hello, i'm shawn murray and this is the conversation where we take an alternative look at political events and current affairs through anarieslands. in this show we hope to pick, probe, investigate and uncover the stories that you want to hear. we go where mainstream won't go. this week we look at the 1981 hunger strikes and the legacy of the 10 men who died. high to this saismic event changes. direction of the conflict, and what have we come to understand about its impact for generations to come? my next guest is a former hunger striker who spent incredible 70 days without food. he joined the strike on the 29th of june 1981, after bobby sans and three other array prisoners had already died in hitch block prison. but before we speak to our next guest, let's get a quick overview of this week's show.

as always, we are joined by our resident co-presenenter michelle gillernew. michelle is the current mp for fermana south toront. she has served in the northern ireland assembly as a former minister for agriculture and rural development and chairperson of the health committee amongst other things. michelle has been a shinfian activist since her teams and has been elected almost continuously since 1998. and today's guest is

lawrence mcyong. he is a former ira prisoner, author and screenwriter. after serving a life sentence in prison, dr. lawrence mckung obtained a phd in sociology at queens university, belfast. he's also co-founder of the belfast film festival in the mid-1990s. lawrence mckung, welcome to the show. so lawrence, tell us a bit about your child grown up. well, i grew up at randlstone, um, which 20. made from here very mixture religion wise and often his ad that i never see the conflict here is about religion, it's been politics, but religion has been used as the empire is used tribal difference or skin color or whatever else, so it's a very ideal sort of upbring and i've written about it that when i was 10 i learned to drive a tractor a a farm that was next to this davy warrick's farm, lovely neighbors, wonderful people um went a very small local school

foreign fluck um which was delited about years later to discover was actually from the original irish which was like wet townland but at the time is angle size version just seemed bit absurd you know um i end up getting my 11 plus and move from this really two classroom school to uh sant malike is the largest grammar school and hated it with passion and i think that's where my uh sense of rebellion started because began the mitch school. so i travel to it and uh and hang out down around smithville or i never never been at belfast before uh but i just hit it the the school i think it was the this moving from this very informal localized rural sort of setting to now this you know you're studying latin and you go to the gym you have to have you different shoes for different purposes and all the rest of it um so yeah i bring that on on my uh my my liter activities but very... address that i was grown up

through that period of uh of the civil rates and uh on being kown to me at the time that um certain things were unfolding that had uh well... so sorry had implication for my one family because mean the whole civil rights movement was about an end discrimination and house and unemployment as as youll um and i think but for me the biggest um impact was the activities of the olster aventu regiment which was locally recruited militia um the largest regiment in the british army and over 90% protestant and there were people from randelstone of known and played football but we went down down the time we used to walk down the town a crowd of us uh that was all had in those days uh and being stop with them and i remember the first night i remember the guy's name um and him asking me what's your name and where you where you coming from where you going to and he was embarrassed because he believe me saying me what what's your name uh but the second third time the

embarrassment had gone and i was as the articans and uh and been stop and just been held and none of us were involved in any any politics or anything at that time um but it it was a big influence. so man, i think it was at that point, certain time i came to 16 realizing that um, there are two communities, but it's not about what church equal to a sunday, it's about that one has the uniforms and the weapons leally, and and the other doesn't, it has, youran, at that point 16 to say that i wanted to become part of of of what was happening and become part of was to join the was to join the ira, which i did whenever i was 17 years of age, you were on that. 1981, you're a walking maracal, you went 70 days without food, tell us more about that, um, well in the 1981 hunger streak, there was initially there was only four people ever going to be on it, um, that began with bobby and frank and pots in rimen, and

and then one of them died that there would be be replaced, so there was ever only ever going to be four on it one time, but in june it was decided to increase the numbers on it, so each monday someone you join. it uh not because someone had died but because we were bringing up the numbers so i joined on the which was the last one out of that four and to join on the 29th of june um but that time um four people had already had already died um i'm in the uh i form set of people you can only understand the hunger strike in the context of that five years before it um where it's a total okay you understand the big political issue criminalization. to criminalize the struggle and so on and so forth, but it also becomes personalized with just even the the prison guard is screws at the door, you know, and it's not like, oh, you've got a range of choices, abcd, which one we go for, it was either, you walk out by hands up and capitalate and become yes sir, no sir, three picks falser, or it's onger

striking in that context, um, i suppose the bigger thing for me when i began it was um, a week later the irish commission for justice and peace come in, um, so... was taken up to the hospital along with pick was in the same wing and mickey define was brought from uh h5 so it was an opportunity to see all of the the people there people were still alive and um important lesson also that they that um everybody was brought in who was hongers missing was joe mcdonald and uh if i hadn't known that i wouldn't have recognized the person come through the door he was in a in a wheel chair and cho was ne facho. he always had been able to retain but more but more fat than the rest of us and that's which is all th most people were were undernis like i was 10 and half stolen when we can strike i mean about 13 and a half an hour or so i'm not curring m of excess because everybody was mt a long time but joe was brought in and his

head was like over the side was in a wheel share and um trobbles come down the side of his mouth and it's almost that thing we see someone physically disabled and it's almost a think think their mentally as well, but when he spoke, he just this is true ch and everybody got to smoke, you're all to smoke in in the prison hospital, smoke on on the protest, and the makeup for the acj commission for justice and peace was dublin government appoint is catholic church, stlp, so sort of not republicans on the ground, and they were come to say that they had been in talks with the british government and they had some like uh not only the basis of the five demands but the... send it even six months and um the whole thing went on for for for for two days and it's always that people talk about was there deals there never was deal there was always offers of what would be there if you were in this and that was never going to be enough for us given given the

experience of the first one and particularly given now that that four people had already died in the meantime you're still tuned into the conversation your weekly alternative probe of political events and current. very suddenly and very... that's a thing to remember people died in different ways, but um, if you couldn't keep water down and you're told to drink at least six pounds of water a day and take salt cuz you needed for your your breen, um, but if you can't keep the water down and you're being sick then uh all these toxins in your body start with the kidneys come under massive pressure, it happened to potquin happen to mortin horse and so like for the last couple hours life he's thrushing about hallucinating these away in another world and learn and later years after relating talking to brand and his brother like brandon was on one side of him holding him down and the priest father morphe was not side holding so he wasn't smash his

face against the metal b end and then he did he did settle and for about an hour and then he died and and the really when in the hospital the iron he was um you're no longer a protestant prisoner because you are in the hospital you wearing pajamas you're not refusing where the prison close remember 40 od days my mysight started hang up for for most people and seeing at the start seeing seeing double but very clearly double uh and then that changedto a more hazy fuzzy sort of thing and then it starts to be light start to annoy and we that like strip lighting which is about anyway um but suppose one of the the main thing that we ended up noticing was that someone um very close to that often a b movement and remember i was saying i'd read before about how you hang your bels open this was almost like in refers to body just letting go before it happened until tom away and remember and talking about it and uh and

afterwards it was a real drop you're already totally exhausted but after that usually nobody came out of the selling in the war the word cells even prison hospital so happen to make defend and you probably what two or three days after that and and basically what happened so one to happen to myself and you... um yeah, it's a very painful very lengthy couple of hours uh and and literally just made it back to a bit help back to a bit and and and didn't get out of it after that um and then the parents families tr seem to be a critical stage and um they come my father, mother and sister and brother all of them apart from my mother asked me to come off longr and said i wasn't and it wasn't my mother was republican she wasn't we just always had i don't recall any adult

conversation with my mother cuuse i was on the run from 17 and a half then i was in jail when i was 19 um you get an odd you buse all people are visiting you don't get much time to talk about it then we're on the protest so never um had those table conversations that really have like my parents that later died in jeel so never never got to have them there was just always a very close borner she just showed me unconditional alone um she wasn't going to ask me to do something she was was against me um that was 68th day and i remember them coming in um 69th i don't i don't really recall at all apparently i was responding to voices but was getting confused and it was just - sleep or starting to go on conscious but um and then on the the 70 i think which was a sunday apparently the... was around and checks all your reflexes and said look now you're in deep deep coma and you're not going to be any response and what

um what the had was part of attorney which is that um the president weren't going to forge fetos but if you're next to kin saned a document par of attorney shifted them and they could authorize medical intervention which is what the mother did and um again it was only years i thought back on it what i do recaller send to me uh on that 6th day was and we were on our own she had gone out and um she says you know what you have to do and and what i have to do my mother's a very quiet person and religious in the sense it was quite fees like wrong religion than you thought and an awful situation for for families and that had been brought on the mean that had already been a number of people uh you often wondered if i had been the first would have would have looked on it differently or if somebody had a died after me would have looked on it differently but need of those happened uh and i said my own mother died less in two years after it so so this awful thing that families were placed in that dilemma and a big pressure on them from

the catholic church and particularly from from father fall that a good mother or a good wife would would would authorize manical intervention, which by implication means that you're a bad bad way for b um i regain consciousness and the intensive care unit of the royal victoria hospital just few hundred yards from from here and uh and interesting to thinking thinking back on it because it was a female voice and m was coming coming said launger you're in intensive care unit the royal victoria hospital we just want to turn you over here so and different one is seven stone at the end of bones in the hospital that would have had you on the sheep skin rug but now obviously don't have those and and and was turn me over and so i remember which was like a gentle hands on you you know it's a female voice it's a gentle touch whereas for like the previous five years you're just you didn't have any of that

that at all and the british soldiers the bad and all i can say so bling, you could see the black figures and again it was just hard to open these and then the following day i was taken to the um the military of the secure ward of the moscow park hospital where all the ones were there like potty quin and that there and was there for the next few weeks and then moved back to the to the prison previous they had kept people there for six seven weeks but i think again that come to point where they were trying to put pressure on on on the onger strike and on the people were still on it um time i was move back i was still holding on the walls to try to walk um ride back into each block four and uh when you rive on that block there will be a screw in the the circle and there m to shout the numbers so somebody's going for a visit would have been right one off um 98 here or or one on and whenever i walked and sky shut it uh

one field hunger striker on normally to walk across straighttest route was straight across the the circle, but had to walk around the the um the wall just hold toc and ended ended up there and uh down on the wing and people here me coming in and literally was got under the bed and and just lay down and um i'd ended up with the stagmas from the hunger twitching of ipaballs which are going right so to open them became. nausious cuuse everything's just moving like this year um so it was easy just to and someone in the cell next door to me knocked it and ch and as who it was and um it was real mccartney he was on the first strike and i said who it was and he got up and shut it out the door and uh everybody was shuting up to welcome me and all the rest of it and uh your door and it

just it was just um i just couldn't just just wh we did and that was like three, three weeks, three and a half weeks after the longers like ended few days later and um we had add five demands we could one demand um whichever place not in the context people say no was it success for not you say well you want to n it down to the prison you f you get one you don't really say well that's that's not that's not success but that was never about simply prison conditions it was much wider struggle and if you look it in terms of of what we did get it and what the struggle got out of it and so well no one now like that loads of weapons and money and political and moral support and you realized afterwards that you with the eyes of the world were were on it and particularly with the eys of the world of of those who had suffered under the empire um and i think maybe the first time

republicans just realized just this support and interest that you had worldwide. when you have fidel castro speaking up at the united nations, you have the indian parliament whole minute silence, you have protests across the world never did um so in that sense it was major factory for us in the jail we got the right to our own clothes which problem said was important and two two levels symbolic um but obviously we wouldn't wear the prison uniform and the blankets home was wear no confex uniform normally serve my time so we we never did where there's our complex uniform, but a more practical level it is to get out of the sell for the first time in five years and get in the counting and get out of the yard and and and plan and strategy how we're going to get the outstand demands which which we did um through a whole um series of protests and different ways but that sorry one that was the end of of that

type of protest pris republican prisoners you look at the history burton in the camp. various other protests, even the blanket protest itself, it's sort of like bring it on, we'll take a mature way, but it's um like terms, it's not those who can affect the most, it's those who can enjure the most, which sometimes wonder about because you can you can't crush people and cross the spread, thank never, it never happened to us, lords, it's been an honor to have you in here today, thanks for coming, it's always great to see you, thank you, as we have come to the end of the series, i like the fan episode a different note, much of what we've attempted to do during this last 13 weeks is offer an alternative look at arige politics free from the constraints of broadcast editorial control. we hope that you have enjoyed what we've had to offer, so rather than leave you with your usual history segment, i like to finish with eulogy from one of our finest literary grids. leaving the white glow of

filling stations and few lonely street lamps among fields, you climb the hills towards newton, hamilton, past the fuse forest, out beneath the stars, along that road, a high bare pilgrims track where sweeny fled before the bloody d. heads, goat beards and dogs eyes in demon pack, blazing out of the ground, snapping and squeeling, what blazed ahead of you, faked road block, the red lamp swung, the sudden breaks installing engine, voices, heads hooded, and the cold nosed gun or in your driving mirror, tailing headlights, that pulled out suddenly and flagged you down where you weren't known and far from what you knew, the lowland clays and waters of lochpeg, church island spire, it's

soft tree line of you. there you once heard guns fired behind the house, long before rising time, when duck shooters haunted the marigolds and bullrushes. but still were scared to find spent cartridges, acrid, brassy, genital, ejected on your way across the strand to fetch the cows, for you and yours, and yours and mine fought shy, spoke an old language of conspirators, and could not crack the whip or seize the day, big voiced scollions, herders, feel... wanders round haycocks and hind quarters, talkers and bars, slow arbitrators of the burial ground. across that strand of yours, the cattle graze

up to their bellies an early mist, and now they turn their unbewildered gaze to where we work our way through squeaking said, drowning in dew, like a dull blade with its edge honed bright, loch beg half shines under the... the his, i turn because the sweeping of your feet has stopped behind me, to find you on your knees with blood and roadside muck in your hair and eyes, then kneal in front of you in brimming grass and gather up cold handfuls of the dew to wash you, cousin, i dab you clean with moss, fine. is the drizzle out of a low cloud. i lift you under your arms and lay you flat. with rushes that shoot green again, i

plat green scapulars to wear over your shrug. i like to thank our special guest lawrence mckung and our resident co-host michelle gillernew. we haven't gone away, you know, i'm sean murray. bye for now. now entering its uh fourth day, we're looking at some uh in this week's show we'll be shining light on

the influence of an ultrasign sect known as khabad and the israeli intelligence agency shinbet has said that the vast majority of these people involved in these attacks are uh linked to um this extremist faction based in the yitsar uh settlement in particular there's actually a khabar. linked uh yashiva jewish seminary in that settlement. in the case of palestinians that the key question is, will they grow up to challenge us in the future? of course something which you can't tell about it baby, but nevertheless they can tell and they can tell that any palestinian baby is a threat to them in the future and they can be engaged regardless of whether you're trying to kill their parents or not, you can just kill the babies by themselves and this is the depths of the horror of of the the philosophy and the ideas of this sect. a diming report indicates that deaths

from terrorism in africa have skyrocket. more than 10000 percent during the so-called us war on terror. the study by the africa center for strategic studies revealed during 2002 and 2003 when the us was just beginning decades long war, total of just nine terrorist attacks were counted throughout all of africa, leading to only 23 casualties, but after two decades of us intervention in africa with a purported aim of helping the continent in counter terrorism. deaths from takfiri, violence in africa increased to 23. 322 last year reaching a record level of lethal violence, so what exactly are us troops doing in africa if they're not fighting terrorists as they claim?

the subject of this week. episode of iran take is behind this 60 cm thick concrete wall inside the neutron imaging laboratory at the atomic energy organization of iran very close to the core of the reactor is kind of imaging system known as neutron radiography that has some very specific use case scenarios where x-ray imaging just doesn't cut it. turn into this week's episode to see how neutron radiography works.

senior un official warns at least a quarter of gaza's population is just a step away from faminen amed israel's genocide and the besieg territory. un says the really forces are. targetting aid convoys in gaza as they try to systematically block aid access to people in need. and tehan slams, germany's anti-iran writes allegations as feudal effort to hide berlin support for israeli occupation and genocide in gaza.