In the autumn of 1981, I met and interviewed several IRA relatives of the Maze Prison hunger strikers. I also photographed some of them. Some of the events described here were recorded in my report for the Columbia Missourian a few week’s later. My paternal grandmother was a Fitzgerald, so I’ve long been interested in the Irish, and have written extensively about them.
One Saturday during my London Reporting Semester in Autumn 1981, I‘d been photographing a monument relating to Queen Victoria, I believe. After I’d photographed it, I moved toward 10 Downing Street, which was nearby. As I came up past the famed No. 10 doorway, I saw protestors at work. They had formed a line around and out front of the Prime Minister’s residence, with bobbies all around, at attention mainly.
It may have been drizzling a bit by then, but I remember photographing a bobby (perhaps through his legs) with protestors in the background. I eventually talked with some protestors, who said they were relatives of the IRA hunger strikers held in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, which would be made especially famous by hunger-striker Bobby Sands. They also said there would be a party that night, which I was invited to.
Having retrieved a few more photos, I left for my Islington flat, chatted with my flat-mates, and got ready to leave for the party, which was to be at a house in a district close to Islington. I arrived toward dusk, and was let in. After talking with some of the group, a singing and drinking phase began, in another room. I didn’t drink a lot, but I did take notes, I believe. I don’t think I’d brought my camera this time, though I may have.
After discussing the five famous demands the hunger strikers were making, including being allowed one visit, one letter, and one phone call a week, the protestors let me know they would be busy the next day, at Westminster Catholic Cathedral. We made arrangements to meet at a pub near the cathedral, and I departed for a passable night’s sleep.
Next morning, I was up early, and carried my camera and notepad into the pub we’d agreed to meet at. IRA protestors were already picketing on the cathedral plaza. My main sources and I soon joined the picketers, who’d sent a message in to Cardinal Basil Hume. He agreed to meet with 50 of the protestors, I believe, and I was allowed in, too, after first being held up at the entry door to the Cardinal’s rectory.
My report for the Columbia Missourian began in this way: ‘Voices were hushed in the chandelier-lit room of the house behind Westminster’s Catholic Cathedral. The group of petitioners that sat and stood around the oval conference table let the silence speak for them as they waited for his eminence to arrive. In the rustle of Sunday best, though, there was a sign of the struggles that had brought them as far as a Cardinal’s home in a Protestant land.’
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