The blanket protest was part of a five-year protest during
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
by
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...
(IRA) and
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA, ga, Arm Saoirse Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group formed on 10 December 1974, during the 30-year period of conflict known as "the Troubles". The group seek ...
(INLA) prisoners held in the
Maze prison
Her Majesty's Prison Maze (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre, and known colloquially as The Maze or H-Blocks) was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house alleged paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from August 1971 to Sep ...
(also known as "Long Kesh") in
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
. The
republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
prisoners' status as
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
s, known as
Special Category Status
In July 1972, William Whitelaw, the Conservative British government's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, granted Special Category Status (SCS) to all prisoners serving sentences in Northern Ireland for Troubles-related offences. This had bee ...
, had begun to be phased out in 1976. Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary
convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...
s. The prisoners refused to accept that they had been administratively designated as ordinary criminals, and refused to wear the prison uniform.
In mid June 1943 a form of blanket protest was carried out by Irish Republican prisoners in
Crumlin Road Jail
HMP Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is the only remaining Victorian era former prison in Northern Ireland. It is colloquially known as ' ...
when 22 prisoners went on a "strip strike' for political treatment. Each morning every article (except a towel) was removed from each cell and the prisoners were left to sit on the floor until night time when the bedding was returned.
Background
![Maze Prison - geograph - 341034](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Maze_Prison_-_geograph_-_341034.jpg)
Convicted paramilitary prisoners were treated as ordinary criminals until July 1972, when Special Category Status was introduced following a
hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
by 40 IRA prisoners led by the veteran republican
Billy McKee
Billy McKee ( ga, Liam Mac Aoidh; 12 November 1921 – 11 June 2019) was an Irish republican and a founding member and leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
Early life
McKee was born in Belfast on 12 November 1921, and joined the Iri ...
. Special Category, or political, status meant prisoners were treated very much like
prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold priso ...
; for example, they did not have to wear prison uniforms or do prison work.
In 1976, as part of the policy of "criminalisation", the British Government brought an end to Special Category Status for paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland. The policy was not introduced for existing prisoners, but for those convicted after 1 March 1976.
The end to Special Category Status was a serious threat to the authority which the paramilitary leaderships inside prison had been able to exercise over their own men, as well as being a propaganda blow.
The imminent withdrawal of Special Category Status caused relations between the prisoners and prison officers to deteriorate, and in early 1976 the IRA leaders in prison sent word to the
IRA Army Council
The IRA Army Council was the decision-making body of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group dedicated to bringing about independence to the whole island of Ireland and the end of the Union between Northern Ireland and Great B ...
asking them to begin assassinating prison officers, stating "we are prepared to die for political status. Those who try to take it away from us must be fully prepared to pay the same price".
Outside the prison the IRA responded by shooting prison officer Patrick Dillon in April 1976, the first of nineteen prison officers to be killed during the five-year protest.
The blanket protest began on 14 September 1976 when newly convicted prisoner
Kieran Nugent
Kieran Nugent (1958 – 4 May 2000) was an Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and best known for being the first IRA 'blanket man' in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. When sentenced to three years for hijacking a bus ...
refused to wear prison uniform.
Nugent had previously been
interned
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
in the compounds of Long Kesh during 1975, but was arrested in May 1976 and received a three-year sentence after being convicted of possessing weapons and hijacking a car.
In 1985, Nugent gave an interview describing his arrival at the newly constructed H-Blocks at the prison complex:
I was brought straight to the blocks. Cell 17, D wing H1 or 2. I was stripped and beaten. The screws who knew me said, 'We are the bosses now. There are no OCs here'. A screw said to me, 'What size are you in the waist and what size are you for shoes?' I asked him 'What for?' and he told me 'For a uniform'. I said, 'You have got to be joking'. I was the only one in the H-Blocks. They dragged me into the cell. Davy Long ne of the warderswanted me to compromise. He suggested I wore my own shoes and trousers if I wore a prison shirt. I just laughed. He locked the door. I lay on the floor all night without mattress, blankets or anything else. The heat was reasonable in all fairness and I slept.
Nugent was given a blanket on the second day of his imprisonment, which he wore during an exercise period.
Nugent only wore a prison uniform once, when his mother visited the prison. He told her:
You will not be seeing me for three years because to have a visit I have to wear uniform. If they want me to wear a uniform they'll have to nail it to my back.
Other newly convicted prisoners joined the protest, and at first they were allowed to wear blankets during the exercise period but eventually they were ordered to leave the blankets in their cells.
As prison rules required the prisoners to wear prison uniform when leaving their cells, they were confined to their cells for twenty-four hours a day.
The prison governor would order the protesting prisoners to wear uniforms every two weeks, and the prisoners refused.
As a result of their refusal, they would receive three days "on the boards" where all furniture was removed from their cell, and they were served the "number one diet" consisting of tea without milk, watery soup and dry bread.
The refusal to comply with prison rules carried a further punishment, the loss of remission which reduced a prisoner's sentence by fifty percent in exchange for good behaviour.
Prisoners were entitled to four visits from friends or family each month, three were in exchange for good behaviour and the fourth was statutory. Protesting prisoners automatically forfeited the three "privileged" visits, and their refusal to wear prison uniform even for visits meant they forfeited the fourth.
This left one censored letter in and out of the prison each month as their only contact with the outside world, until after several months some prisoners compromised by agreeing to wear uniforms for visits to maintain contact with the paramilitary leaderships outside the prison.
As a result of the IRA's assassination campaign against prison officers, relations between the prisoners and prison officers were tense. In March 1978 some prisoners refused to leave their cells to shower or use the lavatory because of attacks by prison officers, and were provided with wash-hand basins in their cells.
The prisoners requested showers be installed in their cells and when this request was turned down they refused to use the wash-hand basins.
Dirty protest and hunger strikes
At the end of April 1978 a fight occurred between a prisoner and a prison officer in H-Block 6. The prisoner was taken away to
solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
, and news spread across the wing that the prisoner had been badly beaten.
The prisoners responded by smashing the furniture in their cells, and the prison authorities responded by removing the remaining furniture from the cells leaving the prisoners in cells with just blankets and mattresses.
The prisoners responded by refusing to leave their cells, and as a result the prison officers were unable to clear them. This resulted in the blanket protest escalating into the
dirty protest
The dirty protest (also called the no wash protest) was part of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze Prison (also known as "Long ...
, as the prisoners were unable to "
slop out
Slop or SLOP may refer to:
* Slop (clothing)
* Hose (clothing)
*Slop is the common name for household food scraps
* Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure, in aviation, a procedure for avoiding collisions
* a popular term for Backlash (engineering)
* ...
" (i.e., empty their chamber pots) so resorted to smearing excrement on the walls of their cells.
On 27 October 1980, IRA members
Brendan Hughes
Brendan Hughes (June 1948 – 16 February 2008), also known as "The Dark", and "Darkie" was a leading Irish republican and former Officer Commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was the leader ...
,
Tommy McKearney
Tommy McKearney (born 1952) is a former Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who took part in the 1980 hunger strike.
Background
McKearney was born in Lurgan in the north-east of County Armagh, but he was raised in The Moy ...
,
Raymond McCartney
Raymond McCartney (born 29 November 1954) is an Irish former Sinn Féin politician, and a former hunger striker and volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
IRA membership
McCartney took part in the civil rights march in Derry ...
, Tom McFeeley, Sean McKenna, Leo Green, and INLA member John Nixon,
began a hunger strike aimed at restoring political status for paramilitary prisoners by securing what were known as the "Five Demands":
# The right not to wear a prison uniform;
# The right not to do prison work;
# The right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
# The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
# Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
After a 53-day hunger strike with McKenna lapsing in and out of a coma and on the brink of death, the government appeared to concede the essence of the prisoners' five demands with a 30-page document detailing a proposed settlement. With the document in transit to Belfast, Hughes took the decision to save McKenna's life and end the strike after 53 days on 18 December.
In January 1981 it became clear that the prisoners' demands had not been conceded. On 4 February the prisoners issued a statement saying that the British government had failed to resolve the crisis and declared their intention of "hunger striking once more".
The
1981 Irish hunger strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republicanism, Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government ...
began on 1 March when
Bobby Sands
Robert Gerard Sands ( ga, Roibeárd Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh; 9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981) was a member (and leader in the Maze prison) of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison M ...
refused food, and by the time the strike ended on 3 October, ten men, including Sands, had starved to death.
Two days later, the incoming
Northern Ireland Secretary
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ...
,
James Prior
James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, (11 October 1927 – 12 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then ...
, announced a number of changes in prison policy, including that from then on all paramilitary prisoners would be allowed to wear their own clothes at all times.
References
{{INLA/IRSP
Protests in Northern Ireland
The Troubles (Northern Ireland)
Penal system in Northern Ireland