As Martin Hurson was being laid to rest, Kieran Doherty was in a wheelchair in the prison hospital. On Wednesday morning he was given the last rights of the Catholic Church. His hearing was going, vision blurred and he had lost all feeling in his right leg.

There were eight men on hunger strike in various stages. They were called together by the prison Governor Hilditch and a NIO functionary. Kieran was wheeled in. Kevin Lynch wasn't much better. The NIO man read a statement explaining that there was an offer being considered by the British government from the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC]. But this was tricky for the Brits. The Red Cross typically dealt with POWs. The Brits couldn't allow Irish republicans to be POWs. So the intervention was being allowed, they said, under the Red Cross's directive "to take humanitarian initiatives."

The Red Cross gets the business

The Red Cross had been trying to get into The Kesh for five years, but Thatcher always balked. Now, they would be getting in. The hunger striking prisoners immediately asked to meet with their OC, Bik McFarlane, and Hilditch gave the okay. The men refused to meet with any authority or organization unless their command structure was followed. That meant Bik.

Bik was adamant. Outside organizations coming into the situation like the Irish bishops or the European Human Rights Commission were only, even if they didn't know it, cover-ups and face saving lapdogs for the Brits. If there was to be a settlement, only the Brits could arrange that. If there was to be negotiations, fine, then it would be between the men and the British government.

The Red Cross could investigate all they wanted, but Bik insisted that he had to be there. He was in charge of the men's lives and deaths; besides, he was able to be more objective. He wasn't sick; he wasn't dying. Six were already gone and their sacrifice couldn't be wasted. It was a tough spot.

Kieran could hardly speak, but he took hold of Bik's arm as he was leaving and whispered, "No problem."

The next day, three Red Cross officials flew in from Switzerland. They had four meetings with the men. Bik did all of the talking. But nothing resulted because the Brits didn't wish to negotiate seriously. Sinn Fein issued a statement on Saturday regarding the Red Cross intervention: thanks a lot, but you were used.

Bik sent a comm out to Gerry A: "All are in good spirits. Big Doc is in a bad way. Kevin is slipping also, though he was cracking jokes at me tonight."

Meanwhile, apparently the Catholic church, the Dublin government and the SDLP were trying behind the scenes to get the British government to talk directly with the prisoners. But the sincerity of these efforts were always suspect, they usually turned out to be more self serving than humanitarian or patriotic. You could never trust them.

More tricks: the Lynch family targeted

On the Monday after the Red Cross business failed, the NIO were trying to arrange a meeting. It was midnight. The Dohertys and Lynches were at their dying sons' bedsides. The Prison Governor called out Alfie and Michael Doherty, Kieran's father and brother, and told them that information was communicated to the NIO that Kieran and Kevin were asking for clarification from the NIO about a statement made by Atkins regarding the hunger strike. Alfie told the man he knew nothing about it. The message was communicated by an unnamed, friendly priest. The unnamed part sounded about right, but not the other. Alfie, smelled a rat, and went back to Kieran who had no idea what he was referring to. The rat once again wore a Roman collar.

The NIO arrived anyway at 2 A.M. The Lynches were called out with the Dohertys for a "discussion". The Brits and Irish establishment always thought that Mr and Mrs Lynch were the weak links among the families because of their "respectable", middle class background and non-political perspective.

But Bridie Lynch had promised her son that she would not interfere with his wishes. She knew her son would rather die than relinquish his principles. He had told her: "If they took everything else away they'd never take my principles." She knew he meant it and he would never forgive her if she went back on her word. Paddy Lynch told Kevin no way would he cooperated in letting him die, but soon deferred to his wife and a mother's love, which runs through the heart and the soul in ways men, even loving fathers, can't fathom. "I need you to stand by me, Mammy," he told her. "You've never let me down." And she was steadfast from that day on. She told the family when they learned Kevin was on hunger strike, "If it comes to it, and he's dying, you stand firm."

Judas Fitzgerald

The meeting with the NIO was a trick, with the Dublin government more to blame more so than the Brits. The O'Hara, McCreesh and McDonnell families knew Haughey was worthless, but when Garret Fitzgerald was elected they came to understand he was ten times more cunning.

But before the NIO man started in on his "clarification", Alfie Doherty, a tough, old Belfast republican from way back, told the Governor that the NIO official can hold his wind. If he had anything to say, he should tell it to the hunger strikers and Bik McFarlane. Kevin's brother Hall was there too. He told Hilditch, "There's no point in asking us. It's the boys on hunger strike you'll have to to ask." That was that. The Lynch family were standing firm.

The next day, Garret Fitzgerald issued a statement to the press that the Brits approached the hunger strikers but were rejected because the prisoners' conditions were unrealistic. In other words, it was the prisoners who refused to meet, which was a lie.

The whole exercise was about getting Garret Fitzgerald, and the Brits, off the hook; like Judas, he was washing his hands of Kieran's and Kevin's crucifixion on the cross of Britain's bitter rule in Ireland.

Who was that unnamed priest? There were enough suspects. An evil confluence of deception was being woven and fine turned among the British and Irish governments and assorted Catholic priests. The Lynch family were to get more from Catholic Churchmen over then next week in an effort to break them. It didn't work. Not even close.

Solidarity among the families

If the Lynch family were new to the politics of the struggle, they caught on quickly and fit it almost right away. There was great solidarity among the families. The Lynches became close to Alfie and Margaret Doherty and their family. From so different backgrounds, you'd think that the almost suburban, apolitical Lynches and the Belfast republican Doherty family would have nothing in common. But now they had in common their sons, who were close friends. And of course the McDonnells and Hursons and McElwees were all there to share the pain and comfort each other.

Paddy Lynch wasn't in anybody's pocket either. He once cornered Gerry Adams and asked him, "Why aren't you on hunger strike?" What could he say?

Kevin Lynch of Dungiven, North County Derry.

The Lynch family were not quite prosperous, but for Irish nationalists in the north they were close to it. They certainly were doing well. Paddy Lynch was a successful builder. All the Lynch boys went into the building trades and they made a good living. The family home on the main Belfast-Derry road was lovely and Kevin was a happy-go-lucky boy: good looking, gregarious, and athletic. He even captained the All-Ireland under-16 Hurling Championship team. After a working visit to England where he stayed with one of his brothers, he came back to Dungiven. He was 19 years old.

On the way home from a dance with the lads, they received a bad beating and kicking by a Brit patrol for no apparent reason.

Kevin organized a nascent unit of the INLA almost immediately. But the INLA had no money and few weapons. So the boys went about "acquiring" them. In a famous incident, he and three others in their unit ran right into an RUC checkpoint. They had a shotgun in the car. Taking the initiative, they got out of the car, surprised the RUC men, and relieved them of all of their weapons. That was about the height of Kevin's military career.

While on remand later, a veteran volunteer upon hearing the story, of which Kevin was rather proud, asked him: "Kevin, that's very nice. But why didn't you shoot them?" He hadn't thought of that. It wasn't in his nature to think that way. But that was before he suffered the beatings and inhumanity of Long Kesh, watched his comrades suffer and die, and he came to see the struggle in more political and military terms. He had changed a lot from the carefree boy of only months before.

None of the family knew

One morning as he was sleeping peacefully in his room in the family home, he was arrested and charged with weapons possession and the roadblock incident. He got "only" 10 years because the RUC messed up the details. Paddy Lynch and his mother Bridget were totally unaware of his involvement with the INLA. They couldn't, in fact, make sense of it. Not a young man of Kevin's disposition, advantages in life and promise.

But life in the north of Ireland for Kevin Lynch had made him aware of the plight of his people. That was another side of him that was to develop more and more as he experienced more of prison life, read and thought more about the causes of the Irish people's continual difficulties under British rule. He developed a strong sense of duty to his fellow man.

It became all consuming. He received awful beatings. He became hardened and very serious. He learned Irish. He became religious. When finally he took a visit with his mother Bridie, she didn't recognize him. The change was inside. There was a fierceness that wasn't there before.

A fellow prisoner later told Bridie that once when her son had an infected tooth, he refused to visit the prison dentist because he would have to put on the prison uniform. He suffered without complaint for 14 days before passing out at Sunday mass. Still he kept his mouth shut, literally. The abscess burst soon after and he never did go to the dentist. He was no longer gregarious Kevin of Dungiven, but Kevin Lynch of Long Kesh, every inch an Irish revolutionary soldier.

Although Patsy O'Hara was the INLA prisoners OC, Kevin grew very close to Bobby Sands, who was in the same block. Upon Bobby's death, they say Kevin took it like a mother loosing a child, such was his devotion to Bobby. He was totally committed to his comrades. When Patsy died, Kevin took his place.

Kevin's thoughts were of others

He was on the first hunger strike with the last group. He was worried he wouldn't be allowed on the second. He wasn't concerned for himself at all. During his hunger strike, he seemed almost happy. He talked not of himself to his mother on visits, but about the other men with families serving long sentences and that if his sacrifice could make life more bearable for them, it would be worth it.

He was now in pain from ulcerations in his throat and mouth, but he wouldn't let the orderlies use mouthwash to treat the pain, even though Fr. Murphy told him that it would be okay. He even refused vaseline for his lips.

At 1:10 A.M. on the 1st of August, 1981, Kevin Lynch died after 71 days on hunger strike.

Four months after he gave his life for Ireland and his fellow prisoners, in December of 1981, if he had conformed to prison rules, because of his relatively light sentence, time on remand, and remission of sentence he would qualify for, he could have walked out of The Kesh a free man. Instead, he walked into Irish history.