Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-block Hunger Strike

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In 1917 a form of blanket protest was carried out by a single Irish Republican internee Padraic Fleming in Maryborough (now Portlaoise Prison). He explains the events that led to the dirty protest - where prisoners smeared excrement over their cell walls - and on ultimately to the hunger strike.

To get the story from someone who lived it, alongside those others fighting, and dying, for the autonomy of the Irish state was so important. In Blanketmen, O'Rawe gives his personal account of those turbulent times that saw British and Irish governments entering unprecedented negotiations with the IRA Army Council and the prisoners themselves. The prisoners responded by refusing to leave their cells, and as a result the prison officers were unable to clear them. In this passionate and controversial book, O'Rawe reveals the rationale and motives behind the negotiations and strategy changes that eventually brought about the Peace Process.If you can deal with unreliable narration and are willing to keep up with the fragmentary storytelling, it is worth a shot.

This recognition was reinforced when on Friday, December 19th, all of the H-Block O/Cs were brought out of their blocks for a further meeting with Bobby Sands in H-Block 3. At the centre of Blanketmen lies the declaration that six of the ten men on hunger strike in the H-Block unit of Long Kesh Prison starved themselves to death in vain, as an offer from the British Government was on the table that could have ended the strike after four of them had died. In the draft that had been rejected by the London publishers, Ructions had been shot dead at the end of the book).Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item. Passionate, disturbing, and controversial, this remains a landmark book in the cruel history of Northern Ireland.

There can be no doubt that these men were committed to their cause but the cause they died for was not the prize that Gerry Adams had in mind. The names, dates, and stories all fit in with the stories told by others that were living through the Troubles, both from Irish and British perspectives, that I have also read. With the document in transit to Belfast, Hughes took the decision to save McKenna's life and end the strike after 53 days on 18 December. They have no covering except towel or blanket, no books, newspapers or reading material except the Bible (even religious magazines have been banned since my last visit), no pens or writing material, or TV, or radio, no hobbies or handcrafts, no exercise or recreation. the story of the selfless sacrifice of the Irish Republican hungerstrikers needs to be known, as does their betrayal by the politicians who went on to capitalise from their suffering and deaths.The second is O'Rawe placing you in his mind both in real time and with the benefit of hindsight as a defining era in the history of the troubles played out. Just before Christmas 2017, my daughter Berni and I were sitting in the Europa Hotel in Belfast city centre, discussing Greed, when she said: “Do you know why the London people didn’t take the book? Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts. As a result of these deaths Sinn Fein became an electoral force, and in so doing the military campaign of the IRA was doomed to failure.