Pat McGeown was loosing consciousness. He fought for control of his connection to the living. He could tell his wife and brother were in the room and there were doctors talking, then he drifted off somewhere. Somewhere peaceful.

Then he felt a jolt shoot deep through him. It was a needle injected into his body by a nurse. His wife had taken him off the hunger strike.

Bik got a comm out: "21.8.81 1:30 PM ... They told me that Pat McGeown had been sick for a few days and was sinking rapidly. He took a bad dip last night and his wife came in and signed the papers. That's about it..."

It was a critical blow. With good news coming out of Fermanagh/So Tyrone over the election of Owen Carron to parliament, there was a glimmer of hope. But if the family members took their loved one's off the protest as soon as they lost consciousness, then there was no hunger strike. If one more family succumbed, it would be hard to carry on.

The remaining hunger strikers met with Bik. All were firm in their determination. Each had spoken to their next of kin not to intervene. But who could say for sure? Pat Sheehan took Bik aside and told him that he expected his family to take him off even though he implored them not to. Bik asked him to reemphasize his objections in as strong a way as possible.

The men debated what to do to neutralize the families. One way was to create a legal document signed by the men forbidding intervention. But that would be a media disaster, the Movement would surely be blamed and it would only bring attention to the families' opposition. The men wanted to sign documents anyway.

Another meeting with Bik was arranged. They decided on a strategy of telling their families that if they were taken off against their wills, they would go back on hunger strike as soon as they recovered consciousness. The men were determined to continue.

More come off; more go on

Pat McGeown's being taken off the strike was like the bursting of a logjam in a backed up river. On 4 September, Matt Devlin fell into a coma and was taken off by his family. On 6 September, Laurence McKeown was taken off by his family after 70 days of his fast. That same day, the INLA announced they would be scaling down on the frequency they put forward their men for hunger strike. In fact, they had no volunteers for it.

Three IRA men quickly put their young lives on hunger strike. Matt was replaced by John Pickering the next day. A week later, on 14 September, Gerard Hodkins went on and was joined by Jim Devine a week after that.

Meanwhile newly elected MP, Owen Carron, tried to use what influence he might have to get things moving by asking to meet with Margaret Thatcher to discuss the hunger strike. She refused, but because he was technically a member of parliament, she fudged up a meeting for Carron with Humphrey Atkin's deputy, Michael Allison. A request to meet with Fitzgerald was refused outright.

Carron met with Allison for an hour. The result: Brits won't negotiate with the prisoners while on hunger strike.

Overseas support

The only support seemed to be coming from overseas. The French Foreign Minister, Claude Cheysson, said the hunger strikers' "courage demanded respect" and commended them on their "supreme sacrifice". He even offered to boycott the royal wedding, if Dublin would go along. Dublin wouldn't and poor Claude had to show up for the royal show-marriage, keeping down his Brit breakfast but barely. In New York City, the Union Jack was still furled up inside the consulate offices instead of flying over Third Avenue for fear it would be ripped down and burned. New Yorkers had to buy their own to burn on 3rd Avenue.

Fidel Castro lectured parliamentary and congressional representatives of 100 countries at a conference in Havana on the heroic nature of the IRA and likened their treatment in the H-Blocks to the Spanish Inquisition. A red faced British Ambassador, David Thomas, stormed out into the Caribbean night puling to himself about bloody ruling the waves and honor.

Prior takes over

Back in Belfast, a new Brit Direct Ruler had taken over control of the 6-Counties, James Prior, defiantly a hard nut. He wanted to be PM some day, and, exactly like his predecessors or those that would follow, he could care less about Ireland or the Irish people. But he knew if he could break the deadlock over the H-Blocks, it would move his career. On the second day of his reign, he visited the Kesh and went to see the hunger strikers, but refused to speak to them. He allowed that they would look at each other.

Bik was not happy. His wee, contraband radio went missing, although the news outside wasn't pleasant listening. More seriously, he had to put on two men to replace McKeown and Devlin. One of the volunteers selected, John Pickering, became ill almost immediately with a suspected ulcer. "Pickles" was a dependable man, but had been sick with stomach and ear problems only a few months previously. His quick decline wasn't good, but Fr Denis "The Menace" Faul made it a public scandal. He blasted the Republican Movement in the press for "scraping the bottom of the barrel" for picking Pickering. Most human beings would have thought it, at the very least, a courageous act on Pickering's part. I guess it depends on where you are coming from. From where Fr Faul was now coming from, the men were the enemy.

More trouble in the prison hospital

On another visit to the prison hospital, Bik found more trouble brewing. In fact it was boiling over. Gerard Carville informed Bik that there was no way he would allow himself to die on hunger strike and asked Bik to replace him a.s.a.p. Bik convinced Gerard to stall until he could find a propitious moment to make an announcement of his decision. What that moment could possibly be was a mystery, considering the political and public relations realities. No hunger striker had ever taken himself off before.

During his visit, he also found out Bernard Fox had developed a severe ulcer which was driving him mad with pain. He would be coming off the strike in a day or so. On September 25th he came off the fast for "medical reasons".

Liam McCloskey, totally blind, was nearing death. But his spirit was strong. Pat Sheehan was certain that Liam's family will "do the deed" when he lapsed into unconsciousness. He felt his family would too, despite his protestations. In fact, Liam acceded to his mother's five hours of begging him to come off the strike. She would have taken him off anyway. There were now six men on hunger strike.

There was little optimism among the ranks of the remaining hunger strikers that they could succeed now that the families were following Fr Faul's lead rather than their own.

"The Menace"

In the beginning Fr Faul was in favor of the hunger strikers' "five demands" and had been a leader in exposing the evils of the prison regime. Something changed in him. Now he was publicly saying things like, "Gerry Adams - not Mrs. Thatcher - has been killing our sons." Privately, he was pulling it apart.

Alfie Doherty on the night before his son died on hunger strike, made a statement to the press condemning the behind the scenes actions and meetings called by Frs. Faul and Murray blaming the Republican Movement and putting pressure on the prisoners, not the British government. "My son is not a dupe; he understands clearly what he is doing and the consequences of his actions," he said.

He finished his remarks with this assessment: "Any diversion from [support for the prisoners' demands], as we have repeatedly seen since 1 March, causes confusion among the prisoners' supporters and gives valuable time to the British, time which my son and the other prisoners can ill afford."

The men sent out a press release attacking Fr Faul as a "treacherous, conniving man." Faul's reaction was to call another meeting of the relatives where he convinced five of the six families to take their sons off when they fell into unconsciousness. Prior was also active, meeting with all the various political parties [not Sinn Fein of course] and Cardinal O'Fiaich. On 30 September Fr Faul tagged along with the Cardinal to Stormont. Prior stuck to the government line. Later that day, Prior gave his first press interview. On the question of the hunger strike, he declared there was no way forward unless the Republican Movement ended the hunger strike, "I do not see any other progress possible."

The Hunger Strike officially ends

On 3 October 1981, the Hunger Strike was officially called off. It lasted 217 days and cost ten men their lives. [Pat McGeown was found dead 16 years later of a heart attack in his Belfast apartment, undoubtedly a result of his fast. He worked tirelessly for the Republican Movement every day of those sixteen years.]

Their statement began: "We, the protesting political prisoners in the H-Blocks and the men on hunger strike, have reluctantly decided in this seventh month of the hunger strike to end our fast."

It ended: "Under no circumstances are we going to devalue the memory of our dead comrades by submitting ourselves to a dehumanizing and degrading regime."

Lost and gained

What was lost is for those who survived those days and nights to assess and can only really be told by the families and relatives of those ten men dead, the children they didn't have, lovers they didn't get to love or even meet, contributions that they didn't get to make. What difference Bobby, Frank, Raymond, Patsy, Joe, Martin, Kevin, Kieran, Tom and Micky would have made if alive and free is anyone's guess. But they would have mattered -- a powerful and an incalculable loss. All but Francis Hughes would have been free by 1987. Frank would have been released under the GFA.

The Brit establishment, the power of and trust in the Catholic Church, the Dublin government, those that weaseled and lied also lost incalculably.

All of us can assess the gain, for what it's worth. The 1981 Hunger strike changed the lives of tens of thousands of people throughout the world in one way or another. It changed my life and I bet it changed yours. It continues to influence the lives of people not even born when they died and those whose lives were only touched by what they read about or heard years later.

Some valence in the chemistry of the universe changed because of the Irish Hunger Strike of 1981.