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What were the IRA hunger strikes? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and this is
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know, just the two of us doing
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: it together. We're hanging out. We're going to get to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the bottom of some stuff that's right and uh, you know,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the Grabster helped us out with this one a little
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: while ago. And it almost feels now like I was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: purposefully sitting on it because of the the turnout of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the recent elections across the pond there. Okay, I'm not
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: familiar with what happened. Well, the shin fain Uh is
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: now in place as the largest party INO in the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Northern Ireland Assembly elections, and this means that like this
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: is probably the best chance they've had in a long
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: time for reuniting Ireland. Oh wow, that'd be something. Wow,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: you really did save it for just the right right moment, Chuck.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just a couple of weeks ago and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I read a bunch of articles on it on the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: likelihood and it seems um it seems like a hard
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: road still, but they definitely is. It's something they're interested
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: in I think that party that is, and polls are
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: very split. Yeah, I'm I'm interested to see how it
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: turns out. But that is pretty interesting that they're they're
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: finally in a position to do that, because that means
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: they've come a very long way in the last what
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: fifty or so years um. For those of you who
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: aren't familiar, shin Fan is considered the political wing of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the Irish Republican Army. And the reason we're talking about
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: either one of those is because we're talking about hunger strikes,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: specifically a set of hunger strikes that took place at
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the twentieth century and then towards the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: end of the twentieth century, and they are very much
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: associated with the I r A. In fact, if you
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: ask most people who are familiar with hunger strikes, they
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: will probably bring up the I ra A. It's like
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that closely associated with them. Yeah, and you know, we
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: should just say we're we're gonna do our best to
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: get this right, but this is one of those that is,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you know, it's so fraught with emotion um on both sides.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So we just want to tell all of our friends
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland and all of our friends in the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Irish Republic that we were doing our best here, just
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: two Americans trying to understand a very deeply, long rooted,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: oftentimes hostile situation. And for those of you, like Morrissey
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: with Irish blood but English heart, um, we will hopefully
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: not tick you off either. We're doing our best here,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: just a couple of Yankee American Joe's doing what we can.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That's right. And we had a great time, by the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: way in Dublin, and our only regret was not being
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: able to go and do a live show in Northern Ireland,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: which I couldn't squeeze it in, but we'd love to
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: check it out one day, agreed. So you said that, like,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: this is a very emotionally fraught subject, and that is
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a gross understatement really, because um, what we're gonna focus
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: on are called the troubles, which started at the end
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of the sixties and beginning of the seventies, but um,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: really it goes back even further than that, and uh,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you can kind of place the beginning of hostilities in
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: sixteen o nine when the Protestant English came into Catholic
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Ireland and said, hey, we're gonna take some of this land,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and we're going to take some of your land rights
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: away from those of you with documented land rights, and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: we're going to set up some English enclaves and we're
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: just going to basically show up and and sit here
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: for a while. And that didn't sit very well with um,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the ethnic Irish or Gaelic people who lived in the area.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So that was one part of it. And I also
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: hit on another part two, Chuck, that we've got Protestant
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and Catholic basically versus each other. Now, yeah, and you know,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I think Ed makes a good point that it's it's
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: not strictly about religion, but when you're over there and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you're talking Catholic and Protestant, it's so intertwined in the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: fabric of kind of everything that goes on, including the politics,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that it's really, you know, there's no way you can
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: separate it. But it wasn't necessarily uh an Irish or
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a well, I guess Irish Catholic, English Scottish Protestant battle,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: but it is the seeds are there. So in particular
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: in the North of Ireland around Ulster, a bunch of
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Protestant English and Scottish people kind of settled there over
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: the years and Um formed what's basically known or what
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: was known as the plantation of ulster Um. And so
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: over time you've got this largely Gaelic population inhabiting the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: central and south part of Ireland and then a mixed
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Catholic Gaelic and um English and Scottish Protestant kind of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: group coexisting for better for worse in the northern part
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of the country. And it's remarkable that it lasted like
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: this for you know, several centuries before it finally came
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: to a head at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yeah,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and as far as you know, how those people in
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Northern Ireland that were that were kind of you know,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: mixed in together felt about things then and how they
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: feel about things now, you know, Ed makes some kind
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of sweeping statements that it's it's just kind of hard
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to do, especially when you look at like modern day
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: polls on reunification and stuff like that. Those seeds run
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: deep and people are still kind of divided on it,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: so you can't necessarily just say that, you know, these
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: days the people in Northern Ireland favor Protestantism and want
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: to be a part of the UK it's it's a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: mixed bag, right, Yeah, I would guess to be akin
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to UM, you know, people wanting to their state to secede,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: or the United States to break into five different countries
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: or something like that, although UM probably with much much
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: more emotional opinions about that. And then throw religion in there,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: exactly just that little light thing. So, like I said, this,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: this kind of precarious living situations living arrangement came to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a head UM all the way in nineteen twelve when
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Irish nationalists kind of movement UM began. I think they
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: started before that, but in nineteen twelves they started really
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: pushing for Home rule, which is Irish um governing Ireland.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: It's pretty much as simple as that, UM. And that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: created the Home Rule crisis, and it was a crisis
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: as far as the British were concerned, because all of
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a sudden, they're Irish people were saying, hey, we we
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: basically want you out and we want to rule Ireland.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: So let's just end the four centuries of occupation, shall we.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The way you put it there just sounds very nice. Yeah,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that's how they put in. Uh. This was
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: sort of put off a bit by World War One.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Obviously that kind of disrupted a lot of things. But eventually,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen, the Nationalists did revolt and it was
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: called the Easter Rising of nineteen sixteen. And this was
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a bloody affair. It was I mean, I think there
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: were more than a dozen leaders executed, many thousands of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: people in prison. It was just a it was a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: brutal conflict. Uh, And that was just you know, that
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: kind of kick things off in nineteen sixteen. It continued
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: again in nineteen nineteen with what we know now is
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the well, I guess what was called this then too,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the Anglo Irish War. And there were a lot of
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: sort of governmental policies going on during this time. The
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Government of Ireland Act of nineteen twenty officially, as far
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: as they were concerned, created two Ireland's Northern Ireland and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: what they called Southern Ireland that we're all still under
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the rule of the UK and Great Britain. But Southern
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Ireland was like, no, we're not. What is Southern Ireland
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: where the Irish Republic like, don't even call a Southern Ireland. Um.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So that actually kind of got translated into a treaty
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: UM that ended the Anglo Irish War. It was the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: treaty that basically recognized Ireland as two separate nations. You've
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: got Ireland itself, which is again the central and southern
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: part of the country, and then you have Northern Ireland,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: which is part of the United Kingdom. It's a totally
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: different country, um, at least geo politically speaking, it's a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: totally different country. And again there's a big distinction between
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Ireland and Northern Ireland and the population makeup because those Protestant,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Catholic and Scottish people that settled in the northern part
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of Ireland over the centuries had um descendants. In those
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: descendants stayed um loyal to the Crown, they stayed Protestant,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and at times they they were more powerful than their
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Catholic neighbors. So in the late sixties, by the time
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the late sixties roll around and you've got to Ireland's
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: you have a Protestant elite, small minority of Protestants ruling
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Northern Ireland, much to the chagrin of the Catholic Um
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Gaelic people who lived there. Uh. And that kind of
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: set up there set the stage I guess for the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: troubles that followed, yeah, and the troubles uh, and then
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: he said began in the late sixties. They carried through
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: till about nine more than I mean, the numbers kind
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: of very depending on you know, what you're looking at,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: but at least thirty five hundred people died, fifty percent
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of which were civilians. And these were you know, it
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: was a mess. There were paramilitary groups on both sides,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: there were British military taking part, there were street battles,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: there were bombings. I mean, this is the kind of
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: stuff that in the like when you and I were
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: growing up in the seventies and eighties, you know, this
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: was all over the news at the time, and it
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: was I had no idea. I didn't understand it at
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: all at the time, and it took you know, me
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: listening to a lot of you two and then trying
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to educate myself over what was going on over the years.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: But I don't think I fully really understood it until
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: like the past few days, when I really dug in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: absolutely same here man. So one of the things that
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: kicked off those troubles you just described, um, was the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the Gaelic Catholics protesting the unfair rule as they saw
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: of the Protestant minority. And the problem is these protests
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: were kind of suppressed brutally by the Protestant government and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: with the aid of the British military, British um police,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I believe, and that's that turned quickly into rioting and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: then eventually, like you said, the paramilitary groups assembling and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: basically guerrilla warfare breaking out in Northern Ireland. So imagine like,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know, going to work one day and you're Catholic
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and your co workers Protestant, and the next day you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: guys are fighting each other on the street, um for
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: control of of your both of your country. Yeah, it's
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: it's it's nuts to think about it as an American
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: because like we can't fathom something like that, you know,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to Gen xers growing up in the in the Cold
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: War Reagan era, right, I mean, we're pretty far removed
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: from the Civil War here in the United States. This
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: is like civil war that took place in the early
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: seventies or started in the early seventies and continued for
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: almost thirty years. Yeah, and previous you know, we should
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: back up a little bit, I guess and talk about
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the origins of the ira Uh. This had to do
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: with the Easter Rising that we talked about of nineteen sixteen.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: It was initiated by what was called the Irish Volunteers
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: UH in nineteen sixteen, and by the twenties they were
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: known as the i RA, a UH Irish Republican Army,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and they fought a civil war in the early nineteen twenties.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: In the nine nineteen twenty three there were a lot
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of different nationalist factions fighting one another. One of these
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: was the IRA, and there was civil war going on
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: back then as well. So there's just been decades and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: decades of unrest by the time the nineteen sixties roll around, Yeah,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and that nineteen twenties civil war um was in Ireland itself.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So after it became a sovereign nation, all those groups
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that had fought the British started fighting each other to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: figure out who was going to run the show from
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: then on. So the IRA that you and I think about, UM,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: that you know, we learned about from you two and
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the news and the eighties and all that, Um, they're
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the ones that you would call the provisional IRA, and
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: they formed out of the beginning of the troubles, those
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: protests and riots beginning in nineteen sixty nine. They were
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: one of the paramilitary groups that developed and they became
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: UM pretty famous in no small part because of the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: hunger strikes they ended up carrying out. Should we take
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: a break? I think so, I think we've reached breakness.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I know, the nerves that was nervous during that setup.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Were you You thought I was just gonna keep going
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and going. No, No, not that. I was just like, man,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: this stuff is so you know, there's there are fine lines,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: and I just don't want to misspeak. Oh I don't
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: think we did. But now that I just said that,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of course we did. All right, Well, we'll gather ourselves
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and we'll be right back to talk about the history
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of hunger strikes a little bit right after this, Okay, Chuck.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: So why would anybody engage in a hunger strike and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: why would they be most closely related or thought of, um,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: in relation to the I R A. Well, uh, you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: there is some evidence that they were rooted in Celtic tradition, UM,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: hundreds of years ago. There were you know, there were
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: stories of people undergoing hunger strikes and it might you know,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily political at the time. So how it
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: would go down is like maybe somebody owed you money
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and wouldn't give it to you, so you would go
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: very publicly to where they live, camp out on their
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: doorstep and engage in a hunger strike. And it was
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: sort of just a very public display of you know,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: maybe you didn't have means to get it any other way,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: so it was a very public display and way of saying,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: this person is doing me wrong and I am out
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: here like starving myself. Pay attention, right. It was so
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: common it was actually written into Gaelic law. I was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: called the troupes cad or trust God, I'm going with
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: trups cad um, and it was it was the concept
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: of hospitality in Ireland among the Gaelic people was so
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: strong that, um, it was just unthinkable to let somebody
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: starve on your doorstep. So it was really kind of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: playing on two things. It was drawing attention to somebody,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and then it was also showing what a terrible person
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: they were for letting this person starve on their doorstep.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: The thing is this is real, that really happened, Like
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: it's it comes up in some of the um epics
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: from the Gaelic culture, and like it's documented that it
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: was a real thing. But what's not documented is it's
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: linked to the I r A hunger strikes of the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: beginning of the twentieth century and then towards the end
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Because nobody involved in those ever
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: said I'm I'm doing I'm pulling a trop scad um.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: They didn't link it to it, but you could make
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a case that it was kind of like in the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: culture to think of doing something like that, because it
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: had been around for hundreds of years. Yeah, I think
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that's fair to say. And you know, it continued, like
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, there were how are you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: saying at suffragettes, suffragists, suffrage suffragists. Yeah, like how you
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: call a female or male server a server, a female
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: or male actor and actor? We don't do, you know.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I know that David Bowie song always confuses me, though, well,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it's a good song and it should remain. But they
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: would undergo hunger strikes, but they would bring in sort
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of like religious iconography sometimes and sort of paint themselves
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: as martyrs. They would invoke the Virgin Mary and Joan
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: of Arc and stuff like that. And again, this is
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: not exactly the same thing. But this is just to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: say that in the early nineteen hundreds there were, uh,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: there were women in Ireland that were undergoing these hunger strikes.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: They also happened in Russia, and I think they called
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: some of these like the Russian method. Uh. They would
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: get there, they would do this reverse like force feeding,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: like reverse stomach bumping to force feed some of these people. Um.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that would killed them. So it was it was
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: just a nasty way to draw attention, and the way
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that it was countered was also nasty. Yeah. So the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: first i RA members to hunger strike want to go
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: on hunger strike, um, were inspired by the suffragists um,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: who were sometimes in the same prison as them. The
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: first ira A member to do it was James Connolly,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: who went on hunger strike in and was actually released
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: from prison as a result. UM. And then a few
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: years later, UM, the case of Thomas Ash drew national
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and I think maybe even international attention because he went
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: on hunger strike and they accidentally killed him when they
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: tried to force feed him. Yeah, they pumped milk and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: eggs into his lungs by accident, which is uh, I mean,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it's hard to think of like what kind of an
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: awful death after you're already starving yourself. Uh. And we
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: should also point out to that. Another similarity that they
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: had with these original early nineteen hundreds suffragists with their
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: hunger strikes is they were and this is a very
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: key thing for what ended up being, you know, the
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: hunger strikes in the nineteen eighties that we're going to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: talk about in a bit, But they one of their
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: main aims was to be looked at as political prisoners
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and not criminal prisoners. Yeah. That was a big ongoing
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: thread throughout all of this, starting with the suffragists and
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: then all the way into the eighties with modern IRA.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: So um, I mean, should we talk about that for
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a minute? Yeah, sure, Well, you know, there's a huge
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: difference in being viewed as a criminal and wearing prisoners
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: clothing and having a prisoners rights which are to say,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: like criminal prisoners rights which are to say, not very many,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and what they were fighting for and what the the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I r. A Was later fighting for in the eighties
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: and the seventies, which was we're political prisoners. We want
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to be able, we don't want to look like common criminals.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: We want to wear our own clothes. We want to
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: be able to uh, to associate with with each other
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and walk about, um outside of ourselves and congregate. And
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, you know, they allowed this for
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: a while, but nineteen seventy six of British government said no,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to treat you like your terrorists and like
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: your common criminals. And you've got to wear these You
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: can't congregate anymore. You've got to wear, you know, uh,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a prisoners jumpsuit. And this was a big, big deal.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: It really was for a number of reasons. One UM,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the reason why the Brits said we're not going to
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: recognize you as political prisoners was because they had at
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: first um and they decided that this was generating too
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: much sympathy and legitimizing the i r A and its
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: struggle for Irish independence way too much, and by casting
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: them as criminals rather than political prisoners, they were saying like, hey,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: these people are dangerous, their thugs, they're terrorists, and you
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: should be on the side of us, the Brits and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the Protestants who are cleaning up the streets and getting
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: these people off the streets and into jail. So it
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't just the way your day to day life panned
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: out in prison. It was also like the larger public
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: perception a battle for that that was going on that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: both sides were really entrenched in their way of thinking
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: with that. Well, yeah, and that's the reason a hunger
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: strike in the case of the IRA was, or could
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: be at least very effective as a pr tool, because
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: a common criminal prisoner is it going to literally starve
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: themselves to death for a cause. So on one hand
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you have the British government saying, you know, we're not
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: going to recognize you, you're just terrorists. On the other hand,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: you've got the i ra A starving themselves to death, Uh,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: fighting for rights to where their own clothing. I think, Uh,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: this one thing you sent me said as far as
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: their them congregating, is that in prison they just saw
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: that as another I ra A headquarters. Basically. Yeah, they
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: did a lot of strategizing in the early seventies and
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: they were able to chuck because of something called um
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Operation Demetrius, and that was something that the British Army
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: carried out in one and it ended up backfiring because
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: it generated a tremendous amount of public sympathy for the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: i r A and its movement um because the British
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Army just started rounding up suspected members of the i
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: r A and put them in what amounted to a
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: prisoner of war camp um. There was no due process,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: they didn't get to plead their case in front of
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: a judge if they accidentally got scooped up, and they
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: really had nothing to do with the I RA A
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: t s. There was no recourse for getting out of there,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and they set up the Brits set up a prisoner
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: of war camp um in Northern Ireland to hold I
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: think hundreds and hundreds of of prisoners starting in UM one,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and it really really rubbed the public the wrong way
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: because it's nineteen seventy one. You know, this isn't like
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the seventeenth century all over again. It's one and they're
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: rounding people up and holding them in prisoners of prisoner
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of war camps um against Theirwell that's crazy. Yeah. So
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you know, a hunger strike could be a pretty effective
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: way to draw attention to this. Uh you know. Ed
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: points out a few um things about hunger strikes that
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: could make it more effective, which is obviously to do
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: it as a collective action is a much stronger message
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: that you're sending than any individual. Um. So if you
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have a group with a political cause, you're gonna get
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: more attention. Um. You know, it casts the prison officials
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in a light of which they're either allowing these people
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: to starve to death, which is, you know, a monstrous
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: thing to do, or they're forced feeding them, which sometimes
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: kills them, which is a monstrous thing to do. And
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you know, your body basically shuts down. I think we've
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: talked about starvation and other episodes before, but you know,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: your body uses up your fat stores and once that's gone,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: once that's gone, it starts literally like eating at your muscle,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: eating at your internal organs, and between you know, forty
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and seventy something days, your your body is going to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: finally succumb to organ failure and you're gonna die. Yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, once your once your body starts eating its
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: own organs, you're in trouble. And even if you managed
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to survive the um, the hunger strike, um, you probably
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: have done some serious permanent damage to yourself. So so,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: like we were saying, after Operation Demetrius, right, they rounded
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: up a bunch of suspected ira A members treated them
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: as prisoners of war. But at the same time they
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: were also busting other ira A leaders with legitimate and
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: legitimate criminal acts like gun possession things like that. So
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you had two groups of i ra A prisoners being
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: treated separately, the ones in the interment camp being treated
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: like political prisoners or prisoners of war, and then the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: ones in the jail being treated like common criminals. So
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to kind of get the same treatment in the jail
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: as the political prisoners in the pow camps were given.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: A guy named Billy McKee who was an i ra
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: A leader. Um, stage the first modern hunger strike in
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, that's right, and um it was an
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: effective strategy for about four years. But this was right
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: at that time. I think it was VY six when
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: they had that shift from recognizing them as political prisoners
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to uh just you know, criminal prisoners. So this was
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: pre that time and kind of led up to that shift. Yeah.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And then, um, so you've got the criminalization campaign being
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: carried out by the Brits and the Protestants in Northern
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Ireland who were running the government. Um, and remember it
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: has a twofold effect, like you can no longer congregate,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you can no longer strategize. We're no longer going to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: recognize your hierarchy of ranks, um, and just deal with
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: your leaders like you're just a common criminal now. And
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: it also turned the tables on the ira A prisoners,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: who had formerly been treated with general respect by the guards.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: The guards were let loose on these people, UM, and
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: it led to a really horrible time to be an
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: ira A prisoner because it's almost like there was pin
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: up rage or something among the guards and they just
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: released it on the prisoners. They poured scalding water on them,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: they hosed them down with um cold water hoses in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: winter time. UM. They they beat them regularly and routinely,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and again they were treated as common criminals. And uh,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it was a from what I can tell, from about
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, six to night one was about as bad
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a time as you could be an ira A prisoner
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: as there ever was. Yeah, we'll take a break in
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: a sec but before we do, I do want to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: mention the movie that I watched today because I figured
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: there was probably a movie about this. UM. Steve McQueen,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the director that did Twelve Years of Slave and shame
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: directed the movie, his first movie actually directed. Huh was
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it an infomaniac? You watched? No? No, no, that wasn't him.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Oh wait was that that? No? That thin? Yeah, but
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: he did one where um Fossbender is a sex addict. Right,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: that's shame, Okay, Shane, That's what I meant, is that
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: what you watched? No, no, no, that's not watched. You're like,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: what when's the Hunger striking to start? Uh? It was
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: his first movie from two thousand and eight, also with
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands who will you know? Get
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: to after the Break, But it was called Hunger and
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: boy oh boy. Uh. I recommend it in one sense
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and that it was a powerful film. Um, but it
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: was hard to watch, my friend, I can't imagine. It
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was brutal. Um, it's a very The way he structures
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it is sort of a kind of a non traditional narrative.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: It's not like a traditional biopic that you would expect.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: It's a very quiet, not a lot of dialogue. Um,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: it's only ninety six minutes long, but it's a very
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: slow paced film. But just a really I mean, I
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: get the sense that it was a really realistic depiction
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of those years that were you were talking about between
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: seventy six and eighty one, and these guys were just brutalized, man,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: they were uh, Like they would call in the riot
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: squad and basically open the cells and throw their naked
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: bodies into the hallway and beat them with batons and
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: like like cut off their hair and their beards like
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: until they were bloody. And it was it was a
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: very very tough movie to watch. And at the Hunger
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Strike part of it is only like the last twenty
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: minutes or so of the film. The whole first part
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: is just sort of the conditions in prison, uh, and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: what's going on. So I recommend it on one hand,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: it is not for the faint of heart. But we'll
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: kind of take a break now and we'll talk about
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: what else is going on in the prisons in right
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: after this, all right, so uh, in the film and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: in real life, in fact, this is how the film
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: starts out. Is the first prisoner that comes in refuses
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: his prison clothes, and that's what started the blanket protests
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: when they were basically like, I'm not gonna wear your
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: common criminal outfit, and they basically said okay, well, you're
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: just gonna be naked seven for years, and here's your blanket,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and that's that's going to be your clothing. And that's
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: what they did. It's called the blanket protests. That first
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: prisoner under this new criminalization scheme said, you know, final,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: just wear a blanket, and like, in very short order,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I think four hundred other Iria prisoners did the same thing.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It's called the blanket protest. They were all just naked
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: in the movie the whole time where they really have
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you seen the new Kids in the Hall? I haven't yet.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I'm dying too though, the naked the whole time. No,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: but in in some places and it's like, wow, it's
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: pretty hilarious. Yeah, And I have to say I think
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: they're they're better then they were in the first go round.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: It's which is very surprising, but it really they I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: laughed out loud more than I did that I remember
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: doing in an average Kids in the Hall episode. Okay, well,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I was a little actually worried to watch it for
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: fear of like, they're not, you know, going to be
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: as great anymore, and I would be it would taint
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the original or something. No, definitely, and I'm never understood
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: that how does something like a follow up taint an original?
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: It does. It doesn't taint the original, it taints the
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: whole For me sometimes as a as a whole memory sense. Yeah,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that makes more sense for sure. But yeah, like those
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: originals aren't funny now, it's not like that. It's just like, oh,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: like a boy. Then they went on to do something
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: not good. So, um, yeah, I wouldn't worry about that,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to talk it up too much.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: So you're expecting like, yeah, I don't want you to
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: be let down, but I don't think you will be fantastic.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Can't wait? Yeah, so um yeah, So this blanket protest,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how long it went on, but it
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: went on for quite a while, And it happened during
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: that period that I guess hunger covers um, which again
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: was about the worst time you could be an ira
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: A prisoner, because like they weren't doing this too common
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: criminals that were in the same prison, they were doing
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: it to the ira A members. So they went from
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: treating them as political listeners with a general amount of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: respect and all of the freedoms that that that came with,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: to regularly beating them and posing them down with cold
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: water in the winter and like taking their clothes and um.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Like that was the shift, the change in treatment, and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: they were doing it to the ira A because they
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: were trying to send a message. The British government was like,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: this is what we think of you. This is how
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: we're going to treat you. You should probably stop right
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: now because this is what you can expect if we
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: catch you from now on. That that like treat that
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: gentleman's agreement that we had before, that's gone. Yeah. So
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: in ninety eight, and the film kind of portrays the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Blanket protest is concurrent with the Dirty Protest. I'm not
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: sure if that's the case, because the Dirty Protest came
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: around in night this is when. And this was really
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: gross and hard to watch in the film. Oh I'm
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: sure Steve McQueen covered very well, I know, and believe
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: it or not, this makes me want to see Twelve
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Years of Slave more because, like I knew it was tough,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: but now that I've seen this, I know it's gonna
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: be hard to sit through again. And I'm still avoiding it,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: but I want to see it more because i know
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it's going to be like super realistic. I think so
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: hunger was your gateway drug to twelve years, I guess so.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: But the dirty protest is when the prisoner said, all right, well,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: if we're gonna be in here and you're not gonna
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: give us any rights, we're not gonna bathe. We're gonna
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: smear our feces all over the wall and our food
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: all over the wall, and we're gonna take our our
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: urine and feces and dump it under the uh the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: cell door out into the hallway. So you have to
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: deal with it. And it was a very very it's
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: a disgusting movie to watch, but this really happened. So
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: one of the other things that happened to was that
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: among those ira A prisoners who were treated like this,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: they formed a bond that has probably never been formed
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: in the history of humanity, because you know, no group
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: was ever necessarily subjected to that exactly like that, in
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: exactly the same way. So, I mean, I'm sure there
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: are other similar bonds among you know, enslaved and um
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: imprisoned populations. But because they were already fighting for a
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: cause that they believed in, and they were suffering for
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: a cause that they believed in, this stepped up treatment
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: just made that bond between them even stronger. So one
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of the things that they they they that came out
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: of all this was um, what's called the five demands,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: and it was basically, like you could summarize it as,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we want to be treated like political prisoners again. Yeah,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and they were all reasonable demands. One was again to
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: wear their own clothes. Uh. Number two was to not
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: have to go on work detail. Uh. They said they
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: wanted to be allowed a visit and a package in
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: a letter, one one and one per week. And in
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the film they did get visitors and they were um
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: small uggling in all kinds of things under the table,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: which is always a great part of any prison film. Uh.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: They wanted the freedom to associate again and organized and congregate.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And then they wanted, um to revoke any of the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: punishments that happened because of these protests that were already
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: in place. Yeah, and like you said, they're reasonable and
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: there's so reasonable. They almost seemed small like the iris
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: going through this and that's all they want. But again, remember,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: being treated like a political prisoner has a lot to
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: do with optics in the general public, right, So that
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: makes a little more sense that that it was just
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: that is all they were asking for, um, and there
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: was They got a big assist by a woman named
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Bernadette mccalis key UM, who had been a member of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Parliament Parliament, not the George Clinton version, but like the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: original she played keyboards so um. So she was fairly
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: well known and she actually ran in the European Parliament
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: on a five demands platform in ninety seventy nine, and
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: there was an assassination attempt on her life from the
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Ulster Defense Force, which was one of those paramilitary groups
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: that that began at the beginning of the troubles, but
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: they were a Protestant paramilitary group, um. And she survived
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the assassination attempt and would show up to rallies and
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: protests on crutches. Um. But she did a really great
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: job at focusing public support and attention on what was
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: going on in the prisons and the protests that were
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: being carried out and why they were being carried out.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And following that the early nineteen eighties
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: when we saw sort of the two main modern hunger strikes. Uh.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: That was the one in the seventies, but the two
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: in the eighties really I think got the most media attention.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Uh one began October and this was I believe seven
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: strikers quit eating again to try and get these five
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: demands carried through. Lasted fifty three a's and remember that's
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: right in the wheelhouse of where you Could die, and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: h one named Sean McKenna was very near death. And
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: you know this whole time, Margaret Thatcher is you know,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: she's known as the Iron Lady for a reason, and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: she was very much a hard liner. And I think
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: it was a direct quote in the movie. You know,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: she said basically that they're these terrorists are resorting to
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: a last resort, which is pity that we should have
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: pity on them. But basically that's not going to happen um.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: But she was prepared to come to a settlement in
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: this case because of the optics. The strike did end
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: because they didn't want Sean McKinnon to die because that
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: would be really bad optics. So that was the nineteen
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: eighty strike, proceeding the one in March of eighty one. Yeah,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: and the reason the March of eight one hunger strikes
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: started is because the Brits had agreed um verbally to
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to giving in on the five demands and treating the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: IRA prisoners as political prisoners again and then re naket
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: on it. They just didn't follow through. Uh, they never
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: got it in writing, basically is what it amounted to.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: And so they staged an even bigger, even more public
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: hunger strike starting March one, and they, um it's I
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: think it involved at least twenty three hunger strikers, but
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: rather than all striking beginning at the same time like
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: they did in October, um, they staggered it five people
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a week so that this hunger strike would be drawn
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: out even longer. Yeah, and that, um, that makes sense.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I also was wondering too during the film, like or
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: before the film, like why why can't they just squash
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: this in the press and not let any of this out,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: because the hunger strike is only good if the public
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: knows about it. But they were still getting visitors that
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: throughout this whole time, So there were you know, Bobby
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Sand's parents visited him in prison and saw like his
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: condition and as he was like slipping away, and uh,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: you know, we mentioned Sands because he was very much
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the sort of the main public face of this eight
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: one strike. Bobby stands. Actually Um was elected to the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: British House of Commons while he was wasting away in prison. Um.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: He obviously wasn't allowed a campaign or anything like that,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and couldn't have because he was, you know, slowly dying
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: of starvation. But this was a very big deal that
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: he was actually elected to the House of Commons. Yeah,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: it was a big deal because it focused a tremendous
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: amount of public attention, Like every every paper in the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: world was writing about how a guy in prison was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: elected to parliament. Um, and and now that we're talking
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: about him, why is he in prison? And oh, he's
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: on a hunger strike? Why is he on a hunger strike?
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: So it was a really big pr COO for the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: i r A. But then also politically speaking it had
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: like a UM it was a really big signal that
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: the only way he could have been elected was if
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: moderate Catholics, who normally just didn't go to the polls
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: because they didn't want to support the ira A, but
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: they also weren't about to vote for a Protestant candidate. Um,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: they came out and they voted for the ira member.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: So it showed that the average person in Northern Ireland,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the average Catholic was really upset with how the British
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: were treating the IRA and their their treatment of the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: IRA was starting to backfire, and that it was generating
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: public sympathy and support that hadn't been there before. Yeah,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and he we should point out he was a young guy.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: He was twenty six years old when he started this strike,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: and I think he turned seven during the strike, so
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: he wasn't you know. I think I had heard of
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Bobby Sands and I always just sort of pictured him
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: as maybe some guy in his forties for some reason.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: But he was a very young guy. And uh, he finally,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you know, died of starvation on May five. Uh, this
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: was sixty six days into the strike. Riot start erupting
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: um all over the place and protest all over the world. Basically,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: it was a very very public matter. And I remember
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: hearing about this when I was a kid, even though
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't understand what was going on. I remember hearing
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: about Bobby Sands dying. Oh yeah, wow. It was definitely
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: not in my wheelhouse at the time. I think I
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: was playing with a Tonka truck. Maybe. No. I remember
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: big news events like that, though I didn't, you know,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: I remember John Lennon dying and I was like, he's
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the guy with a round glasses. Yeah, that kind of thing, right. Um,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: So when Sands died, that was a really really big deal.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Thousands and thousands of people turned out for his his funeral,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: including very famously um Ira A paramilitary members who were
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: wearing like um Balaklava's basically um at the funeral, um
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: along the streets along his funeral procession. There were thousands
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: more people you know who turned out. So it showed
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: just how much like people supported the IRA, or at
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the very least sympathized with the IRA, that they were
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: willing to die, to starve themselves to death for their cause.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: And Bobby Saints knew he was gonna die. He said
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: towards the beginning he fully expected to die. Um and
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: he did. He put his He did what what I
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: would say most of us would never do. He starved
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: himself to death for the cause that he believed in,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: to help the cause that he believed in, help to
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: basically serve as an inspiration to show this cause means
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: so much that me and some other people are willing
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to die, to starve ourselves to brutal brutal death to
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: help um to help further the cost, to help generate
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: publicity for this cause. So by the way, Fastbender dropped
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: forty pounds for this role, so he kind of pulled
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a Christian bale. It was. It was really like, uh,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: tough to see that, you know, I mean, he's already
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: he's a pretty slight guy, even like under normal circumstances.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: You know, he laid one seventy and dropped down to
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: one thirty. Uh. He apparently ate like nuts and berries
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and stuff every day, and that was about it. So
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Sans obviously was the main headline. But he was just
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: one of ten men that died in prison during these
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: hunger strikes. I think there were twenty three total. Thirteen survived,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and um Ed is keen to point out that, you know,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: the reason that some of these men survived is you know,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: eventually you're gonna lose consciousness and your family might step in,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: and you know you're gonna get your medical nutrition intravenously.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: In that case. That wasn't the case obviously with the
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: ten who did who did die in prison. But I
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: think in a lot of the cases of the thirteen
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: that survived was because they weren't able to make their
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: own choice and their family intervened, right, So this strike,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: get this, this hunger strike, the second one went on
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: from March first to October three and claimed the lives
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: of ten men in people died during that brief period
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: of time from hunger from starving themselves. And it finally ended,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: at least in part because one of the villains in
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: this story, Humphrey Atkins, who was at the time the
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and was very much
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: aligned with the UM the no pity viewpoint of Margaret Thatcher.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: He was replaced. He was replaced by somebody who wasn't
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: quite as much a hardliner, guy named James Prior. And
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Prior is like, I want to put an end to this,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: so let's start negotiating, and they ended the strike on
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: October three, again with ten people dead in that six
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: month period from starvation. Yeah, and it kind of you know,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: depends on which side you're on and whether or not
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you believe it was an effective thing, because they ended up.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: UM it's sort of been uh an a roundabout way
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of the five demands met, but it
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: was never like an official declaration that you are political
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: prisoner and we're going to meet your five demands. It
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: just sort of it wasn't so you know, if you
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: look at it from the Thatcher side, they never gave in.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: If you look at it from the ira A side,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: they ended up in a roundabout way getting the same status.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: But I think there were probably a lot of i
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: RA too that saw it as a defeat because they,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: you know, weren't officially recognized as such. Right and we
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: should say going on outside the prison gates in in
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Northern Ireland throughout this time, our car bombings, assassinations, protests, riots, um,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of riots around Northern Ireland. And
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: when Bobby Sands died, um. And so it's not like
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: this is the only thing that ira A was doing.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: We we just focused on this. But one of the
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: things that came out of these hunger strikes, um was
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: this idea, especially among the shinfan Um leadership, that they
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: they were never going to liberate Northern Ireland just through
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the paramilitary, that they was going to require politics and
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and um. This this showed, especially the election of Bobby
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Sands to Parliament while he was in prison, that the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: i RA was viable politically speaking. Yeah, it's gonna be
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: really interesting to see what happens moving forward. But that's
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: where they can kind of source that where they are
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: today is pretty much there from those hunger strikes in Yeah.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: And I would love to hear from our listeners, uh
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic, like what
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: they what their thoughts are of you know, because I
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: trust stuff you should know listeners generally as being uh
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: you know, alive in the world and having uh studied,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: learned opinions, learned opinions. So I would love to hear
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: from both sides to see what they think. Um, I
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: want to know what the tenor is over there? Yeah?
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Same here the word on the street, the word on
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: the cobblestone street. Uh, you got anything else? Uh? Now,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: this is a good one, Chuck good pick. I'm glad
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: we did uh. And since I said I'm glad we
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: did it, it's time of course for a listener. Now,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: by the way, did you know I'm way late on this,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: but you know Bono's son as a band Uh no
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: sounds no. He has a band called Inhaler and I
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: just heard about it and listened to it. They put
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: out an album last summer, and it sounds exactly like
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: you two. Oh boy, he sounds just like his dad,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: and it has the energy of like the early You two.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It's really good. I like it. Yeah, okay, good, Yeah,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't mean that in a in a
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: negative derivative way. You know, your your voice sounds like
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: somebody related to just by genetics. Yeah, I don't think
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: he's like, I want to sound like my dad, you know, sure, Yeah,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's using auto team like that. I'm
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: just surprised he didn't go in like a totally different
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: direction musically, like maybe like folk folk rock or folk
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: progue or something. Yeah, I mean I did see that.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: I read some reviews to some people kind of knocked
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: it for like going for that, you know, big stadium,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: anthemic you two thing right out of the gate. But
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: you know, stuff, It is what I say, where the
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: sun don't shine. Let someone make the music they want
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to make it good for them if they're getting huge.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I love it, yeah for sure. All right. So this
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: is just one of many squirrel emails we got. Who
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: knew that that was going to generate so much email?
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it's crazy, Like We got videos of people
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: scritching on little squirrels that they've been feeding. Squirrels crawling
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: up people's laps and up there sitting on their shoulder
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: like wild squirrels. It's pretty amazing. I'll like, white albino
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: squirrels are black squirrels. Where was it the head the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: ones with the big long ears. I don't know, No,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't see those those Toronto. Where is it Utah?
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing Utah. I can't remember. I feel bad now,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: but yeah, they have these little sort of wizard long
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: ears that stick up. It's it's amazing wizard ears. Wizard
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: here's healf ears that wizards? Okay to me? Wizards? Right, yeah,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, not according to Gary Guy. All right,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: all right, so here we go. Um. In the recent
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Squirrel episode, Chuck said, jommy kid that can get a
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: squirrel and hit it with a stick. And here's my story.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: My wife and I were on a National Park road
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: trip in the Western US and while hiking in Zion,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I heard a commotion on the trail behind me. I
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: looked back. A couple was rushing over to the side
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: of the trail where there was a significant drop off
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: because their son had gone over the edge. It's terrifying
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to witness, but thankfully the boy had been had gotten
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: caught on a tree and was not noticeably injured. Here's
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: how we got there. The boys spotted a squirrel in
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the trail and hit it with a sticky. It came
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: after and screeched at the boy, startling him and causing
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: him to retreat straight over the ledge. Let this be
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: a teaching moment. Don't go after squirrels with sticks, or
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: you may be in for a nasty spill. And that
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: is from Read Stiller in Dallas, Texas, who is a
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Texas and A and M grad and came to Athens
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: for the Aggies Bulldogs game a couple of years ago
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: and had a great time in Athens and said to
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: come out to College Station for a game and you
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: will have a great time as well. Very nice. Thanks
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: for the invite. We appreciate that. Who was that? That
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: is Read Stiller? Well thanks a lot, Read, We appreciate
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: that big time. That is a really good story. Actually,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: um my evil part says if you want to get
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: in touch with us, like Read did, you can send
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcast at iHeart Radio dot
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: com Stuff you Should Know is a production of I
• 49:57
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• 50:00
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• 50:03
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