Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Sunday’s was a different type of Duel in the Sun from the one screened in the cinema which my mother took me to see all those years ago when sons are still young enough to let their mothers take them anywhere. It might have been the Windsor but something tells me it was in the Duncairn. It was my first trip to watch a film on the big screen and it soon set a pattern to be rigorously followed every Saturday until we got barred from the Curzon by some silly attendant who thought a uniform gave him power over viewing rights. Uniforms, in particular those with a slashed peak, transform men and not for the better.
It was Tobruk I got ejected from. Trying to tell my parents what I thought of it when I got home was not the easiest of matters. My father knew quite a bit about the Second World War and there were few films based around it that he had not seen. Although I got over the hurdle of inquisitiveness they never quite understood my lack of eagerness for future Saturday viewing. Trying to stay dry in the golf course of the Ormeau Park while it rained persistently, until the time allotted to the film had passed, was something to be put up with only once. A lot like mitching school, alright for the first half hour. Better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than getting drenched or having to duke it.
Sunday’s 'Duel in the Sun' was combat of a different order. Out on the green with my four year old son eager to display that he could save as well as he could kick, I was soon run ragged. The energy of a four year old is boundless, not so with their parents. The sun beat down and sapped my strength as he seemed to be replenished by its rays. He hurled himself after every ball I kicked his way. I knew he was agile, having watched him in an indoor fun park moving through, around and over the obstacles with some dexterity. I just didn’t know his agility extended to goalkeeping.
It was a position I used to play at primary school and on more than one occasion in the jail I would pull on the Number 1 shirt and do nets. We got beat 17-3 one day so I was never going to make a career out of it even if the defence spread across the area in front of my goal was hopeless and had to take much of the blame.
Jails are far removed from greens on a sun baked Sunday afternoon. Or so they should be. But during our football foray I swapped texts about half a dozen times with the same person about the situation in Maghaberry. Each time my son would hold the ball and ask if I was ready to face his shot. Even in the most innocent of moments we are reminded that a different duel to ours in the sun is taking place where prisoners are being beaten, confined to cells, have their rights denied and in one case on hunger strike. And society is kept in the dark about it. The contrast with the sun could not be starker. Not every child can kick a ball with its republican father on a hot Sunday afternoon. Some child’s republican father is the ball that is being kicked from one end of a cell to another.
Eventually, we settled back into our game. I felt resentful that the actions of the screws should intrude on our family moment as I pushed them from my mind. I kicked, he saved, I tripped him, he recovered and won the ball. His mother came and took photos of our frolicking. For a while there wasn’t a care in the world; just the sun, a ball, freshly mown grass and a laughing child with the world at his toes rather than being kicked in the face by its feet.
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Text of speech given by Maureen Fitzsimmons, sister of Maghaberry prisoner Harry Fitzsimmons, who "was dragged into SSU (isolation) where he had his clothes cut off his body. He was handcuffed and chained to a bed" at the start of the month and is still being held in isolation.
We come here today to stand in solidarity with the men incarcerated in Maghaberry, to demonstrate to them and the world that we do not forget them, that we will not forget them and that we will campaign tirelessly until they have been granted the full rights and recognitions they deserve.
The claims that our prisoners are self-inflicting brutalities upon themselves and their condtions are actually akin to a 5* hotel are insulting: it is every bit as insulting as when they told us Bobby Sands and his comrades similarly self-inflicted brutalities upon themselves while housed in the most progressive prison regime in Europe.
The full stories of the H-Blocks are well known now and nobody is under any illusion as to what type of mentality the screws of that era possessed. Today, those same screws with the same mindset are trying to reverse the gains and safeguards initiated after the hunger strike in 1981; it is the screws who are upping the ante and forcing Republican prisoners into a position where they will once again be held behind locked doors for year after year.
It is the system which wants to bring us back to the dark days, the days of total lock-ups, the endless days of degradation and humiliation: the screws are on a revenge run, it is they who hark back to the good old days when it was a sacred duty to beat a Fenian a day.
Prisoners, like my brother Harry, are being singled out for intensive punishment and humiliation. He was beaten, chained to a bed and had his clothing literally cut off him by the screws. He is denied visits from his family and even refused legal visits from his solicitor. Is this the 5* hotel Spratt the Prat claims it to be?
The horror of Maghaberry has been allowed to run for too long and the wall of silence which surrounds it is going to be broken down. We, together, can bring this issue to the fore and demand a satisfactory resolution for the prisoners.
Our prisoners are not making any unreasonable demands, our prisoners are not even asking for new mechanisms or structures to be put in place: all these men are asking for is the right to be able to serve their time free from sectarian bullying and harassment. Our prisoners are not animals to be caged 24 hours a day, they are human beings with every right to be treated respectfully and in accordance with international norms for the treatment of prisoners.
These safeguards were put in place after the 1981 hunger strike and we demand the immediate reinstatement of these conditions so that we may be able to resume some sort of semblance of normality, free from the constant stress and pressures of not knowing what is happening to our loved ones behind these walls and wire. This prison is every bit the monument of shame to penal repression and Britain’s nefarious role in Ireland that the H-Blocks were, and like the H-Blocks we will not stop until our family members incarcerated here are given the full recognitions and respect that they have earned.
We do not walk away from here today to forget, we walk away to plan further our approach, we walk away from here determined that we are not going to be intimidated or bullied; we are determined to make the living conditions of our prisoners a top priority for protest and agitation.
Do not forget the men in Maghaberry, break the wall of silence which surrounds the treatment these men are being subjected to. Victory to the prisoners!
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
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