Hunger Strikes and Self-Sacrifice
Hunger striking as means of obtaining social or economic redress or as a method of political confrontation has a plotted, yet discernible, history in Ireland.
While the phenomenon is not peculiar to Irish politics, the country did witness one of the largest hunger strike protests of the 20th century.
In October 1923, more than 8000 political prisoners, opposed to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, went on hunger strike. Two prisoners died before the protest was called to an end.
Although it can be demonstrated that the phenomenon of hunger striking is widely used as a means of political protest, particularly so with the last twenty-five years, it is equally valid to suggest that the hunger strike is an integral part of Irish history and mythology.
Thus for the Irish, especially the northern Catholic republicans, the hunger strike, linked as it is to religio-political martyrdom and the pantheon of Irish heroes, is another means, possibly a weapon of last resort, of those nurturing a sense of oppression and frustrated in their attempts to resist.
There is a long history of hunger strikes in Ireland
In fact using hunger strikes as a method of protests in Ireland can be traced to the island's pre-Christian era when there was a strong tradition of oral legal codes. These codes were known as the Brehon laws (derived from the Gaelic brithem meaning' judge').
For the people of ancient Ireland, self-help was the only means to enforce a claim or right a wrong within the context of the Brehon laws. A frequent method of redress was for the aggrieved party to shame the oppressor by literally starving slowly and publicly at his gate.
In more modern times the hunger strikes were directed against both the British government (1913-22) and the Irish Free State authorities (1923).
Many of these hunger strikes were protests against prison conditions and the treatment of the prisoners. Other protests were more politically organized and centered on demands for political status or were means of dissent against perceived unjust imprisonment. In general the protests lasted for a few days but many, particularly the politically motivated, lasted for much longer. Some went on for seventy-six days, and while many prisoners negotiated settlements with the authorities or were unconditionally released, others, more determined, were forcibly fed. Seven prisoners died as a result of hunger strikes during this period.
Against the setting of the now immortal and near-mythical 1916 Rising, the hunger strike became a weapon of extraordinary potency in Ireland. It was to become linked to militant republicanism along with Arthur Griffith's Sinn Fein party, a movement opposed to the use of physical force prior to 1916, which was deliberately and wrongfully blamed by the British for what was officially called 'the Sinn Fein rebellion.'
In May 1916, sixty-five Irishmen, including de Valera, who had been convicted as rebels, were imprisoned in Dartmoor. For disobeying prison rules the Irish Prisoners were given extra punishment. De Valera went on hunger strike against this punishment, ending it when the punishment was withdrawn.
Despite his participation in the hunger strike, de Valera was uncertain of its propaganda value against the on-going drama provided by the First World War. In a letter to fellow prisoners, de Valera, writing from his Dartmoor cell early in 1917, said:
You may be tempted to hunger strike. As a body do not attempt it whilst the war lasts unless you were assured from the outside that the death of two or three of you would help the cause. As soldiers I know you would not shrink from the sacrifice, but remember how precious a human life is.Before the year was through, and after the release of Irish rebels from British jails, the propaganda value of death by hunger strike became very clear to the Republican movement. This means of protest and confrontation had proved to be an efficient political weapon. Irish deaths by hunger strike transfigured not only the perceived sacrificial victims but, in the eyes of many ordinary people, the cause for which they died.
