F. Stuart Ross is a Derry-based activist and academic. He received his PhD from Queen's University Belfast and has also studied at Syracuse University and the London School of Economics.
Superbly written, this is the definitive, authoritative work on the protests beyond Maze/Long Kesh prison which accompanied the republican hunger strikes. One of the most absorbing academic works I have read for years. A riveting read. A most interesting book based on solid and detailed historical research, yet immensely readable, written in a fluid, jargon-free and no-nonsense style. A new book by a Derry-based academic argues that the public campaign in support of the hunger strikers was "larger than the civil rights movement." F. Scott Ross makes the claim in his newly published book, 'Smashing H-Block,' which was released this week. The author grew up in Syracuse, New York, and first visited Derry twenty years ago and has lived in the city for the last ten years. He completed his masters and PhD at Queens University, Belfast. He was 12 years-old during the 1981 hunger strike and said he became interested in the period during the 20th anniversary commemorations. Mr Ross said he decided to write the book to tell the story of the popular movements that sprang up outside Long Kesh in support of the prisoners. "It is a very detailed political history. It looks at the period before 1976 and the different groups that came together. A lot of what has been written about the hunger strikes has focused on the ten men and what happened inside the prison. "So much of what has come out of commemoration events has focused on the prisoners and has been political. Politicians do not make good historians and you don't expect them to be. "I wanted to look at the other elements. If you want to learn from the past you have to learn from the things have been glossed over," he said. One of the main groups which led the protests in support of the hunger strikers was the Relatives Action Committee, largely made up of the families of prisoners. 'Smashing H Block' looks at the formation of this group and the myriad of different organisation which came together under its umbrella. While Sinn Fein and the republican movement played a key role in the protests, the book also sheds light on the role of other groups such as the IRSP and People's Democracy. It also discusses the involvement of Derry-based group the Irish Front, which was active in the late 1970s and brought together a range of different nationalist and republican groups in one umbrella organisation and highlighted H-Block issues. Mr Ross said many of the marches during 1981 were larger than the civil rights marches of the late 1960s. "What they did accomplish was to bring together a movement bigger than the civil rights movement. It was not as diverse but it was larger. A lot of marches were larger than those in 1968 and 1969. It mirrored the split within nationalism at the time. "It was never a completely cohesive group however. All the various groups and organisations could agree about the issue of supporting the prisoners but the electoral issue caused problems," he said. The writer also said he feels it is important to record the history of the period. "Sometimes outsiders can take a different look at things differently. There is an appetite for a different type of information. First and second year students I have taught at Queens were not born when the hunger strike was on and while there is a great deal of interest, this is history that they do not have a real connection to. Some of what has been written and said about this period has been political but I wanted to write an academic version. "However, while it may be academic it is written in a way that it is accessible. "It is not just a history, it also makes people think and raises questions," he said. 'Smashing H-Block' by F Stuart Ross is published by Liverpool University Press and is now on sale in local bookshops. Dozens of books have been written about the political fall-out from the 1981 H-Block hunger-strike and Margaret Thatcher's criminalization policy that preceded it. Several have been written from the perspective of the prisoners and hunger-strikers themselves. A recently published book looks at the struggle on the outside in support of the prisoners and is reviewed here by veteran republican and ex-POW, Gerry O'Hare - Until now, there's been nothing to record the determination, the struggles, the agonizing decisions, the comradeship and the sheer hard work of the campaigners outside the jails. That has now been put right in honorable fashion by F. Stuart Ross in a book for which republicans, future historians and other academics should be eternally grateful. The so-far untold story of the men and women who fought the good fight, first against an uncaring world, and then in the glare of the world's media, is both important for the future and fascinating in its own right. Far, far outside the Blocks, people were gradually mobilised by various groups and the work led to thousands of street protests, not just in the 32-Counties, but in other countries all around the world. Who were these groups? How did they come together in massive shows of support which seemed, on the face of it, to show it was possible to unite people in a way not seen before in Ireland? How did people from the left, centre and even the right - socialists, communists, the trade unions and even the business classes - find common cause that temporarily allowed them to forget their differences and ideals in order to support a single issue? 'Smashing the H-Blocks' by F. Stuart Ross endeavors to trace the campaign from its start to its unhappy end. Ross is a Derry-based activist and academic with a PhD from Queens University and has also studied at Syracuse University in the US and at the London School of Economics. It would be impossible in this review to detail every group or individual who assisted the campaign and to be fair the author takes no sides between them, instead fairly giving an account of who they were and what they did. At the end of every chapter he has diligent footnotes to back every assertion - which is essential of course but which must have taken many hours of hard work. One quibble, here: it would have made it easier if the notes had been at the bottom of every page to avoid having to flick back and forth. The notes are really essential to an understanding of who was saying what. Ross's book limits itself to a political history of the prisoners' struggle against the British prison system from 1976 to 1982. The author does mention earlier hunger strikes led by Billy McKee in 1972 for political status and the first hunger strike in the blocks by Brendan 'Darkie' Hughes and six comrades. It is the Bobby Sands-led hunger strike on which Ross centres this attempt to bring clarity, firstly on how the street campaigns were organised and then on the bringing of thousands of feet marching through hill and dale over Ireland. He tells us that unlike other accounts of this period he wants to focus on the popular movement outside the prisons, challenging republican orthodoxy and stressing the importance of broad-based, grassroots movements in effecting political and social change. He believes that what happened outside the prisons during the three years of protest led to the reshaping and revitalising of modern day republicanism. Recently, there has been much controversy over whether or not a settlement was offered after Sands and three other hunger-strikers died. These arguments have been unedifying, to say the least, and do not do justice to the men's heroism. The author leaves that issue to others. But what did take place on the outside with demonstrations around the world has never been properly told or told in such detail. Trying to pinpoint the moment when someone decided that a broad front should be mobilised is not easy, bearing in mind the number of groups involved, for example, Peoples' Democracy, Sinn Fein etc. However, Ross tells us that a Bodenstown oration in 1977, given by Jimmy Drumm, a well-known and highly-respected republican leader from the 1940s onwards, might give us a clue. Drumm said: "A successful war of liberation cannot be fought exclusively on the backs of the oppressed in the six counties, nor around the physical presence of the British Army". He went on to say, "Hatred and resentment of this army cannot sustain the war, and the isolation of socialist republicans around the armed struggle is dangerous and has produced the reformist notion that 'Ulster' is the issue, which can be somehow resolved without the mobilisation of the working-class in the 26 counties". This statement by Drumm was seized upon by many left-wing groups, as well as republicans - who were then bedding down for a long war. But above all, he was now saying openly that it had to be acknowledged that the armed struggle could not succeed on its own - there was a crying need for politics. Prior to Drumm's words, the Republican Movement was reluctant to work with other groups in any protests - but now, even before the hunger strike protests, it saw the need for a broad front. This broad front came to fruition during the hunger strikes a few years later. There is no doubt that, among the various committees, Sinn Fein always had the largest representation and it had no love, particularly for the SDLP. Fr Piaras O Duill was the first elected chairman of the National H-Block/Armagh Committee and, from that moment on, the author takes us on a journey through the various permutations and forms the campaign took. All these groupings coincided with massive changes within the Republican Movement along the lines given earlier by Jimmy Drumm. From here on, the author details how the committees were formed locally and their structures, the dominant role of Sinn Fein and how others reacted to their position. He informs us of the myriad of regional committees formed and the absolute need to have support from the South. In his account of the contentious decision about ending the first hunger strike, the decision-maker being Darkie Hughes, he only states that he came under huge pressure because of the feared, imminent death of Sean McKenna. We already know why Bobby Sands activated the second hunger strike, its ghastly death toll and the demonstrations that took place worldwide. As stated earlier, this book is a must. It's a great read about a sad and tragic period. Stuart Ross is to be applauded for this worthy contribution to republican prison history. Book available through Amazon, here. ...this book is a must. It's a great read about a sad and tragic period. Stuart Ross is to be applauded for this worthy contribution to republican prison history. Historians, paramilitaries and journalists have this in common: they are all acutely vulnerable to demophobia. It is not that they are fearful of crowds in the sense of being nervous of large numbers, but in their reluctance to acknowledge the role of the masses in shaping significant events. Take the 1981 hunger strike. The local figures now involved in bitter controversy over the way the strike ended were prominent in the events at the time. But the dispute in which they are involved, although passionately felt and of vital importance to themselves and their allies, refers to battles fought on narrow ground. The broad terrain on which vast numbers mobilised and shifted the axis of Northern politics figures only as background. The hunger strike was the focus for the biggest campaign of the Troubles. In terms of numbers taking to the streets, it was more formidable than either the civil rights movement of the late-1960s or the 1974 loyalist onslaught against the Sunningdale Council of Ireland and power sharing Agreement. It was through the experience of the campaign, rather than in the interplay between prisoners and paramilitary and political leaders that lasting change came about. The rank and file of the campaign were far more than mere extras. This is the central theme of F Stuart Ross's Smashing H-Block, published by Liverpool University Press. This is an important book for the light it throws on the politics of the period and, in particular, in restoring the plain people to their proper place in the narrative. Ross subtitles his work The Rise and Fall of the Popular Campaign against Criminalisation 1976-1982. 'Popular' is the key word here. What the account makes clear is that the movement against the H-Blocks wasn't whistled up by republican leaders but was - like many other significant developments, including the peace process - a bottom-up affair. Sinn Fein leaders were suspicious of the campaign from the outset and remained wary throughout. The irony is that "it was what happened outside the prisons during these years of protest that reshaped and revitalised modern Irish republicanism." The Provisionals' response to the announcement, in March 1976, of the end of political status was to order the killing of prison officers. The following month, Patrick Dillon became the first of 19 to be assassinated during the protest. Two weeks later, with no encouragement from organised republicans, prisoners' relatives in Belfast formed an 'action committee'. However, its chances of broadening its base were severely curtailed by republicans' implacable insistence that any campaign for political status necessarily required acceptance "that a war of national liberation is being waged in Ireland". Republican News laid it out for the first major conference designed to shape a campaign, in Coalisland in January 1978: "The revolutionary leadership of any mass movement must accept the need for armed struggle. The clock [cannot] simply be turned back ... much as People's Democracy and Bernadette McAliskey might wish it to be." Betty Sinclair, of Belfast Trades Council, was vilified in the most strident terms for suggesting that the prisoners' cause might be enhanced by an IRA ceasefire. McAliskey was denounced when she stood on a 'Smash H-Block' ticket in the European election in 1979: on polling day, some of her canvassers were physically assaulted by Provisionals. However, her respectable showing - 34,000 first preferences - prompted Jim Gibney to suggest at the following Sinn Fein ard fheis that the party contest the next northern local election. Gibney's initiative was rejected, but can now be seen as a significant straw in the wind. By May 1980, with the first hunger strike imminent, An Phoblacht/Republican News (the southern and northern papers had merged) signalled that the message had been received and was beginning to be understood: the "marches and other broad-based protest activities provided Sinn Fein with an unprecedented opportunity to be outgoing and to build up its contacts and membership." However, Bobby Sands' entry in his diary on the first day of his hunger strike in March 1981 suggested the beginning of a gap between these political conclusions of Sinn Fein leaders outside and the prisoners' adherence to an uncompromising republican position. Sands cited "the God-given right of the Irish nation to sovereign independence and the right of any Irish man or woman to assert this right in armed revolution." The most intriguing conundrum of the Troubles lies in the fact that the election campaign mounted for Sands in Fermanagh-South Tyrone explicitly eschewed any link between the prisoners' cause and armed struggle and led to Sinn Fein's decisive move away from violent revolution and into the constitutional arena. F Stuart Ross's book is essential for an understanding of what really happened in the hunger strike. The path from being on the political fringe of the political scene in Northern Ireland to its present position as the dominant voice of northern nationalism could not have been achieved without the events from 1976-1981. Ross has shed valuable new light on how this was achieved. For those attempting to understand Northern Ireland's past and present, Smashing H-Block will prove to be a important contribution. F Stuart Ross's book is essential for an understanding of what really happened in the hunger strike. Smashing H-Block by F. Stuart Ross is the first book to be published about the H Block campaign. True, there's a shelf-load of books on the saga within the prison and the intricate interplay between British and Irish politicians, church representatives, prisoners' leaders and so on. And there's fierce controversy still raging in letters columns and the internet about the putative deal which might have ended the strike sooner and saved the lives of six of the 10 men. What all of these publications ignore is the campaign outside the prison without which the hunger strike might have taken a very different course. Probably the two most important people in the campaign in Derry were Mary Nelis and Paddy Logue. Across Ireland, the most significant figure was Bernadette McAliskey. But you could while away hours meandering through H Block analyses without chancing upon their names. There's nothing unusual about this. The mass of the people are commonly relegated to roles as extras in the narrative of history. But Ross makes the people the main player. He quotes the 1981 annual report of RUC chief constable John Hermon estimating that there had been "1,205 demonstrations attended by some 353,000 people" in support of the prisoners. The campaign brought bigger numbers onto the street than the civil rights movement of the late '60s or the Loyalist upsurge in 1974. By way of comparison, a Human Rights Watch report in October 2001 noted that 33 prisoners had died in hunger strikes against prison conditions in Turkey. A further 14 perished the following year. In all, 64 were to die. But, as Ross mordantly comments: "Few people know this". The hunger strikers in Turkish jails matched the men in Long Kesh for fixity of purpose and readiness to die. But the scale of oppression in their country was of a different order to oppression here. No way would demonstrators have been allowed to gather on 1,200 occasions. Or 12 occasions for that matter. The prisoners' organisations were faction-ridden to a degree which made their Irish equivalents seem models of placidity. But even if that had not been the case, the absence of a mass campaign meant that Turkish politics were not sent into turmoil. The world shrugged and looked away. The main reason that didn't happen here is the main theme of F. Stuart Ross's book. "Smashing H Block" is a necessary and long-overdue new look at a vital phase in our recent history. A necessary and long-overdue new look at a vital phase in our recent history. Reading this book is like going back-stage during the performance of a great opera. On-stage there are deadly conflicts, passionate arias, tragic deaths. Back-stage props people bump into extras, the lighting engineer curses a fused spotlight, and the director prays he can hold the thing together until the final curtain. So if you're looking for moving descriptions of the H-block prisoners, the grief of the their relatives, the trauma that convulsed the country in those early-1980s days, you'll be disappointed. Ross's book is a painstaking, month-by-month, sometimes day -by-day account of the actions outside Long Kesh and Armagh prisons, as the blanket protest became the hunger strike of 1980, then the fast-to-death of Bobby Sands and his comrades in 1981. Ross shows the complexity of alliances that composed the anti-H-Block campaign. Far from being a hunger strike inside the prison supported by Sinn Fein outside the prison, a conglomerate of forces made up the movement. Ross argues that the National Anti-H-Block/Armagh Prison movement could not have had the strength or numbers it had if Sinn Fein had not accepted the need to work with those not sharing their republican analysis of the situation. Because they did accept that need, a unique all-Ireland resistance to the H-Blocks was possible; and because that was possible, and the election of hunger-strikers, starting with Bobby Sands, followed. The election of Kieran Doherty and Paddy Agnew to the Dail, the casting of over 45,000 first-preference votes for candidates endorsed by the National H-Block/Armagh Committee, but above all the election to Westminster of Bobby Sands, were victories laced with irony. The motivating force in running Sands and other hunger-strikers as candidates was not electoral ambition but a desperate bid to save their lives. The movement failed in this central aim - ten men died - but shortly afterwards their five key demands were effectively met. And finally irony: Sinn Fein, reluctantly drawn into supporting the hunger strike, uncovered the scope for Republican political activism. The book reminds us of the courage required in those days to be part of the H-Block movement: Britain had no qualms about using violence when her policies were threatened. The killing of H-Block activist John Turnly in front of his wife and two sons as he arrived at a public meeting in Carnlough, with one of the four men charged later claiming he'd worked for the SAS and had been told to target prominent H-Block committee members. The killing of another leading figure, Queen's University lecturer Dr Miriam Daly, found by her daughter bound and shot in the head in her Andersonstown home. The attempted killing of Bernadette McAliskey and her husband Michael by masked UDA men who were arrested immediately by members of the Parachute Regiment: "Though British soldiers were credited with saving the H-Block campaigner's life, it also appeared as if British soldiers - some of whom had secretly been monitoring the comings and goings from the family home - did not intervene until after the attack." The author has barbed-wired his book with quotation and reference to statements/ interviews given by those directly involved in the campaign; footnotes for the first chapter alone fill three-and-a-half pages. But this is no academic tome. In the end, the reader is left wracked by conflicting emotions. A sense of loss that such a massive alliance of groups should fall back into disunity after the death of Mickey Devine, the last of the hunger strikers. Balancing that, a sense of double triumph: the prisoners' five demands were quietly granted a few years later, and from the hunger strikes Sinn Fein, initially opposed to the prison fast, discovered its electoral strength. The consequences of that discovery continue to unfold. -- Blog: judecollins.com Website: judecollins.net Ross shows the complexity of alliances that composed the anti-H-Block campaign. Far from being a hunger strike inside the prison supported by Sinn Fein outside the prison, a conglomerate of forces made up the movement. En choisissant de se concentrer sur la lutte menee de 1976 a 1982 par les republicains irlandais contre la politique de criminalisation entreprise par le gouvernement britannique en Irlande du Nord, Smashing H-Block met en lumiere un moment charniere, et pourtant relativement meconnu, de l'histoire nord-irlandaise recente. Cette derniere grande mobilisation populaire de la communaute nationaliste, marquee par les greves de la faim menees par les prisonniers republicains en 1981, et par l'election, quelques jours avant sa mort, de Bobby Sands au Parlement de Westminster, n'avait en effet jusqu'a maintenant pas fait l'objet d'une etude approfondie, tandis que les greves de la faim elles-memes ont ete amplement analyses par la communaute scientifique. En etudiant ce qui s'est passe en dehors des prisons, F. Stuart Ross insiste sur les difficulties rencontrees par le mouvement republicain a articuler la lutte menee dans les prisons avec les objectifs republicains traditionnels, en particulier l'opposition a la presence britannique en Irlande. Il demontre aussi comment cette grande mobilisation populaire, au Nord comme au Sud de l'Irlande, mais aussi parmi la diaspora aux Etats-Unis, a petit a petit desenclave le parti republicain Sinn Fein, en elargissant ses themes de campagne, et en l'amenant a faire alliance avec de nouveaux acteurs, issus de la societe civile notamment. En poussant le Sinn Fein a abandonner sa politique d'abstention electorale, cette mobilisation l'a par ailleurs amene a se tourner vers des moyens d'action plus conventionnels (par la double strategie ballot/bullet), et finalement a etablir peu a peu la respectabilite politique de ce parti qui est a present le principal representant de la communaute nationaliste d'Irlande du Nord. Cette mobilisation a par ailleurs permis au Sinn Fein d'attirer de nouveaux membres, plus ouverts aux tactiques electorales, plus mefiants vis-a-vis de la lute armee, et plus actifs au sein de la societe civile. Ainsi, cette campagne de mobilisation a genere une cooperation sans precedent entre le movement republicain, d'autres organisations politiques de gauche et de nombreuses associations locales. L'etude de F. Stuart Ross, tres detaillee et bien documentee, possede cependant quelques limites, relatives notamment au plan chronologique adopte, qui reduit l'analyse sociologique du mouvement a son strict minimum; en dehors de quelques details sur les individus les plus mediatiques et de la qualification de la mobilisation de working class , l'auteur ne nous livre que peu d'informations systematiques sur les personnes qui soutenaient le mouvement, en termes d'age, de genre, de pratique religieuse ou de categorie socioprofessionnelle par exemple. Une telle analyse aurait permis d'approfondir l'etude des dynamiques sous-jacentes a la popularite croissante du Sinn Fein. By choosing to focus on the fight led by 1976 a 1982 by Irish Republicans against the policy of criminalisation by the British Government in Northern Ireland, Smashing H-Block highlights a moment hinge, and yet relatively ignored the history of Northern Ireland new. This last great popular mobilization of the nationalist community, marked by the hunger strikes carried out by prisoners Republicans in 1981, and the election, a few days before his death of Bobby Sands in the Westminster Parliament, did indeed up to now not been the subject of a comprehensive study, while themselves hunger strikes have been ample analysis by the scientific community. Student in what is happening outside the prisons, f. Stuart Ross stressed the difficulties encountered by the Republican movement has articulated the struggle carried out in prisons with the traditional Republican goals, in particular opposition to the British presence in Ireland. It shows also how this big popular mobilization in the North and South of the Ireland, but also among the diaspora in the United States has slowly desenclave the Republican Sinn Fein, were his campaign themes, and dragging the icon to make alliance with new actors, including civil society. Pushing Sinn Fein a abandon its policy of abstention electoral, this mobilization has also brought by a turn to empower more conventional (by the dual strategy bundle/bullet), and finally establish a little political respectability of this party which is now the main representative of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland. This mobilization also allowed Sinn Fein to attract new members, more open to voting, more mefiants tactics of fight army, and most active civil society. Thus, this campaign has generated unprecedented cooperation between the Republican movement, left other political organizations and many local associations. The study by f. Stuart Ross, very detailed and well documented, has however some limits, including to the chronological plan adopted, which reduced the sociological analysis of the movement has its strict minimum; Apart from a few details on the individuals the more media and the qualification of the mobilization of as working class f-stop, the author does us little information system on people who supported the movement, in terms of age, gender, religious or socio-professional category, for example. Such an analysis would have allowed to deepen the study of the underlying dynamics has the growing popularity of Sinn Fein. OVER THE PAST decade there has been a flowering of critical, unorthodox and revisionist historical writings that examine the armed conflict that raged between 1969 and 1997 over Britain's occupation of the north of Ireland - a period commonly referred to as "The Troubles." For decades historians and journalists, even those with diametrically opposed political sympathies, mostly relied on a handful of established political tropes to tell the story of the war. But the plot has thickened in recent years as a new wave of historical works, many of them by authors with personal histories in social movements, have intently shined a light on many previously under-explored aspects of the war. Veteran journalist Ed Moloney kicked off this trend towards critical reassessment with his 2003 book, A Secret History of the IRA, which looked at the rise of Gerry Adams as the central leader and spokesperson of the Irish republican movement. Maloney portrayed Adams' accession to leadership as a long march of near-Machiavellian maneuvers and backroom negotiations with the British, paving the way for a stage-managed "peace process" in the 1990s. The book was a bestseller and something of a literary game-changer. A few years later former IRA political prisoner Richard O'Rawe's book Blanketmen examined disagreements surrounding the 1981 hunger strikes, sending shockwaves through the Republican Movement and reopening discussion of that watershed event. After decades of books about "The Troubles" focused exclusively on the Provisional IRA and their political party Sinn Fein, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party (released in 2010) unearthed another buried story of modern Irish radical politics, bringing to light the history of an IRA faction that turned towards reform socialist politics and seemingly disowned the "National Question." Anthony McIntyre, former IRA militant turned historian, contributed to Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism (2008), an intimate look at the mainstream (Provisional) IRA's long slide towards accommodation with the political status quo. His blog "The Pensive Quill" focuses on critically reevaluating the republican tradition. F. Stuart Ross' Smashing H Block: The Rise and Fall of the Popular Campaign against Criminalization, 1976-1982 is a welcome addition to this renaissance of rethinking and reassessment. It focuses on the struggle over the rights of Irish republican militants held in Britain's notorious prisons in the North of Ireland. (H Block refers to the H-shaped buildings, specifically designed to keep male POWs isolated. Women prisoners were held at a separate prison, Armagh.) Unlike nearly all previous writing on the prison struggle, Ross focuses on the grassroots movement that was built outside of the prisons. Smashing H Block pays special attention to how ordinary working-class Irish people - many of whom had not previously been involved with political organizing - built a powerful mass movement in solidarity with the prisoners. Instigated mostly by relatives of prisoners, this movement represented the high point of popular mobilization against Britain's policies in Ireland in the 1969-1997 period. Ross' "from below" reading of this militant yet broad-based movement should be required reading for Left activists as well as students of modern Ireland. 1976: A New Movement Born In 1976 the first rumbling of a movement in solidarity with republican prisoners was sparked by protests against deteriorating conditions led by prisoners themselves. The 1969-1972 period had been marked by mass-based militant political demonstrations against British rule in the streets - mobilizations so far-reaching that they effectively made some nationalist areas "no-go" zones for state forces. Britain's brutal drive to roll back this insurrectionary upsurge effectively made street protests impossible, shifting the dynamic towards protracted armed conflict between the state and IRA guerrillas. As Ross points out in detail, rekindling mass participation would be extraordinarily difficult. In the early 1970s, Irish republican activists imprisoned by Britain were given special status as political prisoners. By the mid-'70s, sensing that the reborn IRA was being weakened, Britain withdrew this special status for prisoners. This move, which radically changed living conditions inside the prisons, was aimed at changing the political conversation. Irish republicans, the British government argued, were not activists with political goals; they were simply criminals and deserved to be treated as such. Downgrading the standing of political prisoners was a key part of Britain's strategy of "criminalization" aimed at isolating the movement and depriving it of any legitimacy in domestic and world opinion. A key change in the new prison regime was clothing: from now on Irish republicans would be forced to wear prison-approved clothing, not their own clothes. The prisoners refused to wear a "convict's uniform" and wrapped themselves in blankets instead. But refusal to wear such a uniform eventually meant that they could not leave their cells, which meant that urine, feces and menstrual blood would also remain in the cells. The "blanket protest" of 1976 eventually escalated to the "dirty protest" by 1978. But as conditions further deteriorated and the situation inside the prisons became more desperate, the population outside the prisons and outside the close-knit republican community remained largely unaware of the situation. Both British and Irish media meticulously ignored the situation, mainstream politicians would not dare raise the issue, and the IRA itself was more focused on honing its military ability than it was on campaigning for its imprisoned members. There was a desperate need to break through the media blackout, build awareness of the prisoner's situation, and construct a popular movement in the streets on behalf of the prisoners. Ultimately it would be family members of the prisoners - and eventually a wide swath of other sympathetic forces - who would step into the void and build such a movement. As the crisis in the prisons mounted, prisoners' families and individuals from the Northern nationalist community came together to found the Relatives Action Committee (RAC) in 1976, with the goal of building support for political status for political prisoners. While quite a few RAC founders were close to the Republican Movement (IRA and Sinn Fein), the Republican Move--ment was not of one mind regarding how to relate to the emergence of the RAC. As Ross explains in great detail, many in the Republican Movement were hesitant, for example, to share a platform with political groups or individuals who might not share their commitment to the IRA's armed campaign. There was also the widely held belief that the time for broad-based demonstrations had passed and that "the war" required the movement to keep its focus on armed struggle. Demanding rights for prisoners, it was argued by many Irish republicans, was a step backwards from the movement's central demand: a full British withdrawal from Ireland. In addition to these misgivings about the tactics and orientation of the nascent "political status" movement, the Republican Movement was hampered by the fact that it was by necessity organized on an entirely clandestine basis. Above-ground, mass organizing around demands that fell short of full British withdrawal was not the Republican Movement specialty in 1976. But increasingly the Republican Move--ment realized it had little choice but to engage and help build such a movement; this was essential both to win support for the prisoners and ultimately to help the Republican Movement sink roots outside the Northern ghettos where its support base was concentrated. As events proved, "... the protests against criminalization" would provide republicanism "with the means for transforming itself from a small, ghetto-based sect into a truly national movement. And the first step in that long and difficult process was the formation of the Relatives Action Committees." (22) As it began to quickly grow, the RAC became the National H Block/Armagh Committee. Evolving Strategy, Evolving Tactics One remarkable aspect of Smashing H Block is in showing the mechanics of a disciplined (and doctrinaire) political movement changing key elements of its strategy. Ross looks very closely at the tension that existed between the leadership of the Republican Movement and the growing movement in solidarity with Republican prisoners. That "Smash H Block" would emerge as a heterogeneous, single-issue campaign was far from certain. Ross maps out how disparate forces, from prisoners' families to non-Republican human rights activists to the socialist left, assembled a movement on behalf of the prisoners. Those in the Republican Movement who believed that only armed actions worked and that the days of mass mobilization were past were gradually won to the idea that a mass-based protest movement was needed and could work. When the grassroots started to mobilize - bringing the prisoners' message to people beyond the reach of the Republican Movement - skeptics became believers. While the movement spearheaded by the prisoners' relatives began to build its viability, buoyed by a handful of successful demonstrations and a dedicated core of activists, it also faced a predictably harsh response from the British government. Using the British Army, local police and Loyalist death squads, a campaign of assassinations and repression was orchestrated against the movement nearly from the moment of its inception. Ronnie Bunting and Miriam Daly, both socialist-republicans, were summarily executed in their homes by a Loyalist gang orchestrated by the British SAS was to blame. Soon civil rights icon Bernadette Devlin McAliskey would be targeted for an attempted assassination. But this climate of state violence could not stop the growing anti-criminalization movement. Ross' extensive reliance on movement newsletters, internal documents, and party newspapers maps out the movement's slow but determined growth in vivid detail, giving the reader an intimate sense of what it takes to build a vibrant movement under extraordinary circumstances. A Unique Coalition A great achievement of Smashing H Block is an in-depth examination of a number of left-wing political groups previously excluded by standard histories of the conflict. Peoples Democracy was a key force in the Northern civil rights movement of the 1960s, in some ways comparable to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the United States. While this early era of Peoples Democracy has been written about before, Ross examines PD in the later 1970s when the organization was smaller but also now openly socialist and revolutionary. For their diminished size PD played a remarkable role in the growth of the prisoners' movement in the late 1970s and early '80s, due largely to their Marxist understanding of the role of mass action and their insistence on an "anti-imperialist front" that included but went beyond the organized Republican base. Ross also examines Women Against Imperialism, yet another leftist group that played an important role in the prisoners' movement yet has been overlooked by historians until now. Ross explains: "Women Against Imperialism came out of a split in the Belfast Women's Collective in 1978. The group argued that: 'The anti-imperialist struggle takes its most intense form in the resistance of the nationalist areas of Belfast and it is in those areas and through organizations such as the Relatives Action Committee that we should work to raise issues relating to women in the anti-imperialist struggle.' During its short lifespan (it collapsed in early 1981), Women Against Imperialism found that it was 'easier to feminize Republicans ... than to Republicanize feminists.' Arguably, the organization spurred the formation of Sinn Fein's Women's Department." (55-56) As the book follows the flowering of the prisoners' solidarity movement over 1978 to 1980, readers are shown a movement widening and diversifying. Pacifist Catholics, moderate Irish nationalists with no sympathy for the IRA's guerrilla war, British trade unionists, clergy from Dublin to New York, and U.S. peace activists were getting involved with the fight for prisoners' rights. Former prisoners of war toured the United States and Europe, detailing British repression in gripping detail. Britain was increasingly seen as a human rights pariah, with television exposes and anti H Block op-eds appearing in establishment media outlets scarcely known as mouthpieces of anti-imperialism. This swelling chorus of solidarity with Irish republican prisoners framed the issue as one of basic human rights. From the point of view of the Left and many rank-and-file RAC activists, the Coalisland Anti-Repression conference was the first ... breakthrough [for the anti-criminalization campaign]. Held in January 1978 - just days after the European Court of Human Rights found Britain guilty of "inhuman and degrading treatment" of Irish internees - the conference was a one-day event "open to all who wish[ed] to attend, irrespective of their political opinions or lack of them." The hopes were that attendees could come together and 'take the first step towards united action to bring rampant repression to an end. The event received front-page coverage in the Irish News, where journalists estimated that over 500 people attended (others put the number at closer to 1,000). What is more, over 20 different organizations running the gamut of political opinion in the Catholic community were in attendance. It was particularly noted that "even the SDLP, which ha[d] been ... [wary] about association with groups on an anti-repression basis, was represented by Austin Currie and Paddy Duffy." (42-43) Photographs of prisoners living in cells with feces-covered walls contributed to a significant shift in public opinion, humanizing the IRA militants and shaming Britain's prison regime. With a diverse range of political forces expressing varying degrees of support for the prisoners' demands, the stage was set for the prisoners' last, desperate move: hunger strike. With Britain unmoved, IRA prisoners resorted to hunger strike to force the government's hand. The 1981 hunger strikes would leave 10 Irish republican revolutionaries dead. The hunger strikes were a grim turning point, eventually winning some demands but only after the crushing defeat of losing young, dedicated Irish revolutionaries. But the 1981 hunger strikes also represented a major breakout for the Republican Movement, with three hunger strikers elected to office and swelling sympathy around the globe. Ross sums up the lesson of the struggle: "This study of the popular campaign against criminalization simply underscores the critical importance of political organization and mass mobilization. After all, as former IRA Chief of Staff Sean Mac Stiofain put it, '[a] hunger strike is a two-sided weapon, and it does not work well unless those inside and outside jail play their part with equal determination.'" There have been a number of republican hunger strikes since 1981, most drawing inspiration from the ten men who died that fateful year. More often than not, however, those who have chosen to embark on this form of protest tend to fall back on the words of IRA hunger striker Terence MacSwiney: "[I]t is not they who can inflict the most, but they who can suffer the most who will conquer." Self-sacrifice and martyrdom are privileged over the building of a mass movement. This - like so much in orthodox Irish republicanism - is a mistake based on a misreading of history. It is also based on a misunderstanding of how one effects real political and social change. (186-187) It is impossible to imagine the emergence of Sinn Fein as an above-ground political party without the groundwork carried out by Relatives Action Committee and the patchwork anti H Block insurgency. Even readers with a long history of involvement with the Irish Republican movement will be floored by Ross' research. The detailed footnotes take up nearly a third of the book - with good reason! - and make for some of the its best reading. By focusing on the republican grassroots and not simply movement's established institutions (Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein), Ross is breaking with standard historiography to a profound degree. Ross' scrutiny of the role of the socialist left, specifically Peoples Democracy, is perhaps entirely unique. The last decade of critical historical reexamination of "The Troubles" is certainly important for students of Irish history. But this spirit of reexamination is important for socialist activists as well. When histories of revolutionary movements focus exclusively on the movements' leadership, our understanding of what makes popular upsurges suffers. This approach often mirrors the "great man" view of history, slighting the agency of everyday working-class people. It was the nationalist working class of British-occupied "Northern Ireland," proudly referred to in Irish republican circles as "the risen people," that rebelled against the sectarian Orange state. It was this oppressed social class that created the IRA, not the other way around. F. Stuart Ross understands this dynamic. It was this same community that built a powerful human rights movement against all political odds, against even Britain's war machine and its Frankenstein-like Loyalist death squads. Smashing H Block is an inspiring story of everyday people fighting back against an intransigent and brutal empire, told with astonishing and vivid detail. May/June 2013, ATC 164 Smashing H Block is an inspiring story of everyday people fighting back against an intransigent and brutal empire, told with astonishing and vivid detail. A number of tomes have chronicled the freedom fight in Northern Ireland, but a new book by F. Stuart Ross presents a gripping, concise study of the conflict from 1976 to 1982. The political prisoners' hunger strkes of 1980 and 1981 are regarded as a turning point in Northern Ireland's "Troubles," and Ross descends into the trenches to examine the personalities, politics, persuasions, propensities, plans nd plights of the period's players. Time of course, lends perspecive with benefit of hindsight. Straightforward prose presents riveting studies of the republican movemen's interest groups, deals, and the deals behind the deals. Ross highlights the importance of the popular movement outside the prisons, challenging republican orthodoxy by stressing the impact of grassroots movements in generating political change: "Ultimately, it was what happened outside the prisons during these years of protest that reshaped and revitalized modern Irish republicanism". A sturdy review of events and organizations during those years centers on political interness at Belfast's Crumlin Road jail and County Antrim's Long Kesh prison (particularly the prison's H-Block section). The internees' hunger strikes drove political activism; the political party Sinn Fein rganized a hunger-strike solidarity committee, engineered demonstrations and pushed publicity. The political situation altered in 1976 and 1977 as Britain began "criminalization" of the political struggle, but Irish prisoners of war soldiered on in the fight for political status. Civilian action committees increased publicity as the law of the jungle gained ground in and out of the prisons. An IRA bomb in Dublin killed a British ambassador and a civil servant. Loyalist paramilitaries shot a Sinn Fein leader, and more IRA members where killed. Numerous groups worked to stop the murderous score-settling spress, and international outread sought support abroad. Ross covers a lot of behind-the-scenes IRA and Sinn Fein maneuvering, offering some little-known, back-story enlightenment. IRA leader Gerry Adams, detained after a cruel hotel bombing in County Down, witnessess the political prisoners' barbarous conditions firsthand. Amnesty International called for an inquiry, and the Archbishop Tomas O Fiaich visited Long Kesh but was not allowed into the H-Block section where Irish prisoners where held. The conditions he did observe proved shocking. The years dragged on, and political progress slowed to a glacial pace. A "Smashing H-Block" conference in 1979 brought republican groups together and a National H-Block Committee was elected to focus on publicity as murders on both sides continued apace Ross is adept at portraying the back-and-forth political jockeying as well as the tedium that plagued long-drawn-out negotiations. Sinn Fein called for massive protests and pressure on politicians when the October 1980 prison hunger strike began. It ended after 53 days upon receipt of a British offer, but matters stalled. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (one of the H-Block campaign's most active representatives) and her husband where seriously wounded during a Unionist UDA (Ulster Defence Association) attack on their home. In 1981, during a second hunger strike in the H-Block, IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands was elected the anti-Unionist Member of Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. He died on May 5, 1981 after 66 days without food, and nearly 100,000 people attended his funeral. Prisomer demands went largely unmet, and Ross exposes the escalation in street killings. The IRS and its affiliates focused on killing British soldiers in Britain. Ross calls into question the cost/benefit value of hunger strikes that seemed defeatist to many people: "Self-sacrifice and martyrdom are privileged over the building of a mass movement. This-like so much in orthodox Irish republicanism-is a mistake based on a misreading of history. It is also based on a misunderstanding of how one effects real political and social change". Nevertheless, Ross admits that "A mass movement with a public leadership has been created" underscoring "the critical importance of political organization and mass mobilization." Few can argue with the fact that the hunger strikes helped hone the republican movement's priceless assets: people, pageantry, and publicity. The most comprehensive academic work on the subject so far. Ross's book takes a different tack by examining the nature and wider significance of the mobilisation of grassroots support for republican prisoners during this period...He challenges key themes of the Provisional I.R.A.'s established narrative of the 1980-81 Hunger Strikes.
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