70 days without food. He joined the strike on the 29th of june 1981 after bobby sanns and three other ira prisoners had already died in hitchblock prison. But before we speak to our next guest, lets get a quick overview of this weeks show. Of as always, we are joined by our resident copresenter michelle gillernew. Michelle is the current mp for fermana south toront. She has served in the Northern Ireland assembly as a former minister for agriculture and Rural Development and chairperson of the Health Committee amongst other things. Michelle has been a shinfian activist since her teams and has been elected almost continuously since 1998. And todays guest is lawrence mcyong. He is a former ira prisoner, author and screenwriter. After sir. Life sentence in prison, dr. Lawrence mckung obtained a phd in sociology at queens university, belfast. Hes also cofounder of the belfast Film Festival in the mid1990s. Lawrence mcyong, welcome to the show. So lawrence, tell us a bit about your child who grown up . Well, i grew up outside rondlestown, um, which is about 20 minutes from here, very mixteria religion wise, and often is odd that i never see the conflict, here is about. Religion, its been politics, but religion has been used as the empire is used, tribal difference or skin color or whatever else, so it was very idelic sort of upbringing, um, ive written about it that when i was 10, learned to drive a tractor on the a farm that was next to us, devy warricks farm, lovely neighbors, wonderful people, um, went a very small local school, farm fluck, which was delighted about years later to discover was actually from the original irish. Was like wet tonland, but at the time is angle siz version just seemed bit absurd, you know, um, and up getting my 11 plus and move from this really too Classroom School to uh sant maliky the largest Grammar School and hited it with passion and i think thats where my uh sense of rebellion started because began the mitch school so i traveled to it and uh and hang out down around smithville or i never never been a belfast before. Uh, but i just hit it the the school, i think it was the this moving from this very informal, localized, rural sort of seting to now this, you studying latin and. Go to the gym you have to have different shoes for different purposes and all the rest of it um so yeah i blame that on on my my liter activities but very interesting that i was grown up through that period of over the civil rights and uh on be kown to me at the time that um certain things were unfolding that had uh well so had implication for my one family because the whole Civil Rights Movement was about and anti discrimination and house and unemployment. As as you know michelle um and i think but for me the biggest um impact was the activities of wilster regiment which was locally recruited militia um the largest regiment in the british army and over 90 protestant and there were people from randleston who i would have known and played football with moving down down that time we used to walk in the town a crowd of us uh that was all hot in those days uh and being stop with them and i remember the first night i remember the guys name um and him asking me whats your name and where you where you coming from where you going to . And he was embarrassed because he being me saying me what whats your name . Uh, but the second third time the embarrassment had gone and that was as the origins and uh and been stop and just been held in that, none of us were involved in any any politics or anything at that time um, but it it was a big influence on me and i think it was at that point, starting time i came to 16 realizing that um there are two communities. But its not about what church equal to a sunday, its about that one has the uniforms and the weapons legally and and the other doesnt, it was that point was 16 to said it that wanted to become part of of of what was happening and to become part of was to join the was to join the ira which did whenever i was 17 years of age you were on that 1981 Hunger Strike lawrence youre a walk in miracle you went 70 days without food tell us more about that . Um well in the 1981 Hunger Strike there was initially there was only four people ever going to be on it um that began with bob and frank and potsi and remman and um and then one of them died that the would be be replaced so there was ever only ever going to be four on it one time but in june it was decided to increase the numbers on it to it so each monday someone you joined it not because someone had died but because they were bringing up the number so i joined on the which was the last one out of that four and to join on the um but that time um four people had already had already died um mean the uh a form set of people you can only understand the Hunger Strike in the context of that five years before it um or its a total okay you understand the big political issue criminalization attempts to criminalize the struggle and so on and so forth but it also becomes personal with just even the the Prison Guards grows at the door. And its not like oh youve got a range of choices, abcd, which one we go for, it was either you walk out by hands up and capitalate and become yes sir, no sir, three packs falser or its Hunger Striken in that context um, supposed the biggest thing for me when i began it was um a week later the iris commission for justice and peace com in um so i was taken up the hospital along back i was on the the same wing and macky the fan was brought from h5 so opportunity to see all of the the people there, people are still alive and um important lesson also that they that um everybody was brought in who who was missing was joe mcdonald and uh if i hadnt known that i wouldnt have recognized the person that come through the door he was in a oil chair and jo was alway like them fat jo, he always been able to retain but more b more fat than the rest of us and thats which is all th most people were were underneurs like i was. 10 and half stone when we got strike, mean about 13 and a half now so im not curring m of excess because everybody was mt a long time, but joe was brought in and his head was like over the side was in a wheel chair and troubles coming down the side of his mouth and its almost that thing we see someone physically disabled and its almost a think think maybe the mentally as well but when he spoke he just this is true ch and everybody got to smoke you to s in the prison hospital w to smoke on on the protest and the makeup for the Ic Commission for justice and peace was doubling government appointies Catholic Church stlp so sort of not republicans on the ground and they were come to say that they had been in talks with the British Government and they had some like uh not only the basis of the five demands but the recent even six demands and um the whole thing went on for for for for two days and thats always that people talk. But was there was there deals, there never was deal, there was always offers of what would be there if you were to end this and that was never going to be no first given given the experience of the first one and particular given. That that that four people had already died in the meantime, youre still tuned into the conversation, your weekly alternative probe of political events and Current Affairs through anaries lens, im joined by my cohost michelle gilleny alongside our special guest dr. Lawrence machune, martin harson and died died very suddenly uh and very painfully, thats the thing to remember people did in different ways, but um if you couldnt keep water down and you w to drink at least six pounce of water a day. And take salt cuz you need it for your your brain um but if you cant keep the water down if youre being sick then uh all these toxins in your body started with the kidneys come under massive pressure and happened to patty quin happen to mortin horse and so like for the last couple hours life hes thrushing about his in these way in another world and learn and later years after listen talking to brandon his brother brandon was in one side the holding him down and the priest f morphe was side holding so he would smash his face against them. Little b end and then he did, he did settle and for about an hour and then he died and and the really when in the hospital irony was um youre no longer a protestant prisoner because you are in the hospital pajamas so youre not refusing we the prison clues remember 40 od days my mysight started hang up for for most people and seeing at the start seeing very seeing double but very clearly double uh and then that changed into a more hazy fuzzy sort of thing and then it starts to be at late start to annoy and be that like strip laten which is b anyway um but suppose one of the the main thing that we ended up noticing was that someone um very close to death often had Ball Movement and remember i was saying id read before about how hung your bowls open this was almost like in refers to the body just letting go before it happen until tom away and remy defin talking about it and uh and afterwards it was a real drop and youre ready youre already totally exhausted but after that usually nobody came out of there selling in it in the word buse the word cells even though youre in a prison hospital so happen to make defend and you the probably what rack two or three days after that and and basically what happened so one it happen to myself and you um yeah its a very painful very lengthy couple of errors uh and and just made it back to a bit, i help back to a bit and and and didnt get out of it after that um and then the parents in families r and seem to be a critical stage and um they come in my father, my mother and sister and brother all of them apart from my mother asked me to come off the onger strike and said i wasnt and it wasnt my mother was republican she wasnt just always had i dont recall any adult conversation with my mother bause i was on the run from 17 and a half then was in jail when i was 19 um you want to get an odd you buse all people are visiting and you dont get much time to talk about it then were on the protest so never um had those t conversations that really of like you and b my parents that later died in jail so never never got to have them but there was just always a very close borner she just showed me unconditional alone um she wasnt going out me to do something that you was was against me um that was 68th day and i remember them coming in um 168 i dont i dont really recall at all apparently i was responding to voices but was getting confused and it was just sleep or starting to go on conscious a bit um and then on the the 70 i think which was a sunday apparently the doctor was down and checks all your reflexes and said look now youre in deep deep coma and youre not want to be any response and what what the had was part of attorney which is that um the president werent going to forge fetos what if youre next to kinn saying document par of attorney shifted them and they could authorize medical intervention which is what the mother did and um again it was only years i thought back on it what i do recall her sent to me on that sick day was and we were on our own she had gone out and um she says you know what you have to do and i have to quiet person and religious in the sense it was quiet fe wrong religion than you thought and an awful situation for for families and that had been brought i mean that had already been a number of people often wondered if i had been the first would have looked on it differently or if somebody had died after me what i look differently but n of those happened i say my mother died less than two years after so this awful thing that families were placed in that dilemma and a big pressure on them from the Catholic Church and particularly from from or fall that a good mother or a good wife would would would authorize manical intervention, which by implication means that youre a bad, bad wife or bad, um, regin conscience. And the intensive car unit of the Royal Victoria Hospital just few hundred yards and from from here and uh and interesting to think thinking back on it because it was a female voice and must have seen it was coming coming launch or your intensive care unit the royal victory hospital we just want to turn you over here slowly and seven stone at the end of the bones in the hospital that would have had you on the sheep skin rug but the hospital obviously dont have those uh and and and was turn me over and so i remember what was like this gentle hands on you you know its a female voice its a gentle touch whereas for like the previous five years youre just you didnt have any of that that at all and the british soldiers the bed and all i could see all blane you could see the black figures and again it was just hard to open these and then the following day i was taken to the um the military of the secure ward of the moscow Park Hospital where all the ones were there like potty quin and pot and that there and was there for the next few weeks and then moved back to the to the prison previous they had kept people there for six seven weeks but i think again that come to point where they were trying to put pressure on on on the onger strike and on the people were still on it um tapers moved back i was Still Holding on the walls to try to walk um ride back into each block four and uh when you rive on that block there will be a screw in the the circle and there m to shout the numbers so somebodys going for our visit would have been right one off um 98 here or or one on and when i walked then this guy shot at uh one field Hunger Striker on normally to walk across stratus route was straight across the the circle but had to walk around the the um the wall just hold to and and could hardly see and uh ended ended up there and uh down on the wing and um people heard me coming in and i was exhausted the bed and and just lay down and um i ended up with the stagmas from the hunger twitching of the ipaballs which were going ridly so to open them you became really nauseous bause everything just moving like this year um so it was just it and someone in the. Next door to me knocked it and ched and as who it was and um it was r mccartney he was on the first song and i said who it was and he get up and shut it out the door and uh everybody was shiting up to welcome and all the rest of it and uh somebody sick up your door and it just it was just um i just couldnt just just wiped wiped out and that was like three three weeks three and a half weeks after that ended uh few days later and um we had add five demands we could one demand um which are replaced not in the context people say no was it success for not you say well you want to narrow it down to the prison you five demands you get one you dont really say well thats thats not thats not success but that was never about simply prison conditions it was much wider struggle and if you look it in terms of what we did get it and what the struggle got out of it and so well no one now like that got loads of weapons and money and uh um political and moral support and you realized afterwards that you with the eyes of the world where were on it and particularly with the world of of those who had suffered under the empire um and i think maybe for the first time republicans just realized just this support and interest that you had worldwide you when you have fidel castro speaking up with the United Nations you have the Indian Parliament on the minute silence. You have protests across the world never did um so in that sense it was major factory for us in the jail we got the right to wear our own clothes which problem said was important and two two levels symbolic um but obviously we wouldnt wear the prison uniform and the Blanket Sound was i wear no conflex uniform normally serve my time so we never did where the the confex uniform but a more practical level it is to get out of the cell for the first time in five years and get in the accounting and the yard and and and plan and strategize how were going to get the outstand demands which which we did um through a whole um series of protests and different ways but that sorry in 1981 that was the end of of that type of protest the prison republican prisoners we look at this burning in the camp various other protests even the blanket protest itself its sort of like yeah bring it on you well take it lets not in a mature way but its um like terwinis, its not those who can affect the most, its those who can enjure the most, which sometimes wonder about because you can, you cant crush people and crush their spread, thank never, it never happened to us. lors, its been an honor to have you in here today, thanks for coming, its always great to see you, thank you, as we have come to the end of the series, id like to finish this episode a different note, much of what weve attempted to do during this last 13 weeks is offer an alternative look at aries politics free from the constraints of broadcast editorial control, we hope that you have enjoyed what weve had to offer, so rather than leave you with your usual history segment and like to finish with eulogy from mon our finest litery grits leaving the white glow of filling stations and few lonely street lamps among fields, you climbed the hills towards newton, hamilton, past the fuse forest, out beneath the stars, along that road, a high bare pilgrims track where sweeny fled before the blooded heads, goat beards and dogs eyes in demon pack blazing out of the ground, snapping and squeeling, what blazed ahead of you, faked road block, the red lamp swung, the sudden breaks installing engine, voices, heads hooded and the coldnosed gun, or in your driving mirror, tailing headlights that pulled out suddenly and flagged you down where you werent known and far from what you knew, the lowland clays and waters of lochpeg, Church Island spire its soft tree line of you. There you once heard guns fired behind the house long before rising time, when duckshooters haunted the marigolds and bullrushes, but still were scared to find spent cartridges, acrid, brassy, genital. Ejected on your way across the strand to fetch the cows, for you and yours and yours and mine, fought shy, spoke an old language of conspirators, and could not crack the whip or sees the day, big voiced scollions, herders, feelers round haycocks and hind quarters, talkers and bars, slow arbitrators the. Burial ground, across that strand of yours, the cattle graze up to their bellies an early mist, and now they turn their unbewildered gaze to where we work our way through squeaking said, drowning in dew, like a dull blade with its edge honed bright, loch beg half shines under the his, i turn because the sweeping of your fate has stopped. Slept behind me, to find you on your knees, with blood and roadside muck in your hair and eyes, then kneal in front of you in brimming grass and gather up cold handfuls of the dew to wash you cousin, dab you clean with moss, fine as the drizzle out of a low cloud, lift you under your arms and lay you flat, with rushes that shoot green again, i plat green scapulars to wear over your shroud. I like to thank our special guest, lawrence muchong and our resident cohost michelle gillernew. We havent gone away, you know, im sean murray, bye for now. It seems the Israeli Occupation will conclude the grand operation in the city of khan unis in Southern Gaza within days, withdrawing thereafter to the newly established security zone along the border with gaza, just as it did weeks ago in the city of gaza and its surroundings to the north. Does this mean that the next step is to begin the ground operation in rafah . It appears that the decision regarding the. Operation is still pending, not only for field related reasons, but lot of regional players prefer the negotiating path to end designest aggression against gaza, hence all eyes are now a possible improved Prisoner Exchange deal both in form and content, compared to the first paris formula reached between qatar, egypt, the United States and the zianist israeli entity last january. Gaza talks underway this week on the media stream. Today in the studio we are joined by the members of the political burrow of the Palestinian Islamic jihad movement, ali abu shahin. Since the israeli aggression, there has been no safe place in gaza. The world today is saying enough is enough. The American Administration is a part of this aggression under the pretext of slogans of democracy. And confronting dictatorship, the economy in israel was very bad before the events of october the 7th. I dont see a way back, i think their economy is destroyed beyond recognition. I think the main problem in the battlefield will be military. The headlines, Israeli Forces killed nearly 80 palestinians waiting for food aid in gaza as the overall death toll from the onslot sir