IRA hunger strikers join British Army veteran in Ireland-wide fast for Palestine
Organisers see parallels between historical Irish struggle for independence and the siege of Gaza by a ‘towering oppressor’
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Former IRA hunger strikers, joined by a former British soldier from Belfast, will lead 1,000 volunteers in an Ireland-wide sponsored fast on 12 December to raise money for Palestinians and highlight the complicity of western governments in the ongoing siege of Gaza.
The Hunger for Justice event has been organised by Nenagh Friends of Palestine, based in Nenagh, Tipperary, with participants across the island in both the north and the republic. Since April, the organisation has held a rolling sponsored fast, with a different volunteer abstaining from food and drink for 24 hours each time. The effort has already raised €40,000, which has been donated to aid organisations working in Palestine including UNRWA.
“We want to do something more creative,” said Laurence McKeown, 68, a playwright and former hunger striker. “The problem with protests where you march the same routes in front of the same spots like consulates and embassies, et cetera, is that it gets quite repetitive, very ‘same old’. People and governments just learn to tune it out.”
McKeown will be joined in the fast by four Belfast veterans of the Troubles: fellow inmates in the H-block of Maze Prison and former IRA members Jackie McMullan, 69, Leo Green, 71, and John Pickering, 68, as well as Glenn Bradley, 57, a former British Army soldier who is now a chair of the Irish chapter of Veterans for Peace — a pacifist organisation that has been advocating for Palestinian rights.
“We will not stand idly by while a campaign to wipe out an entire nation of diverse people goes on,” said Bradley. “The ongoing US and UK-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza is unacceptable. It is a stain on human history and must be ended.”
The British government granted 108 licences for military and non-military controlled goods to Israel between October 2023 and May 2024, according to data released in June. Meanwhile the US, which provided nearly 70% of Israel’s weapons imports between 2013 and 2022, has handed at least $12.5bn in direct military aid to Israel since 7 October 2023.
The Troubles in Northern Ireland spanned 30 years, ending with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. British rule in the north and what many saw as systemic discrimination against republican and Catholic communities were met with guerrilla warfare by the IRA and escalating British military intervention. More than 3,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed during the conflict.
McMullan and McKeown had been imprisoned in the 1970s for their membership of the IRA. There they joined a series of protests between 1976 and 1981 in response to the government’s withdrawal of political prisoner status for captured IRA members. The protests culminated in a hunger strike during which 10 people, including strike leader and elected MP Bobby Sands, died. While the strikers did not achieve any of their demands, their protest shored up international support for Irish republicans.
“During the hunger strike in 1981, there were solidarity protests all over the world,” said McMullan, who spent 48 days without food that year. “Hundreds of thousands of people came on the street in Ireland. There were protests in England. There were protests across the world in Australia and Canada.
“We were not allowed newspapers or radios in prisons but we found ways to hear the news, and it was great. We could see that the Thatcher government was under pressure and that support was not dwindling but it was growing. Solidarity was a huge boost for us.”
Fergal McDonnell, one of the organisers of the sponsored fast, said: “It is hugely significant for the Hunger for Justice campaign to have former H-Block prisoners from the 1980-81 hunger strikers as leaders of this initiative. There are obvious parallels between their act of defiance against British occupation in the early 1980s and the denial of the most basic elements of survival for the people of Gaza. While voluntary in their case, the hunger strikers were allowed to starve at the hands of a towering oppressor when political solutions were at hand.”
Hunger strike has long been a weapon of oppressed people and prisoners in Ireland, McMullan added.
McKeown, who survived 70 days on hunger strike, also sees a kinship between the Irish people and Palestinians.
“Ireland has a long history of colonisation. Many people had been murdered, humiliated, driven off their land. We had the Great Hunger,” he said, referring to the 19th-century famine during which the Westminster government effectively left a million Irish people under British rule to starve during an outbreak of potato blight while continuing to export much of the island’s edible food.
“It’s not on the same level as what is happening in Gaza,” McKeown added, “but we know what it’s like to be humiliated and dragged from our homes.”
McKeown’s 26-year-old daughter, Órlaith Mac Eoin Manus, will be joining her dad in the fast. “I feel like I can’t sit back and do nothing,” she said. “Ireland definitely has a long history of support and solidarity with Palestinians and it is something I grew up with.
“I do think Irish people are more vocal on this issue than some other countries. There are so many protests and workshops happening, and even when you just go to gigs, many Irish artists are very vocal.”
One example is that of Carlos O’Connell of the Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C., who condemned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu while accepting an award in London last month. Elsewhere, Derry Girls and Bridgerton actor Nicola Coughlan has called on the US to stop arming Israel since the beginning of the siege.
“I would like to tell the Palestinian people that we identify completely with them,” added McKeown. “I would like them to know that solidarity is still there. We still care.”
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