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Showing posts with label Richard O'Rawe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard O'Rawe. Show all posts

Anthony McIntyre - takes a different view of both the 1981 hunger strike and the end of the IRA's armed struggle from that expressed by an old friend from back in the day.

On the evening of my very first parole from prison after almost 14 years banged up, I was a passenger in a car driven by my brother heading to Ardoyne. I asked him to take the Crumlin Road route rather than the more convenient one via West Circular Road and Twaddell Avenue. I wanted to view the city’s jail which I had previously spent a few spells in.

It was not nostalgia that spurred me. Four months earlier a close friend had been caught on an IRA bombing operation and was now confined within the walls of the foreboding structure. It was one of those gestures that quietly conveyed the sentiment that I had not forgotten: that even in what was a time of joy for me, his travails still figured in my mind.

Sometime later, the H-Blocks well behind me, I was crossing the Mersey by ferry to The Wirall. I was in the city of Liverpool for one of the soccer matches and also to visit the Anfield memorial to the 96 fans unlawfully killed by South Yorkshire Police at Sheffield in 1989. During the crossing I wrote to the imprisoned friend, the undulations of the river currents probably exacerbating my frequently commented upon poor handwriting. He had visited me and kept in touch after his previous release from prison on a number of occasions, and I was reciprocating now that he was back in for a very long stretch.

I have previously laid out my views on Pat Sheehan, even though by then we were no longer in touch -  apart from a few chance encounters where we would chew the fat before going our separate ways - or had maintained the friendship we once had. I guess that is politics: his choice rather than mine. Although it remains something for which no explanation was ever forthcoming. C'est La Vie.

Pat had spent 55 days on the 1981 hunger strike before it was ordered to a halt by IRA leaders outside the jail. I was seriously relieved he had made it through although it seemed touch and go as he had contracted a serious liver malady which did not augur well for him. The experience from that dark and dangerous era is what led him to Derry last week where there was a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the end of the hunger strike.

While in the city he spoke to the Derry Journal. Two things struck me. One, a glaring inaccuracy which it is difficult to pass off as an oversight; the other a highly contentious view with little evidence to support it. I am not the corrector of false narratives and these days let much that is inaccurate run past me. But on the 40th anniversary of the deaths of the volunteers described by Pat as 'probably ten of the best men that we had', and in the year when a previously unpublished comm by Bobby Sands came to light, raising serious questions for some leadership figures as to the malign role they played,  I thought it worthwhile to commit to the record.

On the outcome of the IRA campaign Pat Sheehan expressed the following view:   

If you consider that the whole rationale behind the criminalisation policy was to isolate and marginalise republicans and ultimately to defeat the IRA - the outcome was actually the opposite of that … the strategy of the British to defeat the IRA and defeat the republican struggle failed in 1981 and I think we are still feeling the repercussions of that even now.

What is seriously deficient about this statement is the extent to which it ignores the terms on which the IRA campaign was brought to a close. The objective of the IRA campaign was to coerce the British state out of Ireland and coerce the North into a unitary state. The IRA campaign failed on both counts. The objective of the British state was not to remain in Ireland forever and a day but to ensure that the terms on which it would leave Ireland were those of consent by a majority in the North. The British won that hands down. 

Not only were the British successful in having the unity only by consent formula become entrenched as the core political and strategic determinant pertaining to the matter of constitutional change, they also registered a double success in having the Provisional project abandon its position of coercion and in its place accept the British terms of disengagement. Whether we describe that as a failure or a defeat is a matter of choice but a compelling case can be made that the outcome of the IRA campaign as easily fits one description as it does the other.

The republican struggle ended in failure with the advent of the Good Friday Agreement. The political project today is a constitutional nationalist one which was the antithesis of the IRA's armed campaign. The only thing that has shifted the constitutional axis is Brexit, not Sinn Fein’s politicking. 

While that might be described as belonging to the sphere of opinion,  no matter how weak one opinion might be vis a vis the other, Pat Sheehan's other contention is not a matter of opinion but factually wrong. In claiming that the seriously subversive narrative of Richard O'Rawe - that a British offer which could have saved the lives of six hunger strikers was accepted by the prison leadership but overruled by key leaders outside the prison - is implausible, Pat Sheehan contends:

I wasn’t in that wing at the time when this discussion is supposed to have taken place between ‘Bik’ and Richard. If you ask me it would have been impossible to have had a conversation like that and not for everyone else or at least some others to have heard it because the currency at that time in the prison was scĂ©al [news/information - literally story]. Who had a bit of info? Who knew a wee bit here or there? If the leadership were up at the window or down at the pipe having a conversation about the situation someone else would have heard it. That is my view and there is nobody, as far as I’m aware of, backing up what Richard says.


Nobody backing it up?  


The cellmate of Richard O'Rawe at the time of the conversation Pat Sheehan suggests never happened had this to say to Eamonn McCann:


“Richard isn’t a liar. He told the truth in his book. I heard what passed between Richard and Bik (McFarlane). I remember Richard saying, ‘Ta go leor ann,’ and the reply, ‘Aontaim leat.’ There’s just no question that that happened.”

 

Gerard Clarke, who was also on the wing at the time, confirmed at a public event in Derry in 2009 that he too had heard the conversation between O'Rawe and McFarlane and that O'Rawe's account was accurate.


I admire Pat Sheehan's fortitude from the days when he was an IRA volunteer, willing to die on hunger strike. Eschewing a ballot box in one hand and an armalite in somebody else's, he was willing to lead from the front and take part in a war he knew could not be won. All of that makes him courageous, not correct. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.


Hello Old Friend

Lesley Stock ✒ with the second part of a conversation she had with the author Richard O'Rawe.

Inside 

Is £11,000 worth the subsequent trials endured in prison?

Ricky was arrested in 1977, for robbing a Northern Bank ... No! Not that Heist – but he has managed to write about that too!! He and 3 others had robbed a Northern Bank at Mallusk ... Got away as well, until the van they were in crashed in the White City in North Belfast.

Ricky relates quite matter-of-factly how he made his way through gardens, wondering what he should do next. He hid himself in a hut, while hearing police sirens searching for him on the outside, while he searched for his next move. I can only imagine the panic, the mind whirring and heavy breathing that was done while in that temporary sanctuary. To cut a relatively long story short, Ricky found himself arrested and being interviewed in relation to the robbery.

‘Noble cause corruption’ - I’d heard the term, and perhaps, once in a past-life would have possibly agreed. Thank God, my integrity never had to be challenged in that scenario where the end justifies the means. The term means basically, we know the truth, but to make sure it sticks, we’ll have to perhaps pull a few untruths. And so, a ‘witness’, an RUC officer, who Ricky had never clapped eyes on, made a statement that he had observed Ricky from start to finish of his ‘escape’. No forensic evidence, no other evidence, as of course, Ricky wasn’t about to ‘squeal’. And as a result – Ricky – Volunteer O’Rawe, was sentenced to a ‘stretch’ inside Long Kesh in the infamous H-Blocks.

It was during Ricky’s time in the H-Blocks that the blanket protest started on 14th September 1976, with a newly imprisoned Kieran Nugent, refusing to wear prison uniform. The Special Category Status for ‘political prisoners’ had been phased out and so the prisoners in the H Blocks stripped off and refused to wear the prison uniform. The Blanket protest had officially begun!

The prisoners only had the blankets in the cells – so was born the Blanket men. They were locked in their cells for 24 hours a day (presumably as punishment) and left their cells once a month for a 30-minute visit with family. Now, whilst I find it hard to sympathise such is my own view on law and order etc, the human in me cannot fathom how difficult this would have been on these men, and of course, their mental health. Lockdown has taught us all that isolation, (although in small doses, is something which many of us relish,) can be a nightmare on the head! Brendan Hughes had been in charge of the prisoners, and it was Brendan Aka The Dark, who instigated the ‘Dirty Protest’. Prisoners refused to wash, went to the toilet in their cells and then proceeded to smear their faeces on their walls. I don’t think I was able to hide my disgust and will never fathom out why these men did this animalistic act ... So, I asked, I needed to know Why?

Ricky explained that one had to remember that being in the IRA was like being in the Army…. Rules and orders were not there to be questioned or broken. With a laugh I stated the obvious – ‘I’d have been shit in any paramilitary organisation or in the British Army!’ The organisation was one of discipline and so – if the command ordered it, you did it! As this immaculately dressed man explains the hardships of those days, being beaten by the ‘screws’, having beards down to their belly buttons, living in their own filth, having broken all the windows in the cells, endured the cold for nearly 4 years, and I still find it incomprehensible that anyone would put themselves through that, through days of (albeit in many folks eyes self inflicted) misery and hurt. Was it ‘self inflicted’ in the blanket men’s eyes? I don’t think that any of them thought this, they were Republicans, they were fighting for their ‘rights’ and perhaps in some way ‘honour. For those of you who think I am glorifying this story, I, cannot condone, nor make sense of the actions of the blanket men, or what was to become the hunger strikers. I can merely tell you the feelings I got and thoughts I had when hearing this testimony. I tried to put myself in their shoes. I still can’t comprehend going through what they went through, perhaps because the only thing I’ve ever truly believed in was family and keeping my integrity. I have often said, I have never believed in dying for any piece of green grass, but one thing is certain, these men had conviction for their cause and Ricky is very clear that the same more than likely held true for the loyalists.

The first of the two hunger strikes started in October 1980. One of the first men who went on it had made Brendan Hughes promise that they wouldn’t allow him to die. Seven men started this hunger strike, but even while negotiations were on-going on 18th December when Sean McKenna lapsed into a coma, Brendan kept his word, and the hunger strike was called off.

The second hunger strike was started knowing there Had to be deaths, so they decided to stagger the hunger strikes. By this stage, Bobby Sands was O.C. of the H Blocks, and as he was going to be the first to refuse food. O.C. was then passed to Bik McFarlane and Ricky then was made P.R.O. 

I was curious, and I suppose always wanted to know just how the hunger strike was started. Did the men themselves put their names in a hat? How were they chosen to die? There were two criteria I was told. The leadership were well aware that, during a hunger strike, public opinion was everything and their ‘crimes’ should reinforce the vision of the Republican Movement. Hunger strikers must be ‘clean’ of any crimes and actions of the like of the Shankill Butchers. Now to me this was a misnomer given the fact that these men had been on the dirty protest and many of whom were incarcerated for causing the deaths of human beings. The IRA needed these men to be martyrs. 

And criteria number 2? They must be ready to die. So, all the prospective hunger strikers put their names forward. I asked the question, which, when I was given the answer, I have to admit, I had a ‘moment’. I’m not even sure if I made an audible gasp, but I know I had to take a few seconds to compose myself. And in those seconds, what did I feel for this man across the marble table? I will be completely honest, I felt sorrow, for the question was ‘And how were they chosen to go on the strike?’  

‘Bik and I chose them’ was the simple reply.. Then every striker was sent in a communication from the ‘Leadership’ asking them to consider their position very carefully because in all probability, they would be dead in a couple of months. And so, on 1 March 1981, Sands led the hunger strike which would indeed lift his status to martyrdom.

⏩ Lesley Stock is a former PSNI and RUC Officer currently involved in community work. 

From The Eyes Of An Adversary ➖ Inside

Lesley Stock ✒ describes a conversation she had with the author Richard O'Rawe. 

I’d never heard of Vol Ricky O’Rawe, so to hear he was a well-known author blew my mind. But I wasn’t surprised. I had been put in contact with him via a mutual friend, as I wanted to ask different opinions on the British Governments’ proposed Amnesty for a piece I was writing. He had emailed me his responses, and for some reason this man, who would have had nothing in common with the retired policewoman, just hit me! His words, so eloquent and interesting - and I wondered how a man of this compassion and intellect ended up in jail, and smearing his excrement over the cell wall! 

I’m not sure I’ll ever ‘get it’, but I’m fascinated as to why these guys did what they did, and also how they have changed their viewpoints ... If indeed they have. The arrangements were duly emailed and so I found myself across the table from this unassuming, well dressed man in his 60’s, with a soft Belfast accent and a surprisingly kind face, in the Europa Hotel, ironically the most bombed Hotel by the IRA - 28 times in total

I happened to mention to my good friend Anne Travers, that I was meeting him, thinking she would advise me to ‘be careful’ etc. However, the message that came back was ‘Oh Lesley, he’s lovely, very genuine - tell him I said hello’. I guess Anne had already given me the answer to ‘had he changed his viewpoint.?’ As ever, my opinion about conversing with ex-paramilitaries is – listen without prejudice, open your mind, and have respect at least, that someone is willing to tell their story, even if it is one you find hard to understand.

I came away from the meeting, having been hugged, and made completely at ease, feeling like this would definitely not be the last time we’d meet. Interesting, shocking, sad, and heart-warming is how I’d describe my chat with him. I did this to try to get my community to understand why some men took the route he took, purely because he was born into it. Some were monsters: I can tell that Ricky, even in the height of his IRA career, was not one of them.

The early days

Ricky's family were historically all old IRA, with his father in the 1940’s/50’s, having been an Officer Commanding of Belfast for some of that time. His dad had escaped from Derry Jail, (I never even knew there had been a jail in Derry!) and his father's youngest brother Alfie had had a gunfight with a policeman for about 3 hours, after which not one of them had been hit! 

His father hadn’t got involved in the ‘conflict’ as we know it, and had by that time ‘retired’ from the IRA. He’d been brought up on the Falls and having come from a republican family, he grew up thinking that they were more akin to the French Resistance fighting against an occupying force, rather than a terrorist organisation. I guess that epitomises the phrase, one man's terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. He saw the times changing with the British Army coming over and homes of folk he knew being burned out by Protestants. Of course the same was true of Protestants. He says he, to this day, has no idea how the shift in attitudes in regards to the army changed - from sending them sandwiches and tea, to ferocious gun battles, lasting days. But on 15th August 1969 the RUC started to shoot indiscriminately at anyone who moved in the area and Ricky was still able to name many of the first shot in West Belfast by the police, including Patrick Rooney (9) and British Soldier, Trooper Hugh McCabe (20).

The events of the early days, to him were unimaginable and it was a real shock to all of the community. I think, too, the Protestant communities in the thick of the disorder, more than likely viewed the awful events unfolding with the same horror, fear and anger, perhaps though, for different reasons. Prior to 1969, although from a prominent republican family, everyone seemed to be getting on with life and in fact Ricky related, with such warmth and reminiscence, that he had played basketball for Ulster with a Protestant, George from Fane Street, who he had had a particularly good friendship with.

Once there had been a shift in the security situation, the curfew came, and Ricky describes the night 1500 CS Canisters were thrown by the army onto the streets of Lower Falls causing panic, and distress in everyone as they choked and struggled to breathe with the noxious chemicals. He described with clarity his grandfather, who at the time was in his 70’s, choking so hard and the fear of not getting a breath, that one would have assumed it had been a recent event. Ricky leaned forward in his seat: ‘by fuck, I was angry!’ As someone with very close ties to family, I can imagine that anger, and completely understand it. It was at this time, he decided to join the IRA because he didn’t think there was any constitutional way forward to the issues surrounding Northern Ireland. And so, Ricky O’Rawe became – like so many others who would follow in his footsteps, Volunteer O’Rawe. 

It was during these early days of the conflict, that yet again, young Protestants were doing the same as their Catholic counterparts. They saw the IRA killing ‘their’ soldiers and police officers, so they became ‘Volunteers’ for the Loyalist Terrorist groups. Ricky admits that because of his familial ties to the Republican Movement, it was a pretty clear-cut decision. He also acknowledges that there were others who had never had the Republican ethos, but due to the considered acts by a Unionist state against Catholics, they then became involved with the ‘armed struggle’.

In 1971, internment was introduced in Northern Ireland through ‘Operation Demetrius’. Hoards of Catholics were arrested and sent to prison without charge. Later on in the operation, Protestants were also interned without trial however on a much lesser scale. In 1972, Ricky found himself interned on the Maidstone. In March 1972, Willie Whitelaw became the first Secretary of State for N.I. and realised that internment was a shambles on the basis that it looked bad to the international communities and so he started negotiations with the I.R.A. command. Ricky found himself back in the IRA and was interned again until 1974.

Next Week – From The Eyes Of An Adversary Inside.

⏩ Lesley Stock is a former PSNI and RUC Officer currently involved in community work. 

From The Eyes Of An Adversary

Richard O'Rawe ✒ sheds light on the vetting of H-Block comms.

As as general rule I don't comment on social media or get involved in the discussion that takes place online. But for the purposes of clarity I think I should on this occasion.

In 1985, I, along with two other volunteers, vetted all the comms from the H-Blocks before they were given over to David Beresford, who was researching his book, Ten Men Dead at the time.

Our task was to make remove all comms which mentioned The Mountain Climber, the intermediary between the British government and the IRA kitchen-cabinet. As we now know, one comm slipped through the net.

The recently uncovered 25 February 1981 comm from Bobby, in regards to his burial arrangements, did not come to our attention while vetting the comms.

In relation to the 9 March 1981 comm that Danny Morrison has produced for the media, at no time did I, or my fellow-volunteers, redact any comms. Redaction was not the purpose of the process in which we were engaged. So, if there is a redaction in the Morrison comm, someone other than we deemed it necessary to censor the comm and, in doing so, conceal the facts behind the redacted section from Beresford's future readership. 

It is not for me to speculate who might have been behind the redaction. But if everything is above board, if Bobby genuinely did change his mind in regards to his funeral arrangements, why hide it? And why was all this hidden from the Sands family for the guts of forty years? Maybe someone thought them unworthy of knowing how their son and brother wanted to be buried.

⏩ Richard O'Rawe was the H-Blocks PRO during the 1981 Hunger Strike. His books, Blanketmen and Afterlives are inside accounts of the blanket protest and subsequent hunger strikes. 

Vetting Comms From The H-Blocks

Richard O'Rawe answers thirteen questions in a Booker's Dozen. 

TPQ: What are you currently reading?

ROR: At the minute I'm reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It's a exposé of racial inequality in twenty-first century America. A disturbing but great read.

TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?

ROR: Such a question! There are a raft of best books ... Shane đź”– Trinity đź”– Bring Up The Bodies đź”– The Singing Flame. I am loathe to criticise other authors but I found Chris Ryder's Inside The Maze a poor reflection of what was happening in the H-Blocks during the 1980s.

TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?

ROR: Has to be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. My dad brought me to see the film in The Broadway Picture House and I've been a Twain fan ever since. I mean, I was in that raft with Huck and Jim the Slave as they headed down the Mississippi River, without a care in the world. What a book! What character creation!

TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?

ROR: it's a toss-up between Robert Louis Stephenson and Mark Twain. I was as much taken with Long John Silver and young Jim Hawkins as I was by Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

TPQ: First book to really own you?

ROR: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.



TPQ: Favourite male and female author?

ROR: A difficult one. I think my favourite male author would have to be Leon Uris. Exodus and Trinity made life considerably more bearable in jail. We even got a delightful double dose of Trinity, when Bobby Sands so skillfully told the story out the door of his H-Block cell to the rest of us on the wing. My favourite female author would have to be Hilary Mantel. I love historical novels and her descriptive prowess is nothing short of masterful.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

ROR: It doesn't matter. I like both fact and fiction in equal measure.

TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?

ROR: I thought The Singing Flame, and On Another Man's Wounds by Ernie O'Malley were hugely impressive works.

TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?

ROR: I could be churlish here and name an individual, but I won't.

TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?

ROR: A hell of a question! I'm not sure I understand me! It would probably have to be Blanketmen, wouldn't it?

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?

ROR: My Life in Loyalism: Billy Hutchinson with Gareth Mulvenna.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

ROR: There are several, all written by the same author (I was tempted to put in 'the same handsome devil of an author' but I never give way to temptation, as well you know, Mackers). Really though, I'd love to see In the Name of the Son: The Gerry Conlon Story on the big screen. Martin Lynch and I have converted the book into a dynamic stage play (we couldn't really go wrong, such was the diversity of Gerry's life after prison. Now the plug ... the play will be on in The Lyric later this year). But really, it's such a fulsome story, it needs a big screen. It will be made.

TPQ: The just must - select one book you simply have to read before you close the last page on life.

ROR: Has to be Ulysses by Joyce. I've had about four digs at reading it and haven't pulled it off yet. I will conquer Ulysses!

⏩Richard O’Rawe's latest book is Northern Heist, published by Merrion Press.

Booker's Dozen @ Richard O'Rawe

From Organized Rage Former blanketman Richard O'Rawe reviews 66 Days, the new film about Bobby Sands.
 
Richard O’Rawe, a former Blanketman, and IRA political prisoner, and author of two books on the Hunger Strikes; Blanketmen, and Afterlives reviews the new film about Bobby Sands, '66 Days.'

Bobby Sands Died Believing His Death Would Enhance Armed Struggle

Tonight the Pensive Quill carries the start of a four part series by guest writer Carrie Twomey that takes readers through a day-by-day account of the events of early July, 1981.

Sunday ● Monday ● Tuesday ● Wednesday

Using the timeline created with documents from ‘Mountain Climber’ Brendan Duddy’s diary of ‘channel’ communications, official papers from the Thatcher Foundation Archive, excerpts from former Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald’s autobiography, David Beresford's Ten Men Dead, Padraig O’Malley’s book Biting at the Grave, and INLA: Deadly Divisions by Jack Holland and Henry McDonald, Danny Morrison’s published timelines, as well as first person accounts and the books of Richard O’Rawe and Gerry Adams, the fifty-five hours of secret negotiations between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Gerry Adams’ emerging IRA leadership group are examined day by day.

55 Hours: Sunday 5 July 1981

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