FILM STUDY“HUNGER”

English

Higher/Intermediate 2

2012

The United Kingdom

Includes:

1. England

2. Scotland

3. Wales

4. Northern Ireland

“Sovereign States”

IrelandNorthern Ireland • Part of The United

Kingdom• 1.8 million people• Original immigrants are

Scottish and English• Majority - Protestants.

The Republic of Ireland• 4.6 million people• Became independent of

Britain in 1921 after WW1• Majority - Catholics

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is often referred to as 'Ulster' despite including only six of Ulster's nine counties.

1. Derry2. Antrim3. Down Northern4. Armagh Ireland5. Tyrone6. Fermanagh

7. Donegal8. Monaghan

Republic9. Cavan of Ireland

NORTHERN IRELAND(What’s all the fighting about?)

NATIONALISTS

• See themselves as Irish• Predominantly Roman

Catholic• Want unification with the

rest of Ireland and independent of British Rule to form a 32 county Irish Republic.

Minority(Out-Voted)

UNIONISTS

• See themselves as British• Predominantly Protestant• Want Northern Ireland to

remain a part of the United Kingdom

Majority

Why are they fighting????Factors leading to civil opposition…

Nationalists believe:-

• Discrimination against Catholics,

• attempts by a subjugating power (Britain) to create an impression of inferiority and

subdue or eliminate Irish cultural identity,

• and a feeling that Ireland was economically disadvantaged and subservient within the United Kingdom

“The Troubles”

• Refers to a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland between the “Irish Catholics” (Nationalists) and the “British Protestants” (Unionists/Loyalists)

• Irish Catholics claimed they were discriminated against as a minority by being outvoted in referendums/elections by the more dominant Protestants.

• Violence spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe.

• The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast "Good Friday" Agreement of 1998. (3 Decades of fighting)

• However, sporadic violence has continued since then

• Use of the term "the Troubles" has been raised at Northern Ireland Assembly level, as some people considered this period of conflict to have been a war. (Consider claim for Prisoner of War Status in “Hunger”)

Who’s Who in the fighting?Nationalists:

Those groups/paramilitary groups demanding reunification with Republic of Ireland.

Provisional IRAOfficial IRAINLAIPLOContinuity IRAReal IRA

Unionists:

Those groups/paramilitary groups loyal to Britain:

Name Initials OperationalUlster Protestant Association UPA 1920–1922Ulster Protestant Action UPA 1956–1966Ulster Protestant Volunteers UPV 1966–1969Ulster Volunteer Force UVF 1966_2007Red Hand Commando RHC 1972 2007Young Citizen Volunteers YCV 1966–2007Ulster Defence Association UDA 1972 2007 Ulster Freedom Fighters UFF 1974 2007Ulster Young MilitantsDown Orange Welfare DOW 1972–?Ulster Resistance UR 1986–?Loyalist Volunteer Force LVF 1997–2005Orange Volunteers OV 1998–Red Hand Defenders RHD 1998–Real Ulster Freedom Fighters Real UFF 2007–

What happened?

• Bloody Friday: a 1972 attack in Belfast in which 22 bombs, set off in just over an hour, killed 9 people and injured 130.

• In 1979, the IRA assassinated Queen Elizabeth II's uncle, Lord Mountbatten, and three others by blowing up his boat.

• In 1998, an IRA car bombing killed 29 people in Northern Ireland. The attack was severe enough to provoke threats by the Irish government that paramilitary groups must declare a cease-fire.

• Over 30 years of bombings, attacks and terror throughout Northern Ireland and England. (Still happening!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Real_Irish_Republican_Army_actions

Who is Bobby Sands?(9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981)

• was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army involved in many ‘attacks’

• He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in HM Prison Maze (also known as Long Kesh) for his involvement in bombings and attacks.

Sinn Fein – Political Party linked to the IRA

• He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status.

• During his strike he was elected as a member of the British Parliament as an

Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate.

• His death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity.

• International media coverage brought attention to the hunger strikers, and the republican movement in general, attracting both praise and criticism.

Special Category Status

Special category (or "political") status was de facto prisoner of war status, providing them with some of the ‘privileges’ of POWs such as those specified in the Geneva Convention. This meant prisoners did not have to wear prison uniforms or do prison work, were housed within their paramilitary factions, and were allowed extra visits and food parcels.

The Blanket Protest• The blanket protest was part of a five-year protest

during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze prison (also known as "Long Kesh") in Northern Ireland.

• The republican prisoners' status as political prisoners, known as Special Category Status, had begun to be phased out in 1976.

• Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts.

• The prisoners refused to accept that they were ordinary criminals and refused to wear the prison uniform.

The Dirty Protests• At the end of April 1978 a fight occurred between a prisoner and a

prison officer in H-Block 6. The prisoner was taken away to solitary confinement, and news spread across the wing that the prisoner had been badly beaten.

• The prisoners responded by smashing the furniture in their cells, and the prison authorities responded by removing the remaining furniture from the cells leaving the prisoners in cells with just blankets and mattresses.

• The prisoners responded by refusing to leave their cells, and as a result the prison officers were unable to clean them.

• This resulted in the blanket protest escalating into the dirty protest, as the prisoners were unable to "slop out" (i.e., empty their chamber pots) so resorted to smearing excrement on the walls of their cells.

Hunger Strikes

Earlier hunger strikes by IRA prisoners were for the following:

1.The right not to wear a prison uniform;2.The right not to do prison work;3.The right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;4.The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;5.Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.

After 53 days, the government relented and The Hunger Strike was called off.

The strike, led by Brendan Hughes, was called off before any deaths, when Britain seemed to offer to concede their demands;

However, the British then reneged on the details of the agreement.

The prisoners then called another hunger strike the following year. (1 March 1981 – “Hunger”)

This time, instead of many prisoners striking at the same time, the hunger strikers started fasting one after the other in order to maximise publicity over the fate of each one.

… but the government did not continue with the agreement …

The 1981 Irish hunger strike began on 1 March when Bobby Sands refused food, and by the time the strike ended on 3 October, ten men, including Sands, had starved themselves to death.

Two days later, the incoming Northern Ireland Secretary, James Prior, announced a number of changes in prison policy, including that from then on all paramilitary prisoners would be allowed to wear their own clothes at all times.

Sinn Fein• Irish Republican Political Party led by

Gerry Adams

• Is Gaelic for “We ourselves” or “Ourselves Alone”

• Is recognised as the political/propaganda wing of the Provisional Irish Republic Association (IRA) which is seeks military reaction to drive for republicanism

Ulster Banner flying over loyalist area in foreground – and the Irish Tricolour flying over the republican area of Derry in the background.

Sandy Row is a Protestant working-class community in south Belfast, Northern Ireland. It has a population of about 3,000. It is a staunchly loyalist area of Belfast, being a traditional heartland for affiliation with the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Orange Order.

Silver Jubilee visit, 10 - 11 August 1977

• A 21-gun salute marked the Queen's arrival in Belfast Lough aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, but she notably did not come ashore in Belfast where reaction to her presence was divided.

• In the run up to the Queen's visit the Provisional Irish Republican Army mounted a campaign of violence, hoping to force its cancellation. They organised a spate of arson attacks on Protestant-owned shops in Belfast and in the nearby garrison town of Lisburn. The attacks caused damage with an estimated repair bill of £1 million (£8 million in today’s money).

• Due to the PIRA's threat to give the Queen "a visit to remember", a specially strengthened contingent of 32,000 troops and police were on duty. In Belfast, republicans rioted and marched carrying a banner bearing the slogan 'Queen of Death'. Events were recorded by BBC Northern Ireland's Scene Around Six camera crew on 9 August.

• Due to security concerns, the Queen arrived at Hillsborough Castle, the first stop on her tour, by helicopter. Live coverage on BBC Northern Ireland's 'Silver Jubilee' programme captured every moment. She was greeted by school children and inspected a guard of honour formed by the Ulster Defence Regiment (special reserves who supported the regular army in Northern Ireland). Afterwards the Queen hosted a garden party for several thousand guests, all of whom had been rigorously vetted.

Queen's Northern Ireland visit marks symbolic end to conflict

(June 2012)

• After decades of struggle, key Republicans in Northern Ireland are ready to have their symbolic moment of peace with the "Queen of England," as they call her.

• Sinn Fein has decided that Republican icon and Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, should shake hands with the queen in front of the cameras. McGuinness is a former IRA commander.

• What makes this simple handshake even more poignant is that the queen is not just representing the UK, she's also representing the victims of the sectarian conflict. As someone who lost a loved one in an IRA attack, she is one herself.

• With a simple gesture, a victim and a former man of violence will put their personal feelings aside in the name of duty, and in the name of peace.