Overview

The hunger strike of 1981 is regarded as one of the most tragic events in Irish history. Ten men died over a period of 217 days in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh (Maze) prison while exercising the most extreme form of civil disobedience available to them: entering a hunger strike. The Troubles that gave rise to the hunger strike had roots in the centuries of socio-economic subjugation and religious persecution in Ireland. At the early stages of the Troubles in 1971, the British government began internment without trial for persons suspected of belonging to paramilitary organizations. Eventually, the British government granted Special Category Status to these prisoners before later stripping it from the prisons by 1976. The removal of Special Category Status led to a five-year prisoner protest for the introduction of the ""basic five demands"" that culminated into the 1981 hunger strike. This book critically examines declassified British government documents that detail how the policies of the British government led to the 1981 hunger strike, how Margaret Thatcher exacerbated the hunger strike by decisively refusing to initiate the steps necessary to end it, and how the hunger strike eventually led to peace in the north. Analysis of the declassified documents also illustrates how the 1981 hunger strike, and the ten men who died on it, forced a revolutionary change in the political and governmental structure of the north and paved a road to peace that concluded with the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

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9781476693958

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Reviews

"The 1981 Irish Hunger Strike is meticulously researched, referenced, and tied together, with extensive notes and index, providing tools for research, and new insight. Then Mentel, in an easy, fact-based, and conversational style, takes the reader through how the melting pot of actions and reactions led to the painful decision to commence the 1981 Hunger Strike. ... [This book] is highly recommended, a Top Shelf Selection, for the detail and the insight offered using the British declassification of key documents to shed great light on perspectives not seen, yet alone examined before. Mentel does a fantastic job connecting and explaining this part of Irish history, still alive and relevant today, to our past and present, and of course, our yet unwritten future.""—iIrish News Magazine"

"""The 1981 Irish Hunger Strike is meticulously researched, referenced, and tied together, with extensive notes and index, providing tools for research, and new insight. Then Mentel, in an easy, fact-based, and conversational style, takes the reader through how the melting pot of actions and reactions led to the painful decision to commence the 1981 Hunger Strike. ... [This book] is highly recommended, a Top Shelf Selection, for the detail and the insight offered using the British declassification of key documents to shed great light on perspectives not seen, yet alone examined before. Mentel does a fantastic job connecting and explaining this part of Irish history, still alive and relevant today, to our past and present, and of course, our yet unwritten future.""--iIrish News Magazine"

Author Information

Michael C. Mentel is an appellate court judge in Ohio. His legal career includes the positions of chief legal officer of a large engineering firm and partner in a nationally distinguished law firm. He is admitted to the bar in Ohio, the U.S. District Courts of Ohio, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

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