Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00Where's this, Balmorphy?
00:00:12I see who I can see here.
00:00:15I think that's my street.
00:00:20Oh, Balmorphy Road.
00:00:25I flipped me.
00:00:43God, I felt a wee bit emotional there, looking back.
00:00:46They were happy times, I suppose.
00:00:48Your youth's always pretty happy, isn't it?
00:00:53You think back, because maybe that's the innocence of the times,
00:00:55where you don't really know the stresses and the worries of the older people,
00:00:59so you're happy in yourselves.
00:01:01You look back and think your life is happy.
00:01:06It was good.
00:01:09You don't really do many interviews like this, do you?
00:01:12No. I said I would do it for you, and I would just like to do it,
00:01:17and then get it behind me, and then...
00:01:20I was actually going to phone last week and say,
00:01:23I'm not doing it.
00:01:25I was crying. I've been crying an awful lot.
00:01:31The feeling's all come back out again,
00:01:33so putting it out there for people to see,
00:01:35our life had been on camera long enough, do you know what I mean?
00:01:41But I'm OK. I'm OK, yeah.
00:01:45I'm strong.
00:01:47The Troubles, that's been our life,
00:01:50from when we were children,
00:01:53and the flick of a switch, your life changed forever.
00:01:57You're brought into that group of victims
00:02:01that have been affected by the Troubles.
00:02:03You're one of them.
00:02:18That's turned out lovely. Look at that.
00:02:21Somebody's looking down on you.
00:02:26This is Upperlands.
00:02:28You're about 40 miles from Belfast,
00:02:30and 40 miles from Londonderry.
00:02:34My name is June McMullan.
00:02:36I'm just a country lass from Northern Ireland.
00:02:40Upperlands, it's a quiet, quiet, sleepy wee village.
00:02:44It's a quiet, quiet, sleepy wee village in the middle of nowhere.
00:02:49Everybody would know everybody.
00:02:53I know our village was very much Protestant,
00:02:56but that didn't mean that we wouldn't have a lot of Catholics in or anything like that.
00:03:01We were mixing together at school and youth clubs and things like that.
00:03:06I met Johnny on a Friday night at a wee tiny orange hall
00:03:10in the middle of nowhere.
00:03:13I was going with him when I was about 14 and a half,
00:03:16and I remember my mother chasing him from the door saying,
00:03:20away home the boy.
00:03:22But no, he kept coming back.
00:03:24He was a gentle person.
00:03:26And he had a car.
00:03:29If you know what a lad is, it was like a skip with a riff.
00:03:33And he loved them cars.
00:03:38When you got a lift to a dance,
00:03:40you need to make sure you got a lift home,
00:03:42so he was fit to take all us girls home.
00:03:47I was born and raised in Upperlands.
00:03:49I was born and raised in Upperlands.
00:03:51I was born and raised in Upperlands.
00:03:53He was fit to take all us girls home.
00:03:58When you're out in the country,
00:04:00the troubles were happening in other places.
00:04:02If there was nothing in our area, what were they going to blow up?
00:04:06A couple of sheep, a couple of cows in the field.
00:04:09A tree or something like that.
00:04:14Country life is so, so different to city life.
00:04:19On the news it was constantly talked,
00:04:21IRA, IRA, UDA, UVF.
00:04:27Any kids that were reared in the city
00:04:29couldn't have had much of a life.
00:04:31There were so many bombs going off in the city.
00:04:35This is the reality of Belfast today.
00:04:38Bombs in the city centre, so much disruption,
00:04:41so many explosions, from time to time
00:04:43you forget that it's become part of everyday life.
00:04:47And that really is one of the tragedies of it.
00:04:52My name is Bernadette O'Rourke.
00:04:54I grew up in the Ballamurphy area, off West Belfast.
00:05:03It wasn't much fun in Ballamurphy,
00:05:06but you made your own fun in the area, you know.
00:05:11I was just coming up for maybe 16, I think.
00:05:13I hadn't really been anywhere outside the area
00:05:16because you couldn't go into the town
00:05:18because there was random bombs here or there.
00:05:20So people tended to stay within their own areas,
00:05:22from both communities.
00:05:25There was a community centre
00:05:27that became one of the places to go.
00:05:29I met Ricky in 1975.
00:05:32We met in the community centre
00:05:34and that's where we began our story.
00:05:39We met at a dance.
00:05:41She was four years younger than me.
00:05:43Couldn't believe my good fortune.
00:05:45I had the best-looking girl in West Belfast.
00:05:48Punching over my weight.
00:05:50I know, I just liked the look of him.
00:05:54We got together, we went out together
00:05:56and then I got to know him
00:05:58and then I kind of liked what I got to know.
00:06:02Maybe I got filled in about Ricky's family
00:06:04and his background from my own daddy,
00:06:06who knew more about him because he meant about his daddy.
00:06:10And then I started to realise
00:06:12how much of a hooliganism was in his family
00:06:15because up to then I didn't know much about republicanism.
00:06:22In fact, I didn't know anything about it.
00:06:24I see the future of Ballymurphy black.
00:06:26And how is it with work in the Protestant part of the city like before?
00:06:29The pub is the mood barometer of Ballymurphy.
00:06:33However, it is warned against such open conversations.
00:06:37The future of Ballymurphy is very bleak.
00:06:40That's me.
00:06:41This German documentary team,
00:06:43we're looking for someone to speak about Ballymurphy.
00:06:47There really was no work and there was no money
00:06:49and it was a society that lived from hand to mouth.
00:06:53I mean, for a revolutionary it was tailor-made.
00:07:07I was involved in the IRA.
00:07:11But Hayne Burnick, the man in the scene,
00:07:13I'd been involved for almost four years.
00:07:15Usually I was a provisional IRA man.
00:07:18I was known as a gunman.
00:07:25And I liked it.
00:07:27I liked the thought of taking a fight to the British.
00:07:31And I was a committed republican, I truly was.
00:07:40If you're going to be out on operations,
00:07:42sooner or later you're going to get caught
00:07:44or you're going to get killed, one or the other.
00:07:52I was 18. I was pregnant.
00:07:55And then we decided to get married.
00:07:57I didn't really know what else to expect.
00:07:59I knew I was going to be a mother.
00:08:01Now when we got married I knew he was in the IRA
00:08:03but I said to him, no, I don't want you in the IRA
00:08:06because I don't want to be left sitting as a prisoner's wife.
00:08:09And he said, OK, then, I'll give it up.
00:08:14But he didn't.
00:08:17He didn't.
00:08:22We got this house up in my yard
00:08:24and he left the house one morning
00:08:26and said he was going to look for a job.
00:08:28And I said, right, OK, then, I'll see you later.
00:08:31What had you told her that morning?
00:08:33That I was going to go out looking for a job.
00:08:36Looking for work? Yep.
00:08:40LAUGHTER
00:08:47To sustain their operations, the Provisional IRA
00:08:50have launched a concerted campaign of armed robbery
00:08:53and hundreds of thousands of pounds have been stolen,
00:08:56much of it to fund the Provisional IRA.
00:08:58We were asked to rob this bank for the IRA.
00:09:01It was an order.
00:09:03We robbed the bank, we held up the staff,
00:09:06we held up the customers
00:09:08and filled a pillowcase full of money.
00:09:11It was good old-fashioned Jesse James type robbery.
00:09:16Cops were waiting on us outside the bank.
00:09:19I ended up getting arrested
00:09:21and I remember actually saying the words,
00:09:23Mother Ireland, get off my fucking back.
00:09:27Right?
00:09:29He was sent out to rob a bank and I was absolutely flabbergasted.
00:09:33Sent out to rob a bank? For who?
00:09:35He's not in anything.
00:09:37And I thought, how was I so stupid not to know that he was still there?
00:09:43It was awful.
00:09:45It truly was. It was awful.
00:09:47And you feel like an absolute bastard.
00:09:51And I let her down badly.
00:09:54He was sentenced to eight years.
00:10:00This was exactly what I didn't want.
00:10:02I thought, oh, no.
00:10:04Now I'm going to be a prisoner's wife.
00:10:06Now I'm going to be a single mother.
00:10:12I didn't have much of a dream prior to that.
00:10:16But we got married and I thought, well, we have a baby now,
00:10:20so we'll make this dream along the way.
00:10:24But this was a broken dream.
00:10:26This was turned into a nightmare.
00:10:29And I was very, very angry with Ricky.
00:10:33Very let down. Very hurt.
00:10:36And it was a very hard and very lonely time.
00:10:46This is the home for the majority of those
00:10:48convicted of terrorist offences in Northern Ireland.
00:10:51It's called the Mays Prison,
00:10:53where just over 1,000 prisoners are kept in these so-called H Blocks.
00:10:59The government ruled on March 1st last year
00:11:02that terrorists convicted of crimes committed after that date
00:11:05would no longer get special category status,
00:11:07but must wear prison uniform just like ordinary criminals.
00:11:13We were in prison because we were fighting
00:11:16the struggle against the British government.
00:11:19Prior to the 1st of March, 1976,
00:11:23all Republican prisoners didn't have to wear prison clothes,
00:11:26they didn't have to do prison work,
00:11:28they could be in their own cages, have their own command structure.
00:11:31Virtually political prisoners.
00:11:33That was the prevailing wind until the Brits said
00:11:36there would be no more political status.
00:11:38From here on in, every prisoner is a criminal.
00:11:42The Republican prisoners, they refused to be criminalised,
00:11:46they refused to wear prison clothes,
00:11:48they refused to do prison work,
00:11:50and they were thrown into a cell and they were thrown a blanket,
00:11:54hence the term Blanket Man.
00:11:56I'm on the blanket protest
00:12:00And my efforts will not fail
00:12:05By the time I was sentenced, for me not to go on the blanket,
00:12:09we'd have been very dishonourable.
00:12:12I would not wear their prison garb
00:12:17I was a Blanket Man
00:12:22I'll not accept their status
00:12:26Nor be criminalised
00:12:30My hesitation was Bernadette,
00:12:33after not telling her I was back in the IRA.
00:12:37Here I was going to own this blanket thing, right?
00:12:40That was going to ensure that every minute that I was on it
00:12:44was a minute longer before I could get back to her.
00:12:47So in many ways it was a double betrayal.
00:12:55You had to get a minibus up to the jail.
00:13:06You had a wee box visit,
00:13:08and sometimes the prison officer just came in and stood right in,
00:13:12and you only got a half an hour a month.
00:13:18You're looking at a different man
00:13:21who was obsessed with his role and his republicanism,
00:13:24even though I was sitting there as his wife.
00:13:26I had to go up, I wanted to go up, but I hated going up.
00:13:33There were a lot of women out there,
00:13:35there was a lot of, I would have called them now,
00:13:38looking back, republican groupies.
00:13:40There were some women flocked to men.
00:13:42They looked up to and admired these men,
00:13:45and there was this machoism they thought came from them.
00:13:50You know, republicanism and this sort of life, it was OK for them.
00:13:54It just wasn't OK for me.
00:14:08Women were left carrying the can.
00:14:10You know, they do the triple shift, is what they say, you know.
00:14:14The men happy in jail and look after the kids and run the house.
00:14:18You know, women, they were like second-class citizens.
00:14:24When all, most of the men were in prison,
00:14:26their kids were reared by the women.
00:14:31Those kids were, they were lost as well.
00:14:34There was a whole generation of kids lost.
00:14:38They grew up, and it was such an imbalanced society.
00:14:41There were no fathers without a father figure.
00:15:01I'm Bernadette McDonnell.
00:15:03I grew up in Lending Avenue.
00:15:05It was just off Andersonstown.
00:15:09It was me and my mummy, Joseph,
00:15:12and my daddy when he was there.
00:15:15I remember mummy saying, it was a thing then,
00:15:17like, fellas didn't push prams.
00:15:19It was a woman's job, she says,
00:15:21where your dad when he come back?
00:15:23She said, he pushed yous up and down them hills.
00:15:26And, you know, he was so proud.
00:15:28He was always, you know, hands-on.
00:15:31Whenever he could, he would. He was there.
00:15:34My daddy was my daddy.
00:15:36My daddy was just an ordinary man.
00:15:40Nobody knew you were in the IRA.
00:15:47I sort of can't remember the bomb itself.
00:15:49It would have been just on the news.
00:15:53I can remember them coming and saying they got my daddy.
00:15:57He was sentenced when he went to Longkeith.
00:15:59He was sentenced for 14 and a half years,
00:16:01so when he went there, he decided down there
00:16:04that he wasn't taking physics
00:16:06and would not let me or Joseph see my mum.
00:16:11So you didn't see her then?
00:16:12No. Four and a half years.
00:16:16The only communication we had with them
00:16:18was wee letters that were smuggled in and out of the prison.
00:16:22And it was nothing worse than your mum.
00:16:24If you were messing about her, you'd done something
00:16:26and she'd have said, I'm writing to your daddy.
00:16:29The thought of it would have killed you.
00:16:32And it wasn't. We laugh about it now.
00:16:34Like, what could he have done?
00:16:35You know, when you get older, you realise,
00:16:37what could he have done?
00:16:38But then it was, oh, she's going to write and tell him.
00:16:47Mummy just had to get strong.
00:16:50Mummy had two young kids to look after.
00:17:02The number of killed and injured
00:17:04have made this the worst weekend for months in Northern Ireland.
00:17:07But as in the case of most reprisals,
00:17:09the people who suffered weren't the ones who started it all,
00:17:12just innocent customers sitting in a bar.
00:17:15A bus carrying workers to their homes in Besbrook Village
00:17:19was stopped by gunmen and ten Protestants shot in cold blood.
00:17:23A Republican group admitted responsibility.
00:17:26A Protestant paramilitary organisation is thought responsible
00:17:29for the bomb which killed two and injured five members
00:17:32of Lisburn's Hibernian Club last night.
00:17:36I hated to see the news. I hated to see another...
00:17:40Somebody had been blew up, somebody had been shot.
00:17:43It's the first time in several months that the letter bomb
00:17:46has been used as a weapon in Northern Ireland,
00:17:48and this will no doubt be seen as an escalation
00:17:50of the Provisional IRA's campaign against prison officers.
00:17:53A number of the devices have been delivered
00:17:55in and around Belfast today.
00:17:58I thought we were lucky out in the country.
00:18:01I thought it was a safe haven out there.
00:18:05There's one of Johnny and Adrian at the front door of the flat.
00:18:10That's a good one.
00:18:14At that stage, Johnny was working in a mechanics place.
00:18:18He says, I think I'll hand in my job and join the police.
00:18:22There you see the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
00:18:25First time we brought the forms home, I threw them in the bin.
00:18:28I thought, no, we'll not go down that road.
00:18:31It wasn't safe.
00:18:36By any standards, the RUC is unique.
00:18:39No other force in the United Kingdom
00:18:41is permanently armed with guns.
00:18:43Our main problem, of course, is the fact that we undertake policing
00:18:48in a province that's divided against itself.
00:18:52And it's against that background
00:18:54that the police have to perform their duties,
00:18:57which are in service of both and all sections of the community.
00:19:03You could hear in the news that police were being targeted.
00:19:07Probably the Republican side of the community
00:19:10would have seen the police as representing the Queen
00:19:13and the British government, and they didn't want that.
00:19:16I just thought it would be better not to come down that road
00:19:19and stay in a way, and Johnny said, no.
00:19:22Better job, better pension, better life, better pay.
00:19:27So I joined.
00:19:33It was a good job. It was a good living.
00:19:35There wouldn't have been any riots down and around where we lived.
00:19:39So Johnny's way of life would have been different.
00:19:43He loved going out in the community and doing the work of the police.
00:19:50We were very happy.
00:20:13We weren't getting a great deal of traction from outside in general
00:20:16because we were lying there every day and we were doing nothing,
00:20:20on the blanket, and nobody had much interest in us.
00:20:26And the dirty protests started and a bit of momentum gathered.
00:20:31These are the first pictures to be taken of the protesters.
00:20:37We put shit on the wall and pissed out the door.
00:20:40We were doing something positive.
00:20:42As we seen it, we were fighting back.
00:20:44There was actually a fight.
00:20:46We're political prisoners!
00:20:48We want political status!
00:20:51We're political prisoners!
00:20:54We didn't shave, we didn't wash,
00:20:56we didn't brush our teeth for three and a half years.
00:20:59You walked into a H-plat, you were hit with an abominable smell.
00:21:03Come on in.
00:21:06Bloody green rubber.
00:21:09I hated maggots. Hated them.
00:21:16The next thing, these fucking things started to emerge.
00:21:20And I was aghast.
00:21:22Never seen a maggot in my life.
00:21:24Dozens of them.
00:21:26I thought, fuck, what am I going to do?
00:21:30But those other guys, their hearse was just full of
00:21:34dozens and dozens of maggots.
00:21:59It was horrendous.
00:22:03But the camaraderie was just incredible.
00:22:09That was the one thing that kept the blanket men together.
00:22:14Did the Bernadette visit you?
00:22:16Every month, religiously.
00:22:19It was very, very unpleasant.
00:22:21I don't think I'd ever forget the smell.
00:22:23Ever forget the smell.
00:22:25I'll never forget what it was like kissing Ricky.
00:22:30I used to go home and try and rub my lips,
00:22:33because I could feel that smell on my lips.
00:22:37This was horrendous. It was a horrific experience.
00:22:41She had to kiss me because I had to give over
00:22:44wee letters, wee communications.
00:22:46We called them comms.
00:22:48The outside leadership.
00:22:51It was wee tissue papers.
00:22:53Then you had to kiss it over.
00:22:56There was just this assumption, you'll be brought down.
00:22:59You'll go in there, you'll get that letter.
00:23:01It was just this expectancy.
00:23:03I was taught what to do, as if they owned me.
00:23:06When you say they owned you, who is the they?
00:23:09The provost, the Sinn Féin.
00:23:11The provost, you know, the letters was coming
00:23:14from back and forward.
00:23:16I just felt I'm drawn into this wee world here,
00:23:19where I don't want to be.
00:23:21All the time, all this anger was growing inside of me.
00:23:25I got by, but I hated it.
00:23:28I hated every minute of being a prisoner's wife.
00:23:32I never knew the word hate
00:23:34until I got married, until this happened.
00:23:44Her Majesty, the Queen,
00:23:46has asked me to form a new administration
00:23:49where there is discord, may we bring harmony,
00:23:52and where there is despair, may we bring hope.
00:24:03Lord Mountbatten has been killed
00:24:05by an explosion on his yacht
00:24:07off the west coast of the Irish Republic.
00:24:09The provisional IRA have said they did it.
00:24:12The blast also killed his grandson Nicholas, who was 14.
00:24:16A member of the crew died as well.
00:24:18Lord Mountbatten was a close relative
00:24:20of both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
00:24:23It was at Warren Point last week
00:24:25that all the British Army's fears
00:24:27about the new provisional IRA organisation
00:24:30and tactics were confirmed.
00:24:32This multiple killing, the worst the security forces
00:24:35have ever suffered in Northern Ireland,
00:24:37coming as it does after the Mountbatten tragedy,
00:24:40must serve to only further heighten tensions in Northern Ireland.
00:24:44Now, don't move.
00:24:46Now, please stand still, and I will move.
00:24:49I will move to see the people.
00:24:51How are you?
00:24:52Lord Mountbatten was present.
00:24:54I'm present for Lord Mountbatten.
00:24:56We clear this block!
00:24:58We want this block wiped out!
00:25:00We want the freedom for our country!
00:25:02And this organisation!
00:25:04And the British army!
00:25:11The British government have made it clear
00:25:13there's no going back to the pre-'76 arrangements,
00:25:16and meanwhile neither the blanket protest
00:25:18nor the dirty protest have had the slightest effect
00:25:21in persuading the authorities
00:25:23that those convicted of terrorist offences
00:25:25should have political status.
00:25:27British government just sat back and said,
00:25:29Fuck them.
00:25:30Who cares?
00:25:35We were on the dirty protest for guts of three and a half years,
00:25:39and it had run its course.
00:25:41The British conceded none of our fight demands,
00:25:44so it ended.
00:25:48Something needed to present itself,
00:25:50and what presented itself was the hunger strike.
00:25:58Well, there was a huge list.
00:26:00It may have been 70 or 80 names on it,
00:26:02people wanting to go on hunger strike.
00:26:05And our job was to pick people who would die.
00:26:09It's as simple as that.
00:26:16Bobby Shands went on a hunger strike on his own
00:26:19on the 1st of March.
00:26:21We have a hunger strike at the Maze prison
00:26:23in the quest for what they call political status.
00:26:27There is no such thing as political murder,
00:26:30political bombing or political violence.
00:26:33There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing
00:26:36and criminal violence.
00:26:39We will not compromise on this.
00:26:42There will be no political status.
00:26:46Everything got more tense.
00:26:48You know, when you went up for a visit
00:26:50and things were getting worse on the outside,
00:26:52and, you know, it was the whole thing was gathering momentum.
00:27:00Red State!
00:27:02R-U-S-T!
00:27:03People who had no interest were putting their weight
00:27:06to get behind the prisoners to get this situation resolved
00:27:11in the hope of trying to save lives.
00:27:18You thought by putting your face in with the crowd
00:27:20and building the crowd that maybe the numbers here
00:27:23on the streets will get this stopped.
00:27:28The torture must be called by its proper name.
00:27:32So must all forms of oppression and exploitation
00:27:36of man by the state of one people by the other.
00:27:46Britain's problem does not end with Sands.
00:27:48Behind the corrugated defences of the Maze prison
00:27:51there are three other men in the queue for an agonising martyrdom.
00:27:55The IRA has phased the hunger strike to maximise pressure on the British.
00:28:02As the hunger strike is near the critical stage
00:28:05the atmosphere will become more tense.
00:28:08The temperature will rise, the frustration will become more intense
00:28:12and eventually there will be a confrontation.
00:28:21You did feel sorry for them
00:28:23but I didn't think they would go as far as what they did.
00:28:27I thought they would have called it off like the dirty protest.
00:28:33Like who in this day and age would starve themselves to death for a cause?
00:28:44The wing itself became like a morgue.
00:28:51It was a death march.
00:28:56Because we all knew Bobby wasn't going to stop
00:28:59unless the British moved substantially
00:29:05he was going to die.
00:29:07Mrs Sands, when are you coming to see your son again?
00:29:09Tomorrow. Tomorrow again.
00:29:13Do you think if he does go into a coma
00:29:15you would give the authorisation for him to be intravenously fed?
00:29:19No, he told me not to.
00:29:21It's a sad thing to say and I would feel...
00:29:24I love my son just like any other mother does
00:29:28but I wouldn't.
00:29:35After 21 days or something
00:29:37he left our wing and was taken up to the prison hospital.
00:29:43I remember just talking, just having a quiet word with him
00:29:46how are you Bob?
00:29:48And there was an awful sadness in his eyes.
00:29:52He didn't want to die.
00:29:54He was hoping against hope that some solution could be found.
00:30:00An IRA man on hunger strike in the Mays prison, Bobby Sands
00:30:03has been left with a straight fight
00:30:05against the official unionist candidate, Mr Harry West
00:30:08in next month's Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election
00:30:11after the withdrawal of the independent candidate.
00:30:14Sands, Bobby, anti-age block,
00:30:18armour, political prisoner, 30,000...
00:30:22Yeah!
00:30:24492.
00:30:26Hunger strike prisoner Bobby Sands
00:30:28has won the by-election in Northern Ireland by a narrow majority
00:30:31but it's still a propaganda boost for the IRA.
00:30:36There was a hope.
00:30:39It was a very faint hope
00:30:41that maybe because he was now an MP
00:30:44Thatcher would be reluctant to let him die.
00:30:47I understand Mr Sands is still on hunger strike
00:30:50and I regret that he has not decided to come off it.
00:30:53No concessions as they have asked for?
00:30:55No, there can be no possible concessions on political status.
00:31:05Bobby Sands, IRA man serving a 14-year sentence for arms offences,
00:31:10begins the 61st day of his hunger strike.
00:31:16How's your son, Mrs Sands?
00:31:19My son's dying.
00:31:21And I would like to appeal to the people
00:31:25for them to remain calm and to have no fighting
00:31:28or cause no death or destruction.
00:31:39Thanks very much.
00:31:48In the last hour, the news has filtered through to this community
00:31:51that Bobby Sands has died after 66 days of hunger strike.
00:31:58It was just awful.
00:32:00It was just...
00:32:03Incredibly, incredibly sad.
00:32:11I don't know what to do.
00:32:13I don't know what to do.
00:32:15I don't know what to do.
00:32:21You know...
00:32:30It was a blessing to help Madam.
00:32:45WHISTLE BLOWS
00:32:51I can remember hearing the bin lids when Bobby Sands died.
00:32:58There was a lot more rioting.
00:33:00It definitely did up the ante, there's no doubt about that.
00:33:04Belfast was ratcheted up to boiling point, you know.
00:33:08It was craziness.
00:33:11The tribal thing split the two communities in half.
00:33:14The Catholics would be mourning the death of the hunger strikers
00:33:17and we'd be praying for them to die, you know what I mean?
00:33:29I just got the shivers even thinking about it.
00:33:32The atmosphere was so heavy.
00:33:36You felt it and you heard it.
00:33:41You just knew it's going to just explode.
00:33:49I think those, for me, are probably the worst times that I remember
00:33:53whenever Northern Ireland was very, very close to all-out civil war.
00:34:00Don't tell me you're a fucking bastard!
00:34:05Fucking bastard!
00:34:11CHILDREN SHOUT
00:34:24Can I ask you how you feel about Bobby Sands' death?
00:34:27See you later.
00:34:29See you later.
00:34:36Go, go, go!
00:34:41I mean, there was 100,000 people or something at Bobby Sands' funeral.
00:34:45There was so much fear and anger and hopelessness.
00:34:59I carried a wreath at Bobby's funeral behind the coffin.
00:35:04Bobby was just my daddy's friend.
00:35:11I can remember Bobby's family, Bobby's son.
00:35:19Heartbreaking, heartbreaking seeing him standing at the grave.
00:35:26Did you ever think when you saw that that you'd be in that position?
00:35:30No, never.
00:35:41It was Friday night and my mummy got us, before we went to bed,
00:35:46just got me and Joseph together and told us,
00:35:49explained to us what was happening.
00:35:52My daddy was going on hunger strike the next day.
00:35:56We got up the next day and the cameras were all outside the front door.
00:36:02My husband could die. I know he could die.
00:36:06My husband could die. I know he could die.
00:36:09And if my husband did die, I would still, I will continue
00:36:14and fight till every man, every Irish man is free.
00:36:22I'm young. I want my husband.
00:36:25And my children need their father.
00:36:30I got to see my daddy on hunger strike.
00:36:36That was the first time in four and a half years.
00:36:39So to see your daddy after four and a half years, it was very special.
00:36:43Very special.
00:36:48I can remember just seeing him standing there.
00:36:51He was gorgeous. He was lovely. He was just my daddy.
00:36:58To me that day, he was Joe Macdonald, my daddy.
00:37:01He wasn't Joe Macdonald, hunger striker.
00:37:04He put us on his knee. He let us sit on his knee.
00:37:07And I remember me aunt saying, get off your knee, get off your daddy's knee.
00:37:10He says, I'll hold him here as long as I can.
00:37:15It was really, really lovely.
00:37:26A week later, Frank Hughes is dead.
00:37:34I would just like to say that Margaret Thatcher, the British government,
00:37:37has murdered my brother.
00:37:40Francis' blood is in Margaret Thatcher's hands.
00:37:45Thatcher was as static as ever.
00:37:48Fuck them, let them die. Bring it on.
00:37:51It's a tragedy that young men should be persuaded, coerced,
00:37:54or ordered to starve themselves to death for a futile cause.
00:38:00It would seem that dead hunger strikers
00:38:03who have extinguished their own lives
00:38:06are of more use to the provisional IRA
00:38:09than living members.
00:38:14Two weeks after that,
00:38:17we had the deaths of Raymond McCreach
00:38:20and Patsy O'Hara.
00:38:25So there was four hunger strikers dead.
00:38:28So you had this sort of cycle of death.
00:38:34SCREAMING
00:38:41There was quite a lot of murders during the hunger strike.
00:38:44Another policeman and another soldier.
00:38:47Johnny had been on the police for about a year.
00:38:50We were scared.
00:38:55The bomb went off and the policeman who died
00:38:58was 23-year-old Kenneth Atchison,
00:39:02The IRA have always viewed the RUC
00:39:05as legitimate targets.
00:39:08They've always viewed them as the defenders of the state.
00:39:12This was Constable Robinson's local pub.
00:39:15The gunmen were obviously aware of his movements
00:39:18and were waiting for him to leave.
00:39:21And did the IRA make a distinction between good cops and bad cops?
00:39:24No such thing.
00:39:27As far as the IRA was concerned, they were all bad cops.
00:39:31Did you ever consider that police officers have families?
00:39:34No.
00:39:37It was never the individual.
00:39:40The IRA attacked the uniform.
00:39:43They didn't attack Henry Jones or Bertie Smith.
00:39:46They attacked the uniform.
00:39:52In our village,
00:39:55there had been a young man going home from work on the main road.
00:39:59When another car had come up behind him
00:40:02and tried to shoot him,
00:40:05only the gun jammed and the magazine fell out.
00:40:08Then that heightened the whole security thing.
00:40:11You knew this had come home.
00:40:14This had touched our village.
00:40:17The troubles had come to sleepy upper lands.
00:40:22You'd have been going shopping and watching
00:40:25was there anyone following you?
00:40:28Was there a car sitting about?
00:40:31When you had someone in the security forces in your family,
00:40:34that was your way of life.
00:40:37Constantly living the fear of not knowing
00:40:40when it would be your turn.
00:40:47Every time you turned the TV on, somebody was dead.
00:40:50Six IRA men were killed.
00:40:53Two troopers were killed, another policeman was killed.
00:40:58There's so much killing in this place and it's becoming so normal.
00:41:04But we were a very dysfunctional and broken society.
00:41:08I don't think Berna...
00:41:11Berna didn't handle the whole thing well at all.
00:41:14Berna came up on a visit
00:41:17and all I talked about the whole visit was the hunger strike.
00:41:21And she says,
00:41:23I don't give a fuck about you.
00:41:26You don't give a fuck about your hunger strike.
00:41:29I was so angry, so angry.
00:41:32I didn't want to go up there and listen about the so-called war.
00:41:36I think at that stage they must have thought I was having the breakdown
00:41:39because they sent somebody up to the house.
00:41:42This was after a visit.
00:41:45And I said, fuck you and fuck the IRA.
00:41:48Fuck Maggie Thatcher and fuck Richard O'Rourke.
00:41:51So it wasn't a good place.
00:41:54It wasn't a good place.
00:42:04We were going up to see our daddy.
00:42:07And because he was in a hunger strike then, we got to see him more.
00:42:14Two fellas in America had decided
00:42:17that they were going to try and take kids out of the conflict
00:42:20from both sides over to America
00:42:23to give them a break during the summer.
00:42:26And Joseph decided he wasn't going,
00:42:29so I said I wasn't going.
00:42:32And my daddy said to me, please go. Go, love.
00:42:35He says, go there and tell everybody.
00:42:38Tell everybody what's happened here.
00:42:41So I did. I was going to make him proud.
00:42:44Over 700 children from both sides of the divide
00:42:47are flying to America to holiday together.
00:42:50I'm going to Upper State New York.
00:42:53What are you going to do out in the States?
00:42:56Play football. Get a girl.
00:42:59Well, we're here on flight E4935 and it's just a few minutes before take-off.
00:43:04It was difficult because I was leaving my daddy.
00:43:07I was leaving my mummy and Joseph.
00:43:10But I knew I had to do it.
00:43:13So I went on TV, I went on the radio,
00:43:16papers, anything,
00:43:19just to try and keep my daddy alive.
00:43:25I was out playing in the swing
00:43:28and I heard five big shots going off
00:43:31and you'd think the sky was just coming in on you.
00:43:34Now your dad, I think we should say, your dad is in prison, right?
00:43:37Yes.
00:43:39And he's also one of the hunger strikers, isn't he?
00:43:42How would you help the situation, do you think, in Northern Ireland?
00:43:45Well, if the people of America
00:43:48would write to President Reagan,
00:43:51he might phone Mrs Thatcher
00:43:54and then the pressure will be put on Mrs Thatcher
00:43:57and she will have to do something.
00:44:05Unbelievable, isn't it, for a ten-year-old?
00:44:08You know, we had to let the world know.
00:44:11Yes, I did feel I was responsible then, yeah.
00:44:15Ten-year-old Bernadette McDonnell is visiting a Long Island, New York, family.
00:44:19Her father, Joseph McDonnell, is seven weeks into a hunger strike in May's prison.
00:44:24He's fighting for his country.
00:44:27When you saw him last Saturday, how was he?
00:44:30Well, his teeth were starting to stick out
00:44:33and he was spitting up water.
00:44:38Is he?
00:44:40And every day, Bernadette awaits her aunt's telephone calls
00:44:43on her father's condition.
00:44:46She knows she'll lose him, but she says the struggle
00:44:49to get the British out of Northern Ireland will go on.
00:44:52We'll just go on doing what we've been doing.
00:44:56Helping in the streets and marching.
00:45:04I can't remember that one.
00:45:08That was a wee bit more...
00:45:11..harder to watch, that one.
00:45:13Why?
00:45:16I've seen a child holding back.
00:45:20Holding back and crying, holding back.
00:45:24And maybe just wanting to run home.
00:45:28Maybe just...just holding back.
00:45:32Well, tonight, the man with most at stake is the hunger striker Joe McDonnell,
00:45:37now about to enter his 61st day without food.
00:45:40He's said to be very weak and his family are at his bedside.
00:45:45I can remember getting phone calls.
00:45:48I knew my daddy wasn't good.
00:45:51I just knew by the phone calls.
00:45:54And I want that home.
00:45:57My aunt came and got me from the airport
00:46:00and we were coming up Kennedy Way up onto Andertown Road
00:46:03and there was a bus burning.
00:46:09And I says, what's the bus burning for?
00:46:12And they said Joe McDonnell's dead.
00:46:17So that's how I found out my daddy was dead.
00:46:28That time my daddy's body was home...
00:46:33..and I can remember looking at him and crying.
00:46:36I cried and I cried hard.
00:46:39That was it. I didn't cry again.
00:46:51I wasn't going to do this.
00:46:54I wasn't going to do this.
00:47:24I wasn't going to do this.
00:47:46We just kissed a coffin.
00:47:49And that was my 11th birthday.
00:47:55I'd say every one of them when I was a kid was my daddy.
00:47:58Just my daddy to be there.
00:48:01I think any wee girl wants their daddy.
00:48:13That poor wee girl, I remember her mummy
00:48:16and I remember what they went through.
00:48:19You didn't think you were ever going to come out of it.
00:48:22You didn't know, does anybody want to resolve this?
00:48:25And you were going, there's lives here.
00:48:28Our lives are meant to end.
00:48:31Somebody swallow your pride, do something.
00:48:36The thing was like a juggernaut.
00:48:39An out-of-control juggernaut.
00:48:42With six hunger strikers now dead
00:48:45and two more likely to die within a few days,
00:48:48the IRA protest, far from fizzling out as some people thought it might,
00:48:51had a devastating impact.
00:48:54Nobody knew where it was going or how it was going to end.
00:49:07Now nine prisoners dead, the strike has still not ended.
00:49:10Another IRA man began refusing food today.
00:49:13There were violent scenes in Dublin
00:49:16as a demonstration in support of the hunger strikers was broken up.
00:49:19By then it was clear this war could have no winner.
00:49:39This is where they were planning to come to live.
00:49:42Misdecorated to perfection.
00:49:45Oh, they had done very well, you know,
00:49:47to have this house finished for the new baby coming home on Friday.
00:49:50We actually had moved house and I was papering.
00:49:56I was putting wallpaper on and I went into early labour.
00:50:00So I went into hospital on the Thursday morning
00:50:04and then Johnny was born the Thursday night.
00:50:09How was that?
00:50:11That was quick.
00:50:13That was quick when he wasn't due for another five weeks.
00:50:17I'm shocked!
00:50:23On the Saturday night, when I was still in hospital,
00:50:27my friend and neighbour had been shot dead in the village.
00:50:33And Johnny had come up to the hospital that night to tell me.
00:50:36That was a shock.
00:50:39Alan was security forces as well,
00:50:41so that would be the first night that it brought it home to him
00:50:45that he had a target on his back.
00:50:55Johnny went to his funeral and carried his coffin.
00:50:59Then he came up that night to visit.
00:51:08I can still recall that day, that night.
00:51:11I still recall waiting on Johnny coming to the hospital.
00:51:14It's husbands only at night,
00:51:16so no one else is allowed in to visit.
00:51:19He'd come in and we had sandwiches in the ward.
00:51:23Somebody brought sandwiches up and we were having tea and sandwiches.
00:51:27We were still chatting.
00:51:29Then it come that time, it's time to go home.
00:51:32You can still see yourself walking down the corridor
00:51:35saying goodnight and hurrying back up the corridor to the window
00:51:39and then standing there to wait for his car to come up,
00:51:41which never came.
00:51:43You stand at the window and the gunman's car come up.
00:51:56I was only in hospital for five days.
00:51:59Within five days, the IRA had everything set up for to kill him that night.
00:52:14John Proctor was the 17th policeman to be killed in Ulster this year,
00:52:18but the cold-blooded cruelty of John Proctor's murder
00:52:21has left people shocked and horrified.
00:52:23He was just getting into the car, we'd bought a new car,
00:52:26and he was getting into the car so it wasn't...
00:52:29Johnny didn't see him.
00:52:31And they shot him in the back.
00:52:33In the back, of all places, in the back.
00:52:37Our whole families were just ripped apart.
00:52:42Like the hunger strikers, they had a choice on their life,
00:52:46whether to starve themselves and give up their life,
00:52:49whereas Johnny didn't pick that he wanted to be killed that night
00:52:54outside the hospital, you know.
00:52:57He got no choice in that.
00:53:05That night, he wasn't a policeman.
00:53:08That night, he wasn't a policeman.
00:53:10He was a father and a husband,
00:53:13going up to see his newborn son.
00:53:20The day after the funeral,
00:53:22June returned to the hospital where John was killed
00:53:25to collect the new baby.
00:53:32No, that's not a coat, that's a shawl.
00:53:35Shawl.
00:53:36Shawl, you have to wrap that around him and keep him warm.
00:53:39June had intended to call the new baby Ryan,
00:53:42but he'll now be christened John after his father.
00:53:45That's your wee brother.
00:53:52Everything changed.
00:53:55Going to be a whole new world.
00:53:59Not one we had planned, but...
00:54:02Two boys and no father.
00:54:16Did you sort of wonder why it had to be your dad?
00:54:22Not then, no.
00:54:24Afterwards, maybe.
00:54:27I can't imagine a life with him being there,
00:54:32cos he wasn't, you know what I mean?
00:54:35But I can tell you what he missed.
00:54:41He's missed a life with my mummy.
00:54:44He's missed watching me and Joseph grow up.
00:54:48He's missed out on life himself.
00:54:52But he done it for us.
00:54:54Done it for his country.
00:54:56I still get people who come to me and say,
00:54:59he was a hero.
00:55:03How does it make me feel?
00:55:05Proud, very proud.
00:55:16Everything about the Troubles was sad.
00:55:18Every life that was lost during the Troubles was sad.
00:55:21Whether you were a police officer, a soldier,
00:55:23a UVF man, an IRA man, a hunger striker,
00:55:27every life was precious.
00:55:29And yet, life here meant nothing.
00:55:32So many broken hearts.
00:55:34So many broken hearts in this country.
00:55:51I left prison.
00:56:10Bernard Abbey said to me,
00:56:12look, I want you out of everything.
00:56:15And he just says,
00:56:17I guess here it's either the Republican movement
00:56:19or me and your daughter.
00:56:21So I left the movement.
00:56:24And I think I put her through hell.
00:56:27And I regret that.
00:56:31We made it through.
00:56:34Surprising as it was.
00:56:36And tough as it was.
00:56:38We are lucky that we're still alive and we're still together
00:56:40and we got here.
00:56:41Because so many people from that period of time
00:56:46didn't make it through.
00:56:49You're still married?
00:56:51Still here.
00:56:52You did it.
00:56:53Yeah.
00:56:5446.
00:56:5546 years.
00:56:5846 years married.
00:57:0046 golden years.
00:57:03No comment.
00:57:19The principal strand of evidence linking this man,
00:57:22Seamus Martin Kearney, to the killing
00:57:24was a cigarette butt found close to the getaway car.
00:57:28The judge imposed a life sentence.
00:57:32The principal strand of evidence linking this man,
00:57:34Seamus Martin Kearney, to the killing
00:57:36was a cigarette butt found close to the getaway car.
00:57:39The judge imposed a life sentence.
00:57:52We were robbed of our justice.
00:57:58I've had good times.
00:58:00I've remarried.
00:58:02I've had more family.
00:58:04I've grandchildren.
00:58:06But it's always been there.
00:58:10The hatred's there.
00:58:11I've lived my life with that.
00:58:15My prayers at night, I could never say,
00:58:17and forgive those that trespass against us.
00:58:19Can't say that.
00:58:21Can't say that in my prayer.
00:58:30Can't say that in my prayer.
00:58:40Do you know who does on the street?
00:58:43I don't know.
00:58:48Our life was living a lie all of the time.
00:58:52Did I say something?
00:58:54Did I slip up?
00:58:57A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.
00:59:00You've got to remove those people from society.
00:59:04One wrong word can lead to somebody dying.
00:59:10It used to all cost lives.
00:59:26And follow the links to the Open University.
00:59:56www.openuniversity.edu