hunger strike would ultimately settle the matter. They knew that whenever a prisoner chooses death over life then system has lost the battle.

    The war of attrition against the screws outside also had a serious impact on their morale over time.

    Living under a constant threat stretched them to the limits. The long-term pressure of working in abnormal conditions, as well as, the constant fear of being killed, manifested in a culture of alcoholism and violent abuse.

    Ours was the last wing to face beatings after or in between the hunger strikes. We were being moved from H-4 because the showers were out of commission after years of non-use during the protest. As part of the move to another Block, the screws insisted that we carry our cell cards, for what reason I can not fathom. Of course, we were ordered by our own staff not to comply with the order as it was deemed to be unnecessarily provocative.

    I thought at the time that someone was wanting a last chance to punish us for years of resistance. What happened was an act of gratuitous violence inflicted on an entire wing of some 30 men.

    Several of the prisoners sustained minor injuries, one being hospitalised. His testicle was kicked up into his groin and surgery was required to rectify the problem. I believe he lost a it later. Died of cancer in his 50s like many others. Almost every man was assaulted on that occasion. It was relief to reach the new wing where there was no further attacks.

    I not disagreeing with you. However, most of our wing was beaten during a move to another Block for washing and shaving, so it must have been between hunger strikes. Owen O’Boyle was the guy that got the kick in the balls. He was in agony for days. The assaults made no sense other than a final act of retribution.

    I think attrition also had its effects on the screws over time. The hunger strikes lifted it to anew level, in which case, the screws became mere spectators of something beyond their comprehension or control.

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    1. I just can't remember that. It was not in our block. We were in H6 then and you were in 4.

      There was very little violence in 6 by the end of 80 start of 81. The usual hassle like having to stand all day freezing in December after a wing shift wearing only a paper thin towel but that was the exception rather than the rule.

      I think the violence declined with the onset of the O'Fiaich talks. It never went away but there was much less of it. Certainly in 4. By the time we had ended the no wash it had virtually ceased. That incident you described would have occurred on the day you transferred to a clean wing and away from the no wash wing.

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  7. I'd agree on that Anthony. Every man has a wild beast within him as Frederick the Great once said. A large contingent of the Maze prison officers of the late 70's/early 80's proved his point I guess.

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