hello, i'm sean murray, and this is the conversation, where we take an alternative look at political events and current affairs through an arries lens. in this show we hope to pick, probe, investigate and uncover the stories that you want to hear. we go, we're mainstream won't go. this week we look at the 1981 hunger strikes and the legacy of the 10 men who died. how did this says make event change the 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 ira prisoners had already died in hitchblack prison. but before we speak to our next guest, let's get a quick overview of this week's show.

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as always, we are joined by our resident cobra center 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 shenfian activist since her teams and has been elected almost continuously since 1998. and today's guest is lawrence machone. he is a former ira prisoner of. and screenwriter, after serving a life sentence in prison, dr. lawrence mong obtained a phd in sociology at queens university, belfast. he's also co-founder of the belfast film festival in the mid-1990s. laurence, welcome to the show. so lawrence, tell us a bit about your child, grown up. well, i grew up outside rondlestone, um, 20 minutes from here, very mixteria religion wise and... often that i never see the

conflict, here is about religion, it's been politics, but religion has been used as the empire has used tribal difference or skin color or whatever else, so it was very ideal sort of upbringing um britain about it that uh when i was ten, i learned to drive a tractor on the a farm that was next to us, davy warrick's farm, lovely neighbors, wonderful people, um went a very small local school, foreign fluck, which i was delighted about years later. discover was actually from the original irish which was like wet tonland but at the time as anglis version just seemed absurd you know um and up getting my 11 plus and move from this really to classroom school to symbolic is the largest grammar school and hated it with passion and i think that's where my uh sense of rebellion started of because began the mitch school so i travel to it and uh and hang out done around smithville or uh never never been to 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 seting 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 blame that on on my my literary activities but very interesting that i was grown up through that period of uh of the civil rights and uh on be kown to me at the time that um certain things were unfolden that had uh well had implication for my own family because mean the whole civil rights movement was about and anti discrimination unemployment as you know michelle um and i think but for me the biggest um impact was the activities of the olster defens regiment which was locally recruited militia the largest regiment in the british army and over 90% protestant and

there were people from randleston who i would have known and played football but moving down down that time we just walked in the town of croud of us uh that was all hot in those days and being stopp with them and i remember the... 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 being me sing me what's what's your name uh but the second third time happen the embarrassment had gone and that was as the aricans and uh and been stopped 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 and i think it was at that point starting by the time i came to 16 realizing that uh 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 legally, and and the other doesn't, it has, it's that point, 16 decided 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 was 17 years of age, you were on that 1981 hunger strike, lawrence, you're a walk in miracle, you went 70 days without food. tell us more about that? um, well in the 1981 hunger strike there was initially there was only four people ever going to be honored um that began with b and frank and patsi and remman and um and then one of them day that there would be be replaced so there was ever only ever going to be four on at one time but in june it was decided to increase the numbers on it eight so each monday someone you joined it uh not because someone had died but because we're bringing up the number so i joined on the which was 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 dated um i mean the uh a form set of people you can only understand the hunger strike in the context of that five

years before it um or it's a total okay you understand the big political issue criminalization attempts to criminalize the struggle and so on and so forth but it also becomes personalized with just even the prison guards the screws at the door and all 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 capitulate and become yes sir, no sir, three packs full sir, or it's hunger striking and and that context um suppose the biggest thing for me when i began it was um a week later the iris commission for justice and peace com in um so i was taken up the hospital along my back was in the same wing and mickey dev 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 only missing was joel and uh if i

hadn't known that i wouldn't have recognized the person at through the door was in a in a oil chair and ch was you always been able to retain but more b more fat than the rest of us and that's which is... th most people were were under like i was 10 and half stolen when i begint i mean about 13 and a half now or something i'm not trying m of excess buse everybody was mal norised after a long time but joe was brought in and his head was like over the side was an ol and like troubles coming down the side of his mouth and it's almost that thing we see someone physically disabled and it's almost that think think maybe the mentally as well but when he spoke he just this is true down and everybody got to smoke, you're allowed to smoke in the prison hospital, you were allowed to smoke on the on the protest and the makeup for the acj commission for justice and peace was dublin government appoint is catholic church um stlp so sort of not republicans on the ground and

they were come to say that they had been in talks with british government and they had some like uh not only the basis of the fight demands but the recent even six demands and um the whole thing went on for for for for days and that's always that people talk about was there was there deals there never was deal there was always offers of what would be there if you were to end this and that was never going to b'. given given the experience at the first 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 affairs through anaries lens. i'm joined by my co-host michelle gie alongside our special guest dr. lawrence m. martin horsen and died died very suddenly uh and very painful and this is a thing to remember people died in different ways, but um if you couldn't keep water down uh... and you're told to drink at least six pants of water a day and take salt buse you need it for your your brain um but

if you can't keep the water down if you're being sick then uh all these toxins in your body started with the kidneys come under muscle pressure that happen to py quin happen to martin horrison so like last couple of his life he's thasing about hallucinating and he's away in another world and learn later years after relating talking to brandon his brother brandon was in one set of him holding him down and the priest f morphe is. so he would smash his face against the metal b and then he did he did settle and for about an hour and then he died and and the really when you're in the hospital irony was um you're no longer uh a protest and prisoner because you are in the hospital pajamas you're not refusing b the prison clues remember 40 odd days my my side started going hang up for for most people and seeing at the start seeing very seeing double but very clearly double uh and then that changed into a more hazy pussy sort of hang in and it starts a bit late start to annoying in with that like strip

laten which is b anyway um but suppose one of the main thing that we ended up noticing was that someone um very close to death often had bell movement and i remember only read before about how hung the bells open this was almost like in refers the body just letting go before it happen toway and rem talking about it and uh and afterwards there's a real drop and you're ready you're already totally exhausted but after that usually nobody came out of their selling in in the war the word cells even prison hospital so happen to make diw that probably what two or three days after that and basically what happened so wanted happen to myself and you um yeah it's a very painful and very lengthy couple of uh and and literally just i 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 w in families seem to be at a critical stage and um they come my father, my mother and sister and brother all of them apart from my mother asked me to come off the onger strike and said it wasn't and it wasn't my mother was republicans wasn't we just always had a but i don't recal any adul conversation with my mother bause i was on the run from 17 and a half, then i was in jail when it was 19 um you get an odd you buse all people are visiting and you don't get much time to talk about it them were on the protest so never um had those type adult conversations that really of like you and both my parents later died in jail so never never got to have them but there was just always a very close banners he just showed me on um she wasn't going to ask me to do something she was was against me um that was 60th day and i

remember them coming in um 168 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 a bit um and then on the the sevenday i think which was a sunday apparently the doctor goes in and checks all your reflexes and says look now you're deep deep coma and you're not going to be there. any response and what the what the had was part of attorney which is that um the present weren't going to forge photos what if you're next to kinn sa document power of attorney shift them and they could authorize medical intervention which is what my mother did and um again it was only years i thought back on it what i do recall her sent to me uh on that 60th day was and we were on our own she had gone out and um she says what you have to do and i know what i have to do my was very quiet person and religious in the sense it was quiet feet of wrong religion and you

thought and an awful situation for for families and that had been brought i mean that already been a number of people uh you 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 n of those happened uh and mother died less and two years after it 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 application means that you're a bad, bad wife or bad. um, i regain consciousness and intensive care unit of the royal victoria hospital, just few hundred yards from from here, and uh, and interesting to think think back on it because it was a female voice, and must have seen was coming coming launch, you're in the intensive care unit, the royal

victory hospital, we just going to turn you over here slowly and was seven stone at the end of bones. in the hospital that would had you on the sheep skin rug, but in the hospital obviously don't have those um and and and was turn mover and so i remember which was like h 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 at all and the british soldiers of the the bad and all i could say some blaying you could see black figures and again it was just hard 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 quin and that there i was there for the next few weeks and then moved back to the to the prison previous they had kept people there maybe for six seven weeks but i think again that come to point where they were trying to put pressure on on on the longer strike and on the people were

still on it um time i was moved back i was still holding on the walls to try to walk ' um, i ride back into it block f, and when you arrive on that block, there will be a screw in the the circle and the shout the numbers, so somebody's going for a visit, would have been right, one off, 98 h or or one on, and whenever i walked and this guy shout at one field hunger striker on, normally to walk across strates route was straight across the the circle, but i had to walk around the the uh the wall just holding until and and could already see and uh ended ended up then in the wing and um people he heard me coming in and i was exhausted the bed and and just lay down and um i'd ended up with the stagmas from the hungers which are going rapidly so to open

them became really nauseous bause 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 asked who it was and um it was mccartney he was on the first saying and i said it was and he got up and shut it at the door and uh everybody was shuting up to welcome me and all the rest of it and uh door and it just it was just um i just couldn't just just w wiped out and that was like three three weeks three and a half weeks after the... few days later and um we had add five demands we got one demand um which are replaced not in the context people say no was it successful or not you say well you want to narva down to the prison you five demands 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 there was a much

wider struggle and if you look it in terms of what we did get it and what the struggle got out of it and so well no one now like loads of weapons and money and political and moral support and you realized afterwards that and with the eyes of the world were were on it and particularly with the eyes of the world of of those who had suffered under the empire um and i think the first time republicans just realized just this support and interest that you had worldwide and when you have fidel castro speaking up at the united nations you have the... in parliament on the minute silence you have protests across the world whenever um so in that sense it was major fact for us in the jail we got the right to our own close which f said was important and two two levels symbolic um but always we wouldn't wear the prison uniform and the blanket song was i wear no conf uniform normally serve my time so we never

did where the their conf uniform but a more practical level to get out of sale for the first time in five years and get in the counting, get out of the yard and and and plan and strategies how we're going to get the outstand demands which which we did and through a whole um series of protests and different ways, but that's all that was the end of of that type of protest the prison republican prisoners b in the camp various other protests even the blanket protest itself it's sort of like you bring it on and we'll take a match way, but it's like terence mcwinis, 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 crush people and crush their 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'd like to finish this 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've enjoyed what we've had to offer, so rather than leave you with your usual history segment and 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 blooded 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 duckshooters haunted the marigolds and bullrushes, but still were scared to find spent cartridges, accurate. 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, feelers round haycocks and hind quarters, talkers and bars, slow arbitrators 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 sadge drowning in dew, like a dull blade with its edge honed bright, loch beg half shines under 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, dab you clean with moss, fine as the drizzle out of a low cloud, lift you wonder your arms and lay you flat, with rushes that shoot green again, i plat green scapulars to wear over your shroud. i'd like to thank our special guest lawence myong and our resident co-host michelle gillernew. we haven't gone away, you know, i'm sean murray, bye for now. this is forest. in this week's show, we'll be shining light

on the influence of an ultraasist 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 yita uh asstlement in particular, there's actually a khabar. was a linked uh yashiva jewish seminary in that settlement, in the case of palestinians, the 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 the horror of of the the philosophy and the ideas of this sect. a damming report indicates that deaths from terrorism in

africa have skire. more than 10000% during the so-called us war on terror. the study by the african center for strategic studies revealed during 2002 and 2003 when the us was just beginning its 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 the purported aim of helping the continent in counter terrorism. that's from takfiri violence in africa increased to 20. 3,322 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,

today in the studio we are joined by one of the members of the political burrow of the palestinian islamic jihad movement, ali abu shahin. since the israeli aggression, there has been no safe place in gaza. the world today is saying enough is enough. the american administration is a part of this aggression under the... pretext of slogans of democracy and confronting dictatorship.

the headlines of senior un official warns that at least one quarter of gaza's population are one step away from famina of israel's genocide in the territory. us senators question president biden's strategy to deal with yemen's anti-israely operation. saying that it's useless and not conforming to the country's constitution, and also in our headlines, tehran slams germany's anti-iran rights allegations as a futile effort to hide berlin's support for the occupation and the regime's genocide in gaza.