Word: striker
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...tray of food sits there, untouched. Every once in a while, the hunger striker steals a glance at it. After the first week, the servings seem enlarged to a ravenous man, the beans huge, the scones puffed up. His sense of smell is also more acute; he can detect the kind of food almost before it arrives. The breakfast tray waits until lunch, lunch stays until dinner, and dinner remains all night long. British authorities say they have the obligation to keep food always available. The prisoners consider the practice taunting and cruel...
This is the world of the zealots, where Irish youth are willing to starve themselves for their cause of driving the British out of Northern Ireland. It is an astounding kind of sacrifice-a brutal, lingering death, full of hatred and martyrdom, so fanatical and Irish. The moment one striker dies, 50 volunteer to take his place. Tom McElwee, who died last week, wore a glass eye as a result of one of his own guerrilla bombs. Behind him, at 55 days, Patrick Quinn, 29, had once slipped into unconsciousness. Big-bellied Michael Devine, 27, was at 48 days, gangly...
...severe vitamin deficiency. If they look sideways, their eyes begin to gyrate wildly and uncontrollably, first horizontally and then vertically. The prisoners struggle to stare straight forward, even cupping their hands against the sides of their heads, but they cannot help themselves. Francis Hughes, 25, the second striker to die, even constructed cotton gauze blinders around his eyes...
Nonetheless, some families are caught up in the cause even more than their sons. Hunger Striker Raymond McCreesh, 24, went about 50 days without food and one day wondered aloud to a member of the prison staff if a single glass of milk would violate his fast. After all, McCreesh said hesitantly, it was only liquid, like the five pints of water and salt he took each...
...weeks since. Ireland has faded into the background noise of the news again. Almost everyone remembers Sands; very few could name the sixth hunger striker to die--Martin Hurson--or the two that seem likely to go next--Kieran Doherty and Kevin Lynch. No political pressure of any sort has been mobilized in America; no message has come from our Irish-American president, and political leaders like Ted Kennedy have done little more than issue perfunctory statements asking Margaret Thatcher for more flexibility. And the left has done nothing at all, despite its support for virtually every other national liberation...