Anger, opportunism, grudging respect: how unionism reacted to hunger strikes
While unionist leaders resented the propaganda value of the hunger strikes, loyalists were conflicted as their prisoners had also fasted and sought the same demands
Hugh Smyth and Billy Hutchinson of the PUP at Belfast City Hall. Many loyalists “would have secretly admired the courage of the Bobby Sandses of this world,” said Smyth. Photograph: Hugh Russell
The prevailing Ulster Protestant view of the hunger strikers of 1981 remains that of former first minister – then-MP for East Belfast – Peter Robinson, in his pamphlet Self-Inflicted: “Society properly deals with them like the low and common criminals they are.” The seemingly relentless march of Sinn Féin ever since further bolsters establishment unionism’s view that the events of 1981 represent a grim propaganda victory for the republican movement, with further insult to injury added by the 64 people (including 34 civilians) killed by the Provisional IRA and INLA outside prison walls during the 1981 protest.
On the other hand, it is often forgotten that loyalist prisoners played a complementary role in gaining “Special Category” status for members of all paramilitary groups in June 1972 (amounting to prisoners being housed in compounds, not having to work or wear prison uniforms, more food parcels and visits, and access to better facilities than ordinary prisoners). While it would be an exaggeration to say that loyalist prisoners led the agitation – the concession had of course been secured by the hunger strikes of the IRA’s Billy McKee and Proinsias MacArt’s in Crumlin Road prison in May 1972 – secretary of state William Whitelaw points out in his memoirs that the initial batch of prisoners who received the new designation numbered considerably more loyalist than republican prisoners – 40 loyalists against eight republicans. Two years later, UVF prisoners received an additional standing order that they should refrain from ever wearing prison uniform.