Taken to a secret interrogation centre in the North, the men were subjected by British forces to the ‘five techniques’
On this, the 55th anniversary of Internment (August 9, 1971), the names of 14 internees, out of the 342 people arrested and detained that day, are particularly significant.
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| Derry's Micky Donnelly One of the 14 'Hooded Men' tortured during Internment - Reporter |
Taken to a secret interrogation centre in the North, the men were subjected by British forces to the “five techniques” - a group of interrogation methods developed by Britain during the twentieth century and currently regarded as a form of torture.
The “five techniques” were: hooding, stress positions, continuous white noise, sleep deprivation, and food/water deprivation—alongside severe physical beatings. The 14 were also thrown to the ground from low-flying helicopters.
Speaking to The Derry News about being one of the ‘Hooded Men’ Michael Donnelly, who lived in the William Street area of the city at the time, said he never thought the British Government would introduce Internment. “I thought it would be a big mistake,” he added.
Recalling the morning of Internment, Mr Donnelly, who was 22 and married with one child at the time, said:
I heard a bang and as I was getting out of bed the room filled with soldiers. There must have been six or seven and they were all crammed in.So I was taken away and there was a corporal, he was very enthusiastic, he started throwing punches at me. I was taken in a landrover down to Victoria Barracks and held there for a while.
I just remember it was dawn. It was quite cold. I was wearing a tee-shirt and trousers.
There was nobody else there, then they brought in Micky McNutt. We were held there for a while. There was a lot of activity - landrovers and saracens going in and out of the barracks.
I had a soldier standing in front of me with a rifle and the sergeant major said, ‘If he moves, shoot him. You have my permission to shoot him.
After what he thought was half an hour, Mr Donnelly was put in the back of an army lorry. Mr Donnelly, who was taken to Sea Eagle at Ebrington Barracks in the Waterside said:
A whole pile of soldiers came in and threw me on the floor and they all cocked their rifles and started jabbing me and Micky McNutt. There were six or seven rifles all pointing at us, stuck into us, jabbing us said
He added\:
I remember them saying, ‘You better hope we don’t go over a bump.In there there was a whole pile of people and they all stood in a line outside. I remember Barney Gilmore being brought in. He was an elderly man. They held him in the back of a landrover while they drove about raiding and they fired a rubber bullet into his stomach at point-blank range.
Myself and Joe McGlinchey, they threw Barney Gilmore down at our feet, so we went to help him and both of us were hit with rifle butts. Eventually they dragged Barney away and he went to Altnagelvin. Apparently he had a serious operation and his health wasn’t great for then on.
We went into Ebrington Barracks. There was a big, long line. There were Brits all around with batons and rifles. We went down into this portacabin and there were two Special Branch men sitting, and there was an army blanket with a slit in it hanging up.
Mr Donnelly, who finished up in the back of a furniture removal van, with “a dozen or two dozen others” and was driven to Magilligan, said:
We marched in and the Special Branch man spoke to the blanket. ‘What about this one?’ he asked, and whoever was behind the blanket disguised his voice and said ‘Yes’. The Branch man turned to the Brits and said, ‘Take him out. We're keeping him.’
At this stage, Mr Donnelly had still received nothing to eat or drink. He recalled:
They started taking people down and questioning them. You were marched down to another hut, between policemen, and they said, ‘We’ll make you an offer. Tell us what you know. You are going to jail but tell us what you know. If you tell us a little, you’ll be in jail for a long time but if you tell us a lot, you’ll not be too long’. “I said, ‘You’ve the wrong man’ so they marched me back up again but I still think to this day there was somebody giving them information.
Gradually people started going away and the numbers in the huts were getting smaller and I finished up in a hut on my own. At roughly nine o’clock at night, I was taken out and put in another hut with Paddy Joe McLean, Pat Shivers and Mickey Montgomery.
The Brits started battering the hut with their batons and shouting in and telling us what they were going to do to us. As the night went on we didn't get any sleep and we still hadn’t got anything to eat or drink.
Mr Donnelly added:
Paddy Joe McClean said ‘Boys, I think they’ve separated us for something special, you better prepare yourselves. This went on till three or four in the morning, . . . then we could hear helicopters starting up outside.
“I was then dragged over rough ground into a hut with the hood still over my head,” Mr Donnelly said said who added he saw a doctor and an orderly when his hood was accidentally pulled up a little.
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| Michael Donnelly's wife Martina immortalised in a poster for Derry's annual radical bookfair from an old black and white photograph. | Submitted |
RUC Chief Inspector Singleton called a Constable Hood and he came down behind me and pulled a hood over my head and started punching me. I was handcuffed behind my back and dragged out and dumped into a helicopter and somebody was dumped on top of me.
I could feel the wind because the door was open. I heard it opening when we were up in the air. Somebody was shouting and getting dragged over to the door. Then they pulled my hood up a bit. I could feel his hand against my ear. They dragged me to the door and said, ‘Are you going to talk?’ and I said, ‘Up the Republic’.
So they held me at the door. There was a hand behind my head. I was spun round and threw out of the helicopter. I’m guessing it was maybe eight or ten feet up in the air. I didn’t know how high up we were. I landed on my back.
“I was then dragged over rough ground into a hut with the hood still over my head,” Mr Donnelly said said who added he saw a doctor and an orderly when his hood was accidentally pulled up a little.
Mr Donnelly was then made to stand facing against a wall in a stress position and subjected to continuous noise, in between Special Branch interrogations. The torture continued for days.
Michael Donnelly was interned from August 9, 1971 until January 1974.
None of the ‘Hooded Men’ were ever convicted of any offence.
In 1976 the European Commission on Human Rights (ECHR) heard an application by the Irish Government on behalf of the Hooded Men and ruled they had been tortured. The Court found the torture ‘showed a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages…’
According to Mr Donnelly, he named some of the RUC personnel involved in the torture ot the ‘Hooded Men’ when he was told by the PSNI it was unable to locate any records relating to those responsible.
“This information has not been followed up, as far as I am aware,” said Michael Donnelly.
⏩Catherine McGinty is a journalist covering the North West.
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