By July 1981 four republican hunger strikers had already died in Long
Kesh Prison. A fifth, Joe McDonnell, was clinging to life. To
outsiders, Margaret Thatcher appeared unbending; yet, far from the
prying eyes of the press, her government was making a substantial
offer to the prisoners. On 5 July this offer was given to Gerry Adams
in Belfast, and relayed to the prison leadership. In this important
sequel to the bestseller Blanketmen, O’Rawe documents the
four-year war of words that followed. He interviews former members of
the IRA Army Council who claim that a five-man committee led by Adams
had control of the hunger strike, keeping the Army Council in the
dark about the British governments offer. He uses contemporary
records to show that Thatcher had approved the offer but that Gerry
Adams and the committee had replied it was ‘not enough’, telling
the hunger strikers that ‘nothing was on the table’. The prison
leadership accepted the British offer, but six hunger strikers went
on to die. O’Rawe asks: why? This hidden history, using
contemporaneous photographs, pinpoints the key players in the drama
and their responses, identifying Mountain Climber, a Derry
businessman who brokered the deal, and describing the contributors to
the crucial hunger strike conferences of 2008-09. O’Rawe combines a
moving and courageous personal record with first-hand documentation.
He provides essential background and astringent commentary on the
realpolitick of the peace process and republicanism in Northern
Ireland today, and its impact upon the country as a whole.
