THE ANGER and frustration of SDLP leader John Hume at the continuing inflexibility of the British prime minister towards the Republican hunger strike, despite the deaths to date of nine strikers, erupted at a tense meeting with the Northern Ireland secretary of state, Humphrey Atkins, at Stormont Castle on August 10th, 1981. The ninth hunger striker, Tom McElwee, had died two days earlier while the final striker, Michael Devine of the INLA, would die on August 20th.
During an almost three-hour meeting the SDLP leader expressed his anxiety about the political situation caused by the continuing hunger strike. He stressed that for 10 years the SDLP had provided an alternative to violence.
There had, however, been a political vacuum since the collapse of the powersharing executive in 1974. Britain now treated the SDLP with contempt, as a result of which its role as a serious party was being undermined. In Hume’s view, the continuing hunger strike had caused widespread bitterness which would erupt in due course. As a result, those who sought peaceful development were being weakened.
This atmosphere was much more serious than the hunger strike itself. He believed that Provisional Sinn Féin would run a candidate in each constituency in the Republic in the next general election which he expected they would precipitate by causing their only remaining H Block TD (Agnew) to resign. They might succeed in having 10 candidates elected to the Dáil, thereby holding the balance of power. PIRA believed that for the first time in a long period it had won young people away from the moderates.
Turning to policing, Hume said the RUC was not widely accepted in the minority community. “The failure of Catholics to join the RUC was a fact of life which would remain until there was a political development.” For his part, he believed the British government should consider declaring Northern Ireland “an area of shared sovereignty which could be administered by joint commissions”. The British government had extensive leverage on Protestant opinion which it could exercise without withdrawing financial or other support.
Returning to the hunger strike, Hume believed it could have been solved before. The involvement of the prime minister had been unfortunate, both because of the attitude she adopted and because no higher authority now remained to whom matters could be put for a final resolution.
Hume had met relatives of the hunger strikers and, at their request, two leading Belfast Provisionals who said they were ready for him to try to bring about a settlement.
The PIRA leaders had told him they wanted the dispute solved and that there was a gulf developing between them and the prisoners; they could be seen to call the hunger strike off only at the risk of causing strife within their own movement. It was essential to bring the matter to a close both because of its intrinsic seriousness and because of its wider effect on attitudes. He believed that “in the end there would have to be an amnesty for terrorist offenders, although he would not say so publicly as it would encourage the PIRA to continue their campaign”.
Atkins emphasised that he too wished to see an early end to the hunger strike but the government would not negotiate. Nor could he agree to Humes suggestion of joint sovereignty.