None of us can possibly put ourselves in their place or pretend to know how we would answer these questions. They were there, alone in bare, stinking cells with their own thoughts in the lion’s den. We can only imagine. Over 500 men and women were there and it was hell on Earth.

On October 27, 1980, seven Republican prisoners of war refused all food. On 1 December, three Republican women in Armagh jail joined them on hunger strike. Two weeks later, 30 more men threw their lives for a greater thing into the pitiless face of Margaret Thatcher and the conscience of the British government. They had no idea what to expect, but they had a pretty good idea.

All that they had to go on was history. After the Republican hunger strikes of the 1930’s, there was a long hiatus, until the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and the renewing of the armed struggle against Britain for Irish freedom in the 1970s.

Joe Cahill, Sean and Ruari O'Bradaigh

The first hunger strike during the current phase of the struggle involved Joe Cahill, a senior IRA officer and Sean and Ruari O'Bradaigh, both in Sinn Fein leadership positions. In 1972, the Republican prisoners in Mountjoy jail rioted against the Dublin government and the prison regime. The government responded with an Emergency Bill that set up repressive Special Courts consisting of three judges and no juries to try IRA suspects and offenders.

The IRA responded by hunger striking. The Joe Cahill, Sean O'Bradaigh and Ruari O'Bradaigh were among those picked up under this new Dublin "police state" offensive. After several weeks of the strike, all three were released; little else was accomplished except some useful publicity.

Kelly, Feeney and the Price Sisters

In March of 1973, seven IRA volunteers were arrested and convicted in connection with a series of car bombings in England, including one targeting the Old Bailey in London. Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Kelly, and Hugh Feeney were imprisoned in Brixton jail where they demanded to be transferred to an Irish jail to serve their sentences near friends, relatives, and their Republican comrades. They commenced a hunger strike to achieve that demand.

The prison authorities, instructed by the British government, began to force feed the four rather than allow them to starve inside one of their prisons. They hoped to avoid the adverse publicity that their deaths would cause and they were confident that they could break the prisoners resolve, particularly the "girls".

Were they ever wrong!

In a monumental display of guts and endurance, the Price sisters, Kelly and Feeney suffered the torture of force feeding for over 200 days. They never showed a sign of breaking their strike and the publicity was heavy on the British to relent.

Having a disgusting gruel pumped into one's stomach isn't only uncomfortable, but extremely painful. As part of the protest, the four refused to eat or cooperate with the forced feedings; therefore, they had to be subdued each time and their mouths forced open. This was accomplished through brute force or the nose was pinched shut and when the victim gasped for air, an instrument or piece of wood, etc. was shoved between the teeth and the mouth was pried open. Pliers and clamps were variously devised to get the job done by applying pressure on the jaw. A plastic tube, too large in diameter for comfort, was then quickly rammed down the throat and into the stomach. A nutrient substance was poured or pumped through it.

Often the procedure had to be done several times to get it down the right pipe, so to speak, which insured that whatever lubricant was used had wiped off. Frequently, the victim vomited everything up and the procedure would begin again

Then, naturally, the Brits figured a way around all this jaw and throat messiness -- down through the nose. This orifice is particularly unsuited for plastic pipes being jammed into it by sadistic doctors, screws and orderlies.

Hugh Feeney, who spent time in America working for the Republican movement after his release from prison in the early 1990s, told of how sadistic the doctors were who were supposed to be supervising these feedings. He said that it was s.o.p. that if he vomited up the mixture, which was very common as the process was extremely uncomfortable and unnatural, they would re-pump his vomit back into him. Often the tube shoved into his nose wasn't lubricated at all and was purposely angled to rip into the tender cartilage. Even if everything stayed down as planned, the stomach was so over-filled with the liquid that he could hardly walk, crawling on his hands and knees into his cell almost wishing he were dead.

Marian Price was famous for her letters describing her and her sister’s ordeal: "Well this morning we had our force-feeds. Dolours was a bit sick and I was the sickest I have ever been. As soon as the tube went down I started to retch and then when the liquid was poured in, it all came up again, so half way through the doctor pulled up the tube and started all over again.

"I don’t think this helps much because I still puked the remainder up. Very unpleasant, but this is the first day of the new year and if I have to go through the same for the next 364 days I will."

Meanwhile Dolores’ touching poetry was making the papers and breaking people’s hearts:

... And I could say such things to you

Could tell you of my dreams,

How once there was a little girl

Who danced in summer streams,

And sat upon a mountain,

And thought she was God,

Knowing in her innocence,

All wrongs that she must solve

Then I could show the woman

Still so much the child

Who knows to hold your hand in hers,

If only for a while

And would you gladly give yourself

To one who soon may die . . .

The Brits had more on their dirty hands and their forced-feeding pipes than they could deal with.

The Price sisters ended their strike on June 7, 1974 and were transferred on March 18, 1975 to Armagh jail. Gerry Kelly and Hugh Feeney were transferred to Long Kesh a month later.