Remembering

Mickey Devine was the last to die. He left us after 66 days on hungerstrike. I met Mickey in the big cell that passed for a canteen in the prison hospital in the H Blocks of Long Kesh a month before he died.

Mickey was there with Pat McGeown, Matt Devlin, Paddy Quinn, Laurence McKeown and Tom McIlwee. Me and Owen Carron and Seamus Ruddy went into the blocks to see the hungerstrikers and to brief them on the situation outside the prison. Six of our friends had died by this time. They were Bobby Sands, who I knew well. Joe McDonald, who I also knew well. He and I were interned together. We used to relish a smuggled-in cigar and we shared the intoxicating pull of a Hamlet together whenever one was available. When Joe embarked on his hungerstrike he got his wife, Goretti, to bring me a King Edward. I never smoked it. Joe would consider that a waste. But anyway I don't smoke now anymore. I still have his King Edward.

I also knew Frank Hughes. I didn't know Martin Hurson, Raymond McCreesh or Patsy O'Hara, though I did know his brother Séan from internment also.

When we met the boys in the big cell, they were all seated around two tables which had been pulled together in the middle of the floor. We were accompanied by Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane who was the OC of the protesting prisoners at that time. Two other hungerstrikers, Kevin Lynch and another man who I knew fairly well, Ciarán Doherty, TD for Cavan-Monaghan, were too ill to leave their cells. After the meeting in the big cell, we met with Ciarán in his own cell. Kevin was to ill to see anyone. When we stood at the open door of his cell he was stretched on his bed, with a priest kneeling at the bedside. A prison officer closed the door in our faces.

All of the hungerstrikers were adamant that they were staying on hungerstrike unless, and until, Margaret Thatcher granted their five demands for humane prison conditions. Kevin Lynch died a few days after our visit, after 71 days fasting. Ciarán Doherty followed him. He was 73 days on hungerstrike. Then big Tom McIlwee, who lasted 65 days. And the last to go was Mickey Devine. The hungerstrikes continued until October when prisoners' families intervened. Shortly afterwards the British government introduced the conditions demanded by the political prisoners. The women in Armagh and the men in Long Kesh got their five demands. That was 25 years ago. To me, it seems just like yesterday. Ten men died in the blocks. I am amazed that I knew such human beings. Over 50 other people died on the streets, including children. I am amazed we survived it all.

A new book, Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Republican Hunger Strike, published by Brandon and edited by Danny Morrison, is a reflection on that time. I say reflection. Hunger Strike is actually over 50 reflections by 50 writers, with an introduction by Danny. It is produced as part of an initiative by the Bobby Sands Trust to mark the 25th anniversary of the protests in the H Blocks and Armagh Women's Prison.

I am a member of the Bobby Sands Trust so I must declare an interest. That to one side, Hunger Strike is an illuminating read. Not for what it tells us about the H Block struggle. That's another story. But for what it tells us about the contributors' thoughts on these events. They include activists like Marie Moore, Anne Speed, Lucilita Bhreatnach and Mary Doyle. Others are poets, playwrights, authors and artists like Ronan Bennett, Nell McCafferty, John Montaque, Gabriel Rosenstock, Ken Loach, Tom Hayden, Edna O'Brien, Christy Moore, Michael Davitt, Medbh McGuckian, Peter Sheridan, Cyril Cusack and many more.

Bobby Sands would be pleased. A fine poet and a prolific writer who worked without the help of an editor in the most unimaginable conditions, writing on cigarette papers with a ballpoint refill secreted in his body, Bobby was highly critical of the silence from Ireland's literary world.

The Men of Art have lost their heart,

They dream within their dreams.

Their magic sold for price of gold

Amidst a people's screams.

They sketch the moon and capture bloom

With genius, so they say.

But ne'er they sketch the quaking wretch

Who lies in Castlereagh.

The poet's word is sweet as bird,

Romantic's tale and prose.

Of stars above and gentle love

And fragrant breeze that blows.

But write they not a single jot

Of beauty tortured sore.

Don't worry why such men can lie,

For poets are no more'

Of course, Bobby wasn't entirely right. "An honourable minority of artists, writers and poets bore witness," as Danny Morrison puts it. But then, Bobby was thinking more of the "revisionists" and others who wax lyrical about good causes provided they are faraway.

This book is an antidote to all that read it if only for Deasún Breatnach's 'Deichniúr' and Mickey Devine's 'If Jesus'. Mickey's poem is the only prison writing included. He wrote his verses on the eve of his hungerstrike. He died on 20 August 20 years ago this week.

? More 'Hunger Strike' is published in soft and hardback by Brandon, an imprint of Mount Eagle Publications. www.brandonbooks.com