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 firmana, 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 machong. he is a former ira prisoner of. 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. laurence mcyong, welcome to the show. so lawrence, tell us a bit about your child, grown up. well, i grew up outside rondlestown, um, 20 minutes from here, very in mixed area, 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 is used, tribal difference or skin color or whatever else, so it's a very ideal sort of upbringing um, britten about it that one of his 10, learned to drive a tractor on the a farm that was next to us, devy warrick's farm, lovely neighbors, wonderful people, went a very small local school, foreign fluck, which was delited about years later just... discover was actually from the original irish which was like wet town but at the time as angles say version just seemed bit absurd you know um and up getting my 11 plus and move from this really to classroom school to uh sank 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 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 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 blame that on on my my liter 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 so had implication for my one family because mean the whole civil rights movement was about and anti discrimination and house and unemployment as as you all um and i think but for me the biggest um impact was the activities of the olster defense regiment which was locally recruited militia um the largest regiment in the british army and over 90% protestant and

there were people from rondleston who i would have known and played football but we went down down that time we used to walked in the town of croud of us uh that was all had in those days and being stop with them and i remember person the guy's name um and him asking me what's your name on where you where you coming from where you going to and he was embarrassed because he b me what's what's your name uh but the second third time happen the embarrassment had gone and that was 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 home 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 iran as that point, 16 decided that i wanted to become part of of of what was happening, and to become part of

was to join the was to join the ira, which i did when i 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 the begin with bob 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 it 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 were bringing up the numbers 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 date um i mean the uh a form set of people you can really 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 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 capitalate 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 to the hospital along back was in back and mickey the fan 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 one missing was joe mcdonald and uh if i hadn't

known that i wouldn't have recognized the person that come through the door he was in a a oil chair and she always been able to retain but more b more fat than the rest of us and that's which is... the most people were were underuries like i was 10 and a half stolen when began the mean about 13 and a half an hour or some not crying mass of course everybody was melnised after a long time but joe was brought in and his head was like over his head was in a shar 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 so everybody got to smoke, you were allowed to smoke in the prison hospital, w to smoke on the on the protest and the makeup for the acjp the commission for justice and peace was dublin government appointed's 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 f demonds but the recent that 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 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'. giving the experience at the first one and particularly given now that that four people had already had he did 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 guillenue alongside our special guest dr. lawrence myone. martin horsen and died died very suddenly uh and very painful and that's 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 p 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 and all these toxins in your body started with the kidneys come under muscle pressure and happen to py quin happen to martin horrison so like for the last couple ours life he's thrushing about hallucinating and he's away in another world and learn later years after last and talking to brandon is brotherly brandon was in one set of him holding him down and the priest f morpheus. so he won'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 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 to wear the prison close remember 40 od days my my ey started going hang up for for most people and seeing at the start seeing very seeing double but very clearly double - to more hazy. and

anyway um but suppose one of the main thing with that like strip laten which is what that we ended up noticing was that someone um very close to death often had bell movement and remember i'd read before about how if you're hongs open and this was almost like an refers the body just letting go before it happened until tom away and remember make define talking about it and uh and afterwards it was a real drop and you're ready you're already totally exhausted but after that you see nobody came out of their selling in it in the word the word cells even prison hospital so happen to make a fan and you probably what rack and get two or three days after that and uh and basic 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 b, help back

to bit and and and didn't get out of it after that um and then my parents in family and seem to be at a critical stage and um they come in my father, my mother and sister and brother all of them apart from my mother asked me to come off the ar and said i wasn't and it wasn't my mother was republicans wasn't we just always had a... but i don't recal any adult conversation with my mother cuuse 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 then we're on the protest so never um had those type of adult conversations that really of like you my parents that later died in jail so never never got to have them but there was just always a very close spawners he just showed me unconditional love and um she wasn't going to ask me to do something he was was against me um that was the 68th day and i

remember them coming in um 16th i don't i don't really recall at all apparently it 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 around and checks all your reflexes and says look now you're deep deep coming you're not going to be any response. and what the what the had was part of attorney which is that um the present weren't going to forge fetos but if you're next to kinn saying document part of attorney shifted them and they could authorize medical intervention which is what did and um again it was only years i thought back on it what i do recoller send to me on that sick day was and we were on our own she had gone out and um she says you know what you have to and i know what i did and my was very quiet person and religious in the sense it was quite feeth

like wrong religions and you thought enough situation for for families and that had been brought i mean that already been a number of people - you often wondered if i had been the first would but i looked on it differently or if somebody had died after me would have look differently but neither of those happened i say my own mother died less and two years after so this awful thing that families were placed in that dilemma and a big pressure on them from the... catholic church, 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 bod wife or bad 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 was coming coming around said launch your your intensive care unit the royal victory hospital we just going to turn

you over here slowly and is seven stone at the end of bones and the hospital. what i had you on the sheep skin rug but in the hospital obviously don't have those uh and and and was turned me over and so i remember what was like his 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 end up the bed and all i could see all blane 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 pyn 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 may be 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 each block four and uh when you arrive on that block there will be a screw in the the circle and they're m to shot the numbers so somebody's going for a visit would have been read one off um 98 h or or one on and whenever i walked in uh one field hunger striker on normally walk across straight this route was straight across the the circle but i had to walk around the the um the wall just holding on and and could already see and uh ended ended up there in the down in the wing and um people he heard me coming in and i was exhaust literally was i got under the bed and and just lay down and um i'd ended up with the stagmas from the hungers which were going

rabbitly to open them you 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 checked and as who it was and um it was realtney he was on the first strink and i said it was and he got up and shut it out the door and uh everybody was shuting up the welcome me and all the rest of it and uh to her and it just it was just um i just couldn't just just w w dead and that was like three three weeks three and a half weeks after that few days later and um we had five demands we could one demand um which are replaced 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 what we did get it and what the struggle got out of it and so well no one know like they got loads of weapons. and money and um political and moral support and you realized afterwards that in with the eyes of the world where we're on it and particularly with the eyes of the world of of those who had suffered under the empire um and i think for the first time republicans just realized just this support and interest that you had worldwide and when you have fidel castro speaking up with the united nations you have the indian parliament. on the minute sentence 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 close which problem said was important and two two levels symbolic um but always said we wouldn't wear the prison uniform and the blanket song was i wear no conf uniform normally serve my time

so we we never did wear the their complex uniform but a more practical level it is to get out of the sale for the first time in five years and and get in the county and 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 happy one that was the end of of that type of protest, the prison republican prisoners, you look at the history b and the camp, various other protests, even the blanket protest itself, it's sort of like yeah bring it on, taken that's not in matura way, but it's um, it's like terence mcwinis, it's not those who can affect the most, it's those who can endure the most, which sometimes wonder about because you can you can cross people and crushed their sp, thank number. that never happened to us. lawrence, 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 after an alternative look at aries 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 the finish. with eulogy from one of our finest leadery 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 heads, goat beards and dogs eyes in demon pack blaz... standing out of the ground, snapping and squeeling, what blased 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 you, 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, accord, but massy, 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 sease the day, big voiced scollions, herders, feelers round haycocks and hind quarters, talkers and bars, low 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 said, drowning in dew, like a dull blade with its edge honed bright, loch peg half shines under the haze, i turn because the... keeping 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 as 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 scapulers to wear over your shroud. i like to thank our special guest, laurence mkung and our resident co-host michelle guillernew. we haven't gone away, you know, i'm sean murray, bye for now. this week on expose, western broadcast media

inactively assert that zionists targeted hisballah weapons depotes in southern lebanon, whereas they actually struck residential areas. zinist mainstream media misleadingly report that iran warned hizbullah against provoking a full-scale war with zinus israel, whereas the truth is, us media openly disclosed that a widespread. israeli entity campaign against hisbullah is currently undesirable for the us, and a recent survey indicated that 90% of lebanese citizens squarely place the blame on the united states of america for signist israel's ongoing assaults on lebanon and the gaza strip. expose, the truth is just a revelation away.

"the economy in israel was very bad before the events of october the 7th. i don't see a way back, i think there economy is destroyed beyond recognition. i think the..." problem in the battlefield will be military.

information about palestine abounds on social networks, many times without context. they do not allow us to go deeper and understand all the dimensions of a catastrophe that is dragging on for centuries. daniel hodway, chilean mayor of palestinian origin, opens a window to palestine to understand in depth the present cause of the palestinian people, exploring its history and future prospects. do not miss a window to palestine.

your headlines for this hour, millions of iranians have headed to the poles to elect members of the country's parliament and the assembly of experts. the leader of iran's islamic revolution says a high turnout in the elections will make friends of the nation happy and disappoint the ill wishes and the number of palestinin lives lost to the israely onslot on the gaza strip has stopped 30,200 as deadly bombings continue unabated.