They conceded a clearly articulated ameliorated regime for Irish Volunteers who had been convicted, under the Defence of the Realm Act, of offences that were not ‘criminal per se’ while threatening to allow any new strikers to starve. who also went under the name Redmond died from complications after an appendices operation at the Mater Hospital Dublin, the complications were a liver infection as a result of a hunger strike undertaken by the dead man in Mountjoy. And for the labour movement it showed the great power they could wield by a general strike. Two other Cork Irish Republican Army (IRA) men, Joe Murphy and Michael Fitzgerald, died in this protest. The ensuing demonstrations across Ireland infuriated elements of the crown forces. While in Belfast, he was elected O/C of the prisoners and led the hunger strike there before being transferred to Wormwood scrubs. The use of hunger strike as a form of protest has a long tradition in British and Irish prisons. On August 11, 1920, MacSwiney began a hunger strike in Brixton Gaol. This not only ended that strike but the second wave. After The Rising, a series of hunger strikes took place in which some well-known members of Irish society had passed away in their attempts to bring the question of an Irish republic into question. The hunger strike of Terence McSwiney, in particular, was watched with interest by the world's media, as it was… On 21 September, Annie MacSwiney wrote to a friend that Terence had told her: ‘I never thought it could drag on so long – I am just dying by inches.’, Yet on it went. For just a few days, in mid-May 1920, the name Francis A. Gleeson made the papers. The Mountjoy Hunger Strike of 1917 and its effect on later hunger strikes . Republican propagandist Erskine Childers wrote, ‘as the citizens go to bed, the barracks spring to life, lorries, tanks and armoured cars with searchlights muster in fleets. He remarked to his comrades, ‘the general strike has them beat’ and held out for release.[18]. 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; See also: 1920 in the United Kingdom Other events of 1920 List of years in Ireland Events. hunger strike in August 1920, the British government refused to concede. Crucially, once more, the authorities tended to relent. The Irish Government refuses absolutely to release the political prisoners who are now on hunger strike in Mountjoy Gaol. Choisissez parmi des contenus premium Irish Hunger Strike de la plus haute qualité. Peadar Clancy, who had held the April 1920 hunger strike was summarily executed by the Auxiliaries in Dublin Castle after his arrest on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in November of that year. In an attempt to save some face, French the Lord Lieutenant proceeded to formally release all the prisoners around the country to make it appear as if it was a preconceived policy of pardon. The propaganda costs (during the strikes, because of the funerals, and for a long time afterward), as well as the further radicalisation of Irish opinion, were heavy prices to pay. It should be no surprise then that, in early 1920, the most aggressive prisoners calculated the risk to life sufficiently low as to make hunger strike worthwhile if concessions could be won and the authorities humiliated. By April 9, 90 men were on strike. In a remarkable series of blunders, the British mistakenly released all prisoners held. And so, the second wave gathered pace. On the 11th of August, a mass strike was once again initiated, this time in Cork Jail, when 60 IRA members, most of whom were held without charge or trial, … Three of these were Terence McSwiney, (Lord Mayor of Cork who had joined the strike … John French, however, the Lord Lieutenant, who had been since mid 1918 a kind of military governor in Ireland, was against any concessions, preferring to let the prisoners die than to reverse, as he saw it, the progress the military had made since they had commenced mass arrests in January. 1918-1920. They endeavoured to police the strike, setting food prices, distributing food and patrolling the streets to ‘keep order’. There followed a remarkable foul up on the British side. On April 21 the Irish republican prisoners who had been deported to Wormwood Scrubs prison in England also went on hunger strike and shortly afterwards, they too were released, mostly returning to Ireland. Through further bungling, the convicted were released alongside those on remand, while the great majority refused to give parole. It was used again in the 1970s and 1980s by imprisoned members of the Irish Republican Army . It was the second such wave. The crowd almost immediately began to attack the RIC and military with stones and other […], Your email address will not be published. He was one of a group of prisoners transferred to Wormwood Scrubs from Belfast Jail in late April 1920,. A month earlier, Gleeson was resident at Mountjoy Gaol. By April 13, the military were beginning to consider the possibility the possibility of spraying the crowd with machine gun fire from the air in order to disperse them. Hunger strike was a weapon that Irish republicans happened upon, in imitation of the feminist Suffrage activists, who had employed the tactic prior to the First World War. In the autumn of 1919, however, first individuals, and then groups, began to hunger strike again. Such tactics are probably realistically seen more as a staple of popular labour militancy at the time than as attempts at workers’ revolution. RTÉ.ie is the website of Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland's National Public Service Media. A few days later, following his conviction, MacSwiney was transferred to Brixton prison, London, where he continued to strike in parallel to 11 men at Cork. It was the most signal example of mass struggle, as opposed to small group guerrilla warfare, in the Irish War of Independence; exposing at once the shaky will of the British authorities and the fallacy that the struggle was merely one of an isolated ‘murder gang’ against the ‘forces of order’. 3:10 – 4:05 pm, Opening Plenary . The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Ian Macpherson, had recently resigned and had not yet been replaced. Explainer: The First World War- Why did it start? 1920 IRA Hunger Strike. Irish Republicans had copied the tactic of hunger strike from women’s suffrage activists. For the British military, the whole affair was a disastrous humiliation; ‘the military and police secret service personnel were virtually driven off the streets, owing to those whom they had arrested now being set free and in many cases able to identify them… military and police activities abated …[the IRA’s] morale and truculence began to increase accordingly’.[22]. With this idea Arthur Griffith signalled the end of the Cork hunger strike in early November 1920. Perhaps inspired by O’Brien’s example, the republican prisoners in Mountjoy Gaol in Dublin, led by Peadar Clancy, followed suit. The Century Ireland project is an online historical newspaper that tells the story of the events of Irish life a century ago. After the strike: The revolutionary careers of Cork participants in the 1920 Wormwood Scrubs Strike . He, like the others, turned down the next meal delivered to their cells, a ‘miserable meal’ of a mug of soup, some potatoes and meat.[10]. He went on hunger strike on March 18. Now in 1920, it was a labour activist, William O’Brien, who first employed the hunger strike as a protest against his arrest without trial. 2 January – Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers of the 1st Cork Brigade (commanded by Mick Leahy) capture Carrigtwohill Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks, the first such attack carried out as official Republican policy. It was a tactic of ‘moral force’, refusing food in protest against what activists considered illegitimate arrest. It became increasingly common in Ireland that spring for unknown young men to become of sudden public interest due to the manner of their dying. Small wonder that a subsequent inquiry into the workings of Dublin Castle by a civil servant Warren Fisher, characterised the administration as ‘chaos’. As it was though, he had dumped his revolver earlier at a safe house and ‘was neither surprised nor dismayed by news of my arrest’. Lord George Hill, Improving landlord or cruel ‘Lord of the Soil’? A thunder of knocks, no time to dress (even for women alone) or the door will crash in. [11] Photographs taken at the time show troops in steel helmets and fixed bayonets, as well as tanks, behind coils of barbed wire facing the crowds. In April 1920, many of them went on hunger strike and demanded to be […], […] The Hunger Strike and General Strike of April 1920, John Dorney […], […] [13] John Dorney, “The Hunger Strike and General Strike of 1920,” The Irish Story, 13 April 2020, https://www.theirishstory.com/2020/04/13/the-hunger-strike-and-general-strike-of-1920/#.XqBZMMhKjIU […], […] the release of republican prisoners from Mountjoy Gaol in Dublin, who had been freed after a mass hunger strike. Fitzgerald was the first to die on October 17, 1920 as a result of the fast [5] He was followed by Joe Murphy and Terence McSwiney. In the prisons this was matched by a determination to hold the line against hunger strike. These persons would include Thomas Ashe, Terence MacSwiney, Sean McCaughey, and Frank Stagg. MacSwiney, and another of the Cork prisoners, Joseph Murphy, died on 25 October. It forced the British authorities to backtrack. The Mountjoy Hunger Strike had begun. The moral pressure deriving from the wish and the need to show solidarity with one’s comrades is so powerful as to amount to an order.’ Frank Gallagher, who was also on that strike, preferred to remember ‘a fierce joy, a sacrificial glory, a feeling of spiritual pride . The General Strike and Irish independence – The Irish Story, The Irish Story Archive on the Irish War of Independence – The Irish Story, Striking Against Colonialism: The General Strike in the Irish and Algerian Revolutions – The Irish Story, https://www.theirishstory.com/2020/04/13/the-hunger-strike-and-general-strike-of-1920/#.XqBZMMhKjIU, The Derry Riots of 1920 – The Irish Story, The Forgotten Troubles 1920-1922: The Derry Riots 1920… – Éireann, The Rise and Fall of the Dáil Courts, 1919-1922. , Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork City and Brigade Commandant 1st Cork Brigade Irish Republican Army died on Hunger Strike after 73 days. Their duty was to preserve life and, with ‘artificial feeding’ abandoned since the death of Ashe, the safest way to achieve this, for the strikers and themselves, was to bring a quick end to the strike. On account of his youth, Andrews was told that he did not have to join the fast but he told the older men that he ‘thought it was my duty to strike with the others’. Andrews was arrested as part of a general ‘round up’ by the British Army from January 1920 onwards. [2] Richard Holmes, The Little Field Marshal, a Life of Sir John French, p.354. Niall Murray, University College Cork . On Sunday the 9th of May 1920 Francis Aidan Gleeson Óglaigh na hÉireann/I.R.A. When another hunger strike began in Cork prison on 11 August the participating men could not have known that this time would be different. To live for Ireland. After a strike in October 1919, 47 men were released from Mountjoy. [12], Sinn Fein did their best to prevent a massacre, councillor John O’Mahoney telling the crowd to back off and that ‘the prayers of the people is the only effective weapon’. This combination of conciliation and coercion did not bring peace to the prisons. On 17 October, Michael Fitzgerald was the first to die at Cork prison. Someone blundered and in error, all prisoners, including non-political ones were released after the medical examination. In a deeply emotional treatment of the episode, Seán O’Casey powerfully described that ‘Now the young republicans exert the only power of protest and opposition they have, and the Hunger Strike begins. In 1917, Irish Volunteer leader Thomas Ashe had died on hunger strike after force feeding in Mountjoy Gaol in Dublin, an event that had done much to galvanise public sympathy for the republican movement. [13], Todd Andrews, in Mountjoy, who had been taken into the prison hospital as a precaution, was elated to hear from the warders of the mass protests outside, but bemused by a newspaper report that he ‘a boy of 18…had collapsed and was in a state of delirium’. In Cork there were also hundreds of arrests of IRA officers, which Liam Deasy, IRA commander, called, a ‘serious blow’. But the British policy of wholesale internment was overturned, in April 1920, not by force of arms but by an extraordinary combination of hunger strike, popular mobilisation and ultimately a work stoppage by the Irish trade unions that, for two days, brought the country to a standstill. Mountjoy and Wormwood Scrubs proved an end of sorts. Between 14 and 16 April 90 were freed; 31 of them convicts, including Francis Gleeson. [8], Their demands were for political status, but more concretely: better food, separation from ordinary criminal prisoners, no compulsory prison work, books, a weekly bath, the right to smoke and five hours exercise per day.[9]. Little did Andrews know that he would go on to spend ten days on hunger strike and then be released to jubilant crowds outside Mountjoy Gaol, in one of the most dramatic events of the Irish revolution. All over the country there was a complete stoppage and not only that, in some regions and towns the workers took over the running of society, declaring ‘soviets’ and … Now they used it to demand the status of political prisoners. The immediate cause was not usually the stuff of fame, nor even brief recognition: ‘toxaemia, following nephritis and acute appendicitis’. They came again to the funeral Mass and burial (at Glasnevin) on 12 May, while that weekend, at least according to the advertisements, the Phoenix Picture House showed the funeral procession to ‘packed houses’. He had been arrested that August in Cork and charged with possession of: Documents the publication of which would be likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty. He was worried however on seeing photographs of his distressed father outside, who was pictured speaking to republican activist Maude Gonne and Laurence O’Neill, the mayor of Dublin. Soon after, Arthur Griffith ordered the others in Cork prison off the strike. If, like Gleeson, you were an IRA prisoner in the spring of 1920, then it was very likely that you would be faced with a decision, to hunger strike or not, because a great wave of strikes reached its peak then. Mountjoy was a disaster from the government’s point of view. In Kenmare, in Kerry trade unionists first ensured that the town’s businesses were shut and then paraded to the church where they said the rosary for the release of the prisoners. Terence MacSwiney, Mayor of Cork, starved to death, along with Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murphy; the remainder were ordered to end their hunger strike. In early April they had systematically burned over 100 abandoned barracks all over Ireland as well as tax offices. During the Anglo-Irish war, in October 1920, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton prison. The first began in the summer of 1917, is remembered for the death of Thomas Ashe that September, and continued till March 1918. - Commander KENWORTHY (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister if he will state how many Irish prisoners are on hunger-strike in Cork Prison; how many have already died; whether he is aware that in the case of the late Michael Fitzgerald witnesses were produced to prove his innocence, but their evidence was not taken; that in … [2], In Dublin alone there were over 1000 raids and 86 arrests in January, including 6 members of the Dail; the republican parliament declared in 1919. The authorities were poorly placed to resist such pressure. . But over the next year and a half, as the political conflict in Ireland became increasingly bloody, it was increasingly the gun rather than the moral force of the strike and the mass protest that would predominate. William Murphy is an associate professor at Dublin City University. As one prisoner wrote in his diary, ‘you will find they will climb down’. The Army’s view was perhaps overly optimistic from their own point of view. The hunger strike and the demonstrations it sparked in Dublin were all worrisome for the British administration in Ireland and for the government in London. Via Bibliothèque nationale de France, Image: Belfast Newsletter, 4 February 1921, READ: Hunger strikers would rather die than accept ‘criminal’ status, READ: Carrying a cross for Ireland - Thomas Ashe in profile, Charlotte Despard condemns British reprisals in Ireland as ‘lynch law of the worst kind’, Arson attacks in Lancashire blamed on Sinn Féiners, Body of ‘convicted spy’ dumped in Cork City, NEWSLETTER: Subscribe and get Century Ireland straight to your inbox, What the Census tells us about Irish language use, RTÉ History Show: The Women’s Suffrage Movement, Explainer: The Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. © RTÉ 2021. … Trouvez les Irish Hunger Strike images et les photos d’actualités parfaites sur Getty Images. Cork Hunger Strike 1920 On the 11th of August, a mass strike was once again initiated in Cork Jail, when 60 IRA members, most of whom were held without charge or trial, demanded reinstatement of political status and release. Required fields are marked *, Powered by Pinboard Theme by One Designs and WordPress. It would be the Civil War before there would be another lengthy, fatal, strike. Hundreds of republican and labour activists were arrested and interned under the Defence of the Realm Act in early 1920. The perception on the outside, though not the reality, was that the prisoners were on the verge of death after six days of fasting. Dublin Castle was deeply divided between coercion and conciliation camps. On 25 October 1920, a new name was added to the martyrology of Irish nationalism. Your email address will not be published. As a consequence of the strike, the British opened talks with the hunger strikers’ leader Peadar Clancy and offered him concessions, including political status and release on parole, both of which offers he refused. Clancy ‘left on me the indelible impression of a superman, a man whose commands I at least would have had a compulsion to obey’. Meáin Náisiúnta Seirbhíse Poiblí na hÉireann, For just a few days, in mid-May 1920, the name Francis A. Gleeson made the papers. O’Brien, an official of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, was arrested on March 3 and was deported to Wormwood Scrubs prison in England. Hundreds more arrests followed in February, March and early April. What brought the situation to a head was the action of the Irish Trade Union Council, who called a general strike for April 13, ‘in protest at the inhuman treatment of political prisoners and to demand their immediate release’. Sir John French then tried indicate that this had been his intention. Anguished families, anxious doctors, an angry Irish nationalist public, and an amplifying press (Irish, British and international) were drawn in by the terrible drama. On Tuesday 13 April 1920 a general strike took place in Ireland that was by far the greatest strike in Irish history. 2020 marks the centenary of the hunger strike of Irish republicans in Brixton Prison and Cork Men’s Gaol. As British legal advisor, WE Wylie, remarked, ‘jailbirds, political prisoners, petty thieves, every damn one of them [were freed]. Huge crowds gathered outside Mountjoy Gaol to demand the release of the prisoners. Fitzgerald and the other nine volunteers at Cork Gaol joined in. Todd Andrews was taken out of Mountjoy in an ambulance, through a cheering crowd, ‘hysterical with joy’ to the Mater hospital, which he confessed, he scarcely needed. The young Andrews saw it as rite of passage that every Irish rebel went through. ‘Catholic ethics, the hunger strike, and the struggle for Irish independence: from Ashe to Murphy, Fitzgerald and McSwiney’ was just one of four fascinating talks given in UCC on June 10 at a conference organised in connection with the Irish Capuchin province entitled ‘Ministers of Mercy: the Capuchins and the struggle for independence in Ireland’. Thereafter, hunger striking was forbidden by the Sinn Féin. On opening, in charge the soldiers with fixed bayonets and full war kit.’[5], The British Army report on the campaign in Dublin remarked that in early 1920, ‘things were looking black for Sinn Fein, many leaders were in our hands and the activity of the Crown forces was on the increase’.[6]. In Bagenalstown County Carlow, they even declared, ‘a Provisional Soviet Government’ at Kilmallock, County Limerick, ‘red flaggers stopped traffic’ and referred to themselves as a ‘Soviet regime’.[17]. Sporadic campaigns of disobedience, escapes, riots, and racket strikes (keeping the whole prison awake at night by constant banging, slamming and singing) continued between April 1918 and July 1919, but the new approach did stop the hunger strikes. About two-thirds of them had not yet been convicted while, it transpired, some had been placed on an incorrect (harsh) regime. Taken alone, these were humiliations which the government could not indefinitely endure and retain either authority or the capacity to use imprisonment as an effective weapon against the IRA. For the guerrillas of the IRA it was indeed a great morale boost. In the days that followed, the number on strike climbed, the press coverage grew, the crowds at the gates gathered in ever greater numbers, the Catholic hierarchy demanded ‘fairplay’, and the Trades Union Congress called a general strike, stating ‘To-day, though many are at the point of death, their titled jailers venomously shriek: “Let them die.” We workers, dare not allow this tragedy to come to pass.’. A general strike demanding the release of all prisoners was called starting on April 13. Arrest were made under section 14B of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). A combined patrol of army and police opened fire on a celebrating crowd at Miltown Malbay, County Clare, killing three men. Gleeson is forgotten now, but in May 1920 those 10 words drew the crowds, and the uniformed Irish Volunteers to steward them, as his body was removed to Fairview Church on 11 May. Supplément du dimanche, 19 September 1920. The Lord Lieutenant Sir John French, after his own near death at the hands of the IRA in December 1919, had pressured the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Ian McPherson into a policy of wholesale arrest, internment and in some cases deportation to England of ‘dangerous persons’, by the military. Fitzgerald died on Oct. 17, 1920, after a 67-day hunger strike, eight days before Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney also died on a hunger strike. • The Mountjoy Hunger Strike and the General Strike took place between 5 th and 14 th April 1920, 100 years ago this week. [1] CS Andrews, Dublin Made Me (2008) p.144-145. Where was it fought? Many arrested were low level activists and not all of them were republicans, trade union officials also being targeted. Then, having endured several months of ‘hunger strike mania’, during which group after group of Irish Volunteer prisoners forced their release, the authorities in Dublin Castle changed policy.
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