1999 (32 page)

 

On the fifth of March Taoiseach Charles Haughey announced the establishment of Aosdána, an academy of the arts created to publicly honour those of distinguished achievement in literature, music, and the visual arts. A burse of four thousand pounds per annum would be awarded to members whose earnings were not sufficient to allow them to devote their full-time energies to their creative work.

That same day the MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone died unexpectedly of a heart attack. There would have to be a by-election to replace him.

 

On the sixth the
Irish Independent
announced that a tract of land on O'Connell Street had been purchased from the Estate of George Pentland, an Englishman, by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. For £3000 the Irish people at last had acquired the ground upon which stood the General Post Office, the most visible icon in the nation. There in 1916 a schoolmaster called Pádraic Pearse had read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and brave men subsequently had fought and died to make Ireland free.

The transfer of ownership passed almost unnoticed. In contrast to its original passing into English hands, the land was not seized by force of arms and no abuse of power was used in its conveyance to the State.

 

Meanwhile Sinn Féin was moving fast to enter a candidate in the upcoming by-election. Bobby Sands was seen as the ideal candidate.

 

That spring the Grand National Steeplechase enjoyed one of its most heart-warming victories ever. Jockey Bob Champion, who had fought and won a battle against cancer, came home ahead of the pack on Aldaniti, who had been given up as a cripple. Even hardened racegoers who had bets on other horses stood and cheered the pair.

 

On the ninth of April Volunteer Bobby Sands, with an address in the H-Blocks and 30,492 votes to his credit, was elected MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, defeating Unionist Harry West and becoming the newest member of the British Parliament.

The prisoners in the H-Blocks had smuggled in radios to allow them to follow the elections results on BBC. Bobby Sands' triumph was not broadcast on RTE in the Republic because of Section 31.

Unionists were baffled by the outcome. A shocked Harry West said, “I never thought the decent Catholics of County Fermanagh would vote for a gunman.”
⁴

They genuinely could not understand why their Catholic neighbours would vote for their enemy, the IRA, any more than they could understand the motivations behind the hunger strike.

For the prisoners, continuing the strike to its inevitable conclusion was a last-ditch, despairing effort to die with dignity as opposed to dying with none.

At 1:17
A.M.
on the fifth of May, 1981, IRA Volunteer and MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone Bobby Sands died in the H-Block prison on the sixty-sixth day of his hunger strike.

During the preceding week Sands' condition had been steadily deteriorating as he slipped in and out of consciousness. His condition was reported as critical. He had lost all feeling in his mouth and gums and could hardly talk. His eyesight was rapidly failing. His skin had become so thin that he had been placed on an improvised water bed to keep his bones from breaking through.

There had been two major attempts to bring the strike to an end in time to save his life. The first had been an intervention by the European Commission on Human Rights. The second took the form of a visit to Sands by the pope's private secretary, Fr. John Magee.

After both of these attempts Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, and Patsy O'Hara, a member of the INLA, had reaffirmed to their relatives their intention to go all the way if necessary.

Although twenty-eight Labour MPs had signed a parliamentary motion calling on the British government to negotiate with the prisoners, Labour's Northern Ireland spokesperson Don Concannon called on Sands on the first of May to tell the dying man that Labour would not support the hunger strikers' demands. It was a final touch of cruelty.

Bobby Sands had spent the last two days of his life in a coma, with his family constantly at his bedside as his breathing became more and more laboured. And finally stopped.

The silence in the tiny concrete cell was louder than all the noise in the world. Although he had been against the strike, Father Denis Faul, the Maze prison chaplain, wept openly.

As if an electric shock had galvanised Belfast, within a few minutes of Sands' death republican women all over the city began banging on the pavement with metal bin lids.

The international journalistic community leaped into action. Floodlights were set up outside the forbidding walls of the Maze and miles of television cable were snarled like tangles of sea serpents on the tarmacadam.

A small green Austin Healey raced up the Dublin–Belfast road. When Barry arrived at the Maze he was met by a huge sign that proclaimed: “Photography of All Kinds Within the Prison Is Strictly Prohibited.”

Barry turned around and headed back to Belfast. For the first funeral.

 

Sands' death had been expected for days, but the sense of shock was profound both north and south. Thousands of people reacted immediately, gathering in prayer vigils or marches to express their outrage. In the Six Counties barricades were erected in the streets as crowds fought fierce running battles with the RUC and the British army. The capital of the Republic was brought to a standstill when a huge crowd spontaneously gathered in O'Connell Street to hold a silent vigil in the rain.

After being released from the prison Sands' body was taken to his home in Twinbrook. Thousands of mourners gathered to file past his open coffin. To gaze in awe at the emaciated face; the blind eyes, once so bright and merry, firmly closed. The coffin was flanked by an honour guard composed of members of Óglaigh na hÉireann,
^*
Na Fíanna Éireann,
^†
and Cumann na mBan.
^‡
The following day the coffin, draped with the Irish tricolour, was carried the short distance to St. Luke's Chapel.

From there on Thursday afternoon the funeral cortege began its four-mile journey to Millbrook Cemetery. A lone piper played a song that had been written in the H-Blocks:

 

I'll wear no convict's uniform, nor meekly serve my time,
That Britain may call Ireland's fight
Eight hundred years of crime.

 

A crowd estimated at over one hundred thousand people heard the IRA fire three volleys over the flag-draped coffin. It was the largest funeral in Ireland since that of Terence Mac Swiney, the mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike against the British in 1920.

At graveside Gerry Adams officiated at a ceremony that began with the playing of “The Last Post.” Owen Carron, who had managed Sands' election campaign, gave the funeral oration.

Seven-year-old Gerald Sands helped to shovel soft earth onto his father's coffin.

Barry Halloran took photographs that were reproduced around the world and brought tears to the eyes of people who hardly knew where Ireland was.

 

“We thought there was no way Britain would let an MP die, but we were eejits,” a stunned Volunteer told a reporter at the funeral. “Maggie Thatcher could and did let him die.”

The republicans had failed to take one crucial fact into their calculations: Margaret Thatcher understood neither Ireland nor republicanism.

Months after ordering the executions of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, General Sir John Maxwell had been still pondering the events. He had learned much about Ireland since those desperate days when he arrived fresh from England with a set of orders and a sense of urgency.

As he eventually wrote, “The rebellion in Ireland was a direct result of the British government shamelessly pandering to a small minority of Protestants in the northeast corner of the predominately Catholic island.”
⁵

 

The Irish were a people over whom symbolism had always exerted a powerful influence. The symbolism of the hunger strikers—gaunt, bearded Christ-like figures wrapped in blankets and willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause—was irresistible. With the death of Bobby Sands, people who had been lukewarm or even antagonistic towards republicanism became deeply emotional about the men in the H-Blocks.

 

Barry determined to stay in Belfast until it was over—however it ended. He could not afford to spend a long, indeterminate time in a hotel, so he began staying with a series of friends in the republican community, mainly the Falls Road area.

There was only one subject of conversation. In the Falls it was as if life were being held in abeyance while death loomed over the Maze.

 

On the eighth of May Volunteer Joe McDonnell took Bobby Sands' place on hunger strike.

Father Faul began meeting with the mothers of the hunger strikers to encourage them to take their sons off the strike.

On the twelfth Volunteer Francis Hughes died.

The rioting that had begun with the death of Bobby Sands increased. There was a major upsurge of IRA attacks on British and RUC installations. In Dublin the Gardai used batons to beat back a protest march headed from the GPO to the British Embassy. At the same time in the north, fourteen-year-old Julie Livingstone was killed by a plastic bullet fired by a member of the British army.

The RUC hijacked Hughes' funeral cortege as it passed through West Belfast on its way to his native Derry, forcing it to go by a much longer route. A member of the RUC openly spat on the coffin; an act captured in newsreel footage.

Martin McGuinness gave the funeral oration for Hughes. “His body lies here beside us but he lives in the little streets of Belfast, he lives in the Bogside, he lives in East Tyrone and Crossmaglen. He will always live in the hearts and minds of unconquerable Irish republicans. They could not break him. They will not break us.”

On the thirteenth of May an attempted assassin shot Pope John Paul II while he was blessing a crowd at the Vatican. In the Republic of Ireland people flocked to their churches to pray for him. Catholics in Northern Ireland did the same, though somewhat less openly.

 

McCoy suggested, “I'll ring for a taxi, Ursula, if you'd like to go to the Pro-Cathedral to pray for the pope. That seems to be where most folks are headed.”

“Are you offering to go with me?”

“I am of course, you'll need me.”

“Would you go on your own without me?”

“Probably,” he replied. “I have a lot of people to pray for.”

Ursula began counting on her fingers. “Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell…ring for that taxi, Séamus. We'll both pray for the boys in the Maze.”

 

Oblivious to gunfire, the ten-tonne, six-wheeled Saracen armoured car was not oblivious to a thousand pounds of explosives concealed in a culvert near Raymond McCreesh's house in South Armagh. All that was left of the Saracen was one of its tyres and the armoured turret. Five British soldiers died.

That same day twelve-year-old Carol Anne Kelly was walking home from the corner shop within hailing distance of Bobby Sands' house in Twinbrook when four British army Land Rovers came speeding up the road. The crack of gunfire startled the child but it was already too late; she had been fatally hit by a plastic bullet travelling at 180 mph.

On the twenty-first of May Raymond McCreesh died in the early hours of the morning. Patsy O'Hara followed within hours. The two men had been born within days of each other in 1957.

O'Hara's sister said later, “As he was dying his face just changed, he had a very, very distinct smile on his face which I will never forget. I said, ‘You're free, Patsy. You have won your fight and you're free.'”
¹

 

In Dublin Charles Haughey, who had been under relentless pressure to call a general election—and had failed to make headway with the European Commission on the matter of the hunger strike—dissolved the Dáil. He announced that the election would be held in three weeks, the shortest notice allowed by law.

In spite of the physical difficulties involved—the Republic made no allowances for handicapped voters—Ursula planned to cast her ballot. She had no illusions about the electoral process, however. “During the last election,” she told McCoy, “promises were flung about like snuff at a wake.”

 

At Raymond McCreesh's funeral Mass one of the celebrants called attention to a speech given by the pope in 1979: “Violent means must not be used to change injustices. But neither must violent means be used to keep injustices.”

 

The governor of Long Kesh, Stanley Hilditch, had promised O'Hara's family that his remains would be delivered to the town of Omagh, from whence the funeral cortege could begin. At four-thirty in the morning a telephone call from the RUC told the grieving relatives they had better come for Patsy's body before daylight. When they opened the coffin they found the young man's body had been mutilated. By persons unknown.

On the night following the two deaths there was more rioting in the streets. The RUC in O'Hara's native Derry responded with a hail of plastic bullets that killed Harry Duffy, an innocent bystander, and injured a number of others. In the Ardoyne district of Belfast Paul Lavelle, aged fifteen, was left in a coma after being struck by the bullets.

Five British soldiers were killed in an IRA ambush at Altnaveigh, South Armagh.

But international support for the hunger strikers soared.

Behind a solid wall of concrete resolute young men were dying. The British meant the Maze to be the breaker's yard that would destroy the republicans but they would not break.

Demonstrations were held every day in the United States. Thousands marched through the streets of New York, protesting the deaths of McCreesh and O'Hara. Large demonstrations were also held in Australia, Norway, France, Portugal, and Greece.

Cardinal Ó Fíaich pleaded with Margaret Thatcher. “How many more Irish men must go to their graves inside and outside the jail before intransigence gives way to a constructive effort to find a solution?” the cleric wanted to know.

There was no response.

In the United States Senator Edward Kennedy condemned the British policy. The Boston City Council renamed the street upon which the British consulate was located “Francis Hughes Street.” The Irish in America understood the meaning of symbolism.

In the by-election that followed Sands' death, Volunteer Owen Carron, who had been his campaign manager, succeeded him as MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone.

Despite Margaret Thatcher's public intransigence, British government officials continued communicating through back channels with the republicans. Negotiations between Gerry Adams and the government appeared to hold out some hope of a breakthrough. In the tension between political strategy and the armed struggle, a seismic shift began to take place in the foundations of republicanism. Although it was not apparent at the time, the first tentative steps had been taken toward a peace process.

After the fourth hunger striker died a secret proposal that granted most of the strikers' demands was put forward to the IRA. The outside leadership told the British, “Go into the prisons with this and if the hunger strikers accept it, we shall.”
²

Then Joe McDonnell died—and the strikers themselves refused any further negotiations.

 

Barry Halloran's moody yet insightful photographic coverage of the situation in the north was in constant demand from the news services and was having a huge impact abroad. But he longed to go back to Dublin. Every death was a heavier stone on his heart. He wanted to see his children and make love to his wife and talk politics with Ursula and old times with Séamus and do anything but stand around outside the Maze waiting for someone to die.

He stayed.

The men inside were staying.

 

In June Barry did return to Dublin in order to vote in the general election. Like his mother, Barry always voted. Great men had given their lives so that he could.

Fianna Fáil won seventy-eight seats in Dáil Éireann to Fine Gael's sixty-five, giving neither party a sufficient balance of power to rule the country alone. Barry explained to young Brian, “In this situation the
taoiseach
can be chosen from either side, and it will then be up to him to form a coalition government.”

Brian was growing up amongst people who read books and followed the news, so it was not surprising that he asked questions. His parents, Barbara included, did their best to answer them, but he always had more. Intelligent questions.

Trot was different; she was all action. Ursula was beginning to talk about leaving the farm to her in her will. The breeding of thoroughbred racehorses was becoming a serious business in Ireland. Experts were beginning to claim the country would soon rival Kentucky in its production of quality bloodstock. “I can just see my granddaughter becoming the first female owner of an Irish racing establishment,” Ursula said.

As for Patrick James, it was hard to predict how he would turn out. That dark, fey look…

Although Barry went into considerable detail about the political situation with his son—
Perhaps I'm telling him more than he wants to know
—he himself was not interested in who would become
taoiseach.
From Barry's point of view something more historic was taking place. Quietly, without fanfare aside from the election posters Sinn Féin had put up, two republican prisoners in the H-Blocks had been elected to Dáil Éireann.

There were boisterous celebrations in the Bleeding Horse.

The following morning Barry drove Apollo to Paudie Coates' garage. As always he had a list in his head. Fill up the petrol tank, check the oil, water for the battery, air for the tyres. New windscreen wipers. Laugh at Paudie's latest jokes. Then back to the house for his suitcase and cameras, and a reporter's spiral notebook crammed with notes, many of them taken from Séamus McCoy.

Barry hoped to meet Gerry Adams, among others, on this trip, and he had been doing his homework.

He gave Philpott last-minute instructions, hugged his children, spoke for a few minutes with his mother, exchanged a rueful shake of the head with McCoy, and braced himself for the most difficult farewell of all—one that never got easier.

Barbara followed him out to the kerb. “Would it make any difference if I begged you not to go?”

“We've been over this so many times, sweetheart. It's my job.”

“But it's getting more dangerous all the time. I watch the news programmes and they scare me to death. They're all crazy in Northern Ireland, Barry. Anything could happen to you, and then what would
we
do?”

I wonder how many men around the world have similar discussions with their women?
“I'll be all right,” he assured her. “The people in the north aren't crazy, just angry, and I know how to take care of myself.”

The tawny eyes flashed a warning. Barbara was on the verge of losing her temper for real. If an open quarrel erupted he could not drive away and leave her; he might not have a marriage when he came back.

I might not have a marriage now.

“You know how to take care of yourself,” she repeated sarcastically. “I suppose that's why you walk with a limp when you're tired: because you're so goddamned good at taking care of yourself.”

“It won't happen again.”

“You can't promise that. You're so damned selfish, you and your stupid photography.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way, but if I didn't have my work I might…” He caught himself in midsentence.

They stood staring at each other.

“I hate you, Barry Halloran! I really truly hate you!” She flew at him with balled fists and began pounding his chest.

There was nothing to do but take her back in the house and try to repair the fractures in their relationship one more time, in the only way that always worked with Barbara—for a little while.

The effects were never lasting.

Catching both her wrists in one hand, Barry held her pinioned while he lowered his mouth to hers. When he kissed her she tried to bite him. He turned his head away and spun her around to face the house. “We're going inside. Now.”

“I won't go anywhere with you!” She arched her back and tried to break free.

He forced her into the house and up the stairs ahead of him, fighting all the way. “Be quiet,” he admonished. “What will the others think?”

That was sufficient to subdue her long enough to reach their bedroom. As soon as they were inside he closed the door and turned the key in the lock.

“I hate you,” hissed Barbara. “Hate you hate you hate you!”

“Of course you do,” he said.

Barry tried to be gentle. Knowing how strong he could be when he was angry, he tried desperately to be gentle. Barbara fought as if her life were in danger. With the restraints he placed on himself it was an uneven struggle.

Just when he thought she might actually throw him off, she relaxed abruptly. He felt her body go soft beneath his and her thighs part. “Please don't go to Belfast again,” she whispered.

“I must go.” His heart was pounding, though not with the exertion of their struggle. Heat was rising from her in waves.

Barry was intensely alive on two levels at once. The cognitive man was already in the car, driving north. Checking items off lists. Preparing interviews with those who were taking serious risks; planning photographic layouts that might show the first cracks in the monolith.

Meanwhile the primordial man—and who was to say which was the truer Barry—was submerged in the senses. Touch, taste, smell. Writhing flesh. Irresistible pressure and great surging sweetness that obliterated everything but itself, sweeping him into the heart of the exploding universe.

For one brief moment the two Barrys came together. And knew what it was all about.

He left for Belfast much later than he had planned. Barbara, with her lips swollen and her hair tumbling around her shoulders, stood in the doorway to wave good-bye.

 

A populist tide engendered by the hunger strike was sweeping through Irish republicanism. The armed campaign on which so many had pinned their hopes would continue, but would have to allow for a new dimension: the involvement of ordinary people. To this end republicans were initiating an “Armalite and Ballot Box” strategy, signifying the intention to contest future elections.

Sinn Féin had become a player.

Introducing a political element into mainstream republicanism was never going to be easy. It required a very delicate tightrope act. The IRA would have to be carefully brought along step by step by someone whose credentials were accepted as impeccable by the Army Council—experienced veterans who, for good reason, deeply mistrusted the whole political process.