Anthony McIntyre ⚑ I only ever knew Bubbles, who died last May, on the blanket, where I shared the same wing with him for a few years.

Kieran Bubbles McKeown

I had never met him before descending into H4 nor seen him after it. Moreover, I only ever knew him as Bubbles McKeown. Had I been asked his first name I would have been stuck for an answer. Were somebody to have said to me that Kieran McKeown was on the same wing as me during the protest I would have said it must have been some other wing he was on.

Prior to Bubbles joining the blanket protest his fourteen year old sister Geraldine was shot dead by a loyalist death squad who knocked on the family door in North Belfast's Mountainview and fired at the child when she peered through the window. 

Bubbles was one of a coterie of Ardoyne men on the blanket protest. In numerical terms, Ardoyne was represented on our wing in H4 to a greater degree than other communities. Names like Jimmy Conway, Barney McKenna, Harry McKavanagh, Jack McGarry, Brendy McClarnon, Paddy Lawlor, Tom Martin, still resonate more than four decades after that protest ended. That is a large concentration of men from the same locality on a wing where the maximum held, two to a cell, was around forty six. Seamus Kearney from Lenadoon who was also on the same wing with Bubbles, detailed the years of brutality, deprivation and resistance in his haunting memoir No Greater Love. Everything bad described in that book happened to Bubbles. 

Short, squat and most unusual for someone undergoing that rigorous regime, Bubbles was overweight. It must have been a metabolic issue as it certainly was not due to being overfed. However, he used his weight to great advantage and his fellow blanketmen loved him for it.

There was a process known as appeal visits whereby a prisoner who had lodged an appeal against his sentence or conviction could get a 15 minute visit each day. I had never heard of it while in the cages but necessity being the parent of both invention and discovery, if there was something useful that could be unearthed, the blanketmen would dig it out. If anything was discussed with the visitor other than the appeal, the escorting screw would jump in and stop the visit. Not all screws did but there were enough of them to make the visits a lottery. Some people merely got to ask their mother how she was and were told visit over. The blanketmen were of course adept at using legalese – while the screws were too thick to understand it – to disguise conversation that was not related to the appeal but it didn’t always work. On occasion, when only the appeal was discussed, the visit would still be terminated. I often wondered if the more vindictive screws read the Old Testament every morning to absorb enough hate to last them through the working day. 

Venturing outside the cell during the blanket always put a prisoner in the line of enemy fire. The greater portion of the brutality took place on the landings rather than in the cells. Nevertheless, throughout 1978 Bubbles would run the gauntlet on a daily basis. On his way to and from the visit he would be forced to stand naked while the screws carried out a search, which in February 1979 became the mirror search. Often we would hear him being kicked or punched in Cell 26 - the punishment cell - on his return. Every day Bubbles would make his way back to the wing with a clingfilm wrapped toitin bairt (tobacco parcel). His ingenuity lay in his ability to conceal it in his navel, hidden by a fold of flesh. Many a smoker's time in the desolate wings of the H Blocks was made a lot more endurable by the efforts of Bubbles. When smokers had troubles, they could rely on Bubbles, and Bubbles would smoke all their troubles away. The song doesn't go exactly like that but close enough.

I never heard of Bubbles again after the protest, It matters not. For when a blanket man goes to sleep for the last time we who remain are instinctively awakened to a grim certainty. One where another thread has been pulled from the tapestry that weaved us all together in one large blanket of resistance for a few short years that seemed so very long. 

No more troubles, Bubbles. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Kieran McKeown

Anthony McIntyre ⚑ I only ever knew Bubbles, who died last May, on the blanket, where I shared the same wing with him for a few years.

Kieran Bubbles McKeown

I had never met him before descending into H4 nor seen him after it. Moreover, I only ever knew him as Bubbles McKeown. Had I been asked his first name I would have been stuck for an answer. Were somebody to have said to me that Kieran McKeown was on the same wing as me during the protest I would have said it must have been some other wing he was on.

Prior to Bubbles joining the blanket protest his fourteen year old sister Geraldine was shot dead by a loyalist death squad who knocked on the family door in North Belfast's Mountainview and fired at the child when she peered through the window. 

Bubbles was one of a coterie of Ardoyne men on the blanket protest. In numerical terms, Ardoyne was represented on our wing in H4 to a greater degree than other communities. Names like Jimmy Conway, Barney McKenna, Harry McKavanagh, Jack McGarry, Brendy McClarnon, Paddy Lawlor, Tom Martin, still resonate more than four decades after that protest ended. That is a large concentration of men from the same locality on a wing where the maximum held, two to a cell, was around forty six. Seamus Kearney from Lenadoon who was also on the same wing with Bubbles, detailed the years of brutality, deprivation and resistance in his haunting memoir No Greater Love. Everything bad described in that book happened to Bubbles. 

Short, squat and most unusual for someone undergoing that rigorous regime, Bubbles was overweight. It must have been a metabolic issue as it certainly was not due to being overfed. However, he used his weight to great advantage and his fellow blanketmen loved him for it.

There was a process known as appeal visits whereby a prisoner who had lodged an appeal against his sentence or conviction could get a 15 minute visit each day. I had never heard of it while in the cages but necessity being the parent of both invention and discovery, if there was something useful that could be unearthed, the blanketmen would dig it out. If anything was discussed with the visitor other than the appeal, the escorting screw would jump in and stop the visit. Not all screws did but there were enough of them to make the visits a lottery. Some people merely got to ask their mother how she was and were told visit over. The blanketmen were of course adept at using legalese – while the screws were too thick to understand it – to disguise conversation that was not related to the appeal but it didn’t always work. On occasion, when only the appeal was discussed, the visit would still be terminated. I often wondered if the more vindictive screws read the Old Testament every morning to absorb enough hate to last them through the working day. 

Venturing outside the cell during the blanket always put a prisoner in the line of enemy fire. The greater portion of the brutality took place on the landings rather than in the cells. Nevertheless, throughout 1978 Bubbles would run the gauntlet on a daily basis. On his way to and from the visit he would be forced to stand naked while the screws carried out a search, which in February 1979 became the mirror search. Often we would hear him being kicked or punched in Cell 26 - the punishment cell - on his return. Every day Bubbles would make his way back to the wing with a clingfilm wrapped toitin bairt (tobacco parcel). His ingenuity lay in his ability to conceal it in his navel, hidden by a fold of flesh. Many a smoker's time in the desolate wings of the H Blocks was made a lot more endurable by the efforts of Bubbles. When smokers had troubles, they could rely on Bubbles, and Bubbles would smoke all their troubles away. The song doesn't go exactly like that but close enough.

I never heard of Bubbles again after the protest, It matters not. For when a blanket man goes to sleep for the last time we who remain are instinctively awakened to a grim certainty. One where another thread has been pulled from the tapestry that weaved us all together in one large blanket of resistance for a few short years that seemed so very long. 

No more troubles, Bubbles. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

3 comments:

  1. He and so many of you suffered horrendous brutality, Anthony

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He did, Barry. I attended a conference about imprisonment in Edinburgh years ago where I raised the issue of prison staff violence and a former governor in a Scottish prison said from the panel that a prisoner once said to him that the only difference between us is that your gang is bigger than mine.

      Delete
  2. Nor were those mentioned the only Ardoyne men on the wing. There were others like Brendy McClenaghan, Fergal McGuigan and Frank Goodall. That is a huge team from the one small district. Nor were they just on our wing or block.

    ReplyDelete