A Chara, - Richard O'Rawe (March 9th) attempts to undermine my criticism of the many inaccuracies in his book Blanketmen by resting his case on an imagined meeting on July 28th, 1981 between myself and relatives of the hunger strikers when I allegedly had in my pocket a deal from the British government which I withheld from the relatives.
Richard writes his book claiming to have a sharp memory.
On July 10th, at the funeral of Joe McDonnell (the fifth hunger-striker to die), I collapsed in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. I was taken into hospital in Dublin with hepatitis, which is an infectious disease, and kept in an isolation ward at Cherry Orchard hospital in Ballyfermot. That is where I was on July 28th. In hospital I was humbled to receive a message from the hunger-strikers asking about my condition. A month after Joe McDonnell's death I returned to the North to speak at the funeral of IRA hunger-striker Tom McElwee in Bellaghy.
Richard was not a negotiator and was never in the prison hospital with the hunger-strikers, unlike myself and Brendan "Bik" McFarlane, whom he also attacks in his letter. Throughout his account Richard elevates his own importance.
Few believe his plea that he wrote the book for the families of the hunger-strikers (but forgot to tell them). Instead of conceding that his memory might be false, or that the fact that he was only partly privy to the talks in 1981 led him to misinterpret events, he persists with his myths because his book and its sales are his primary concern.
During all the propaganda wars in the intervening 24 years successive British governments have never claimed the IRA squandered a deal in 1981. This speaks for itself. - Is mise,
DANNY MORRISON,
Belfast.