Relentless Strike Epub Download Site
Irish republicans began hunger striking following the Easter Rising. In 1917, forty prisoners were force-fed. 32 Historian George MacSweeney presents republican hunger strike as an integral part of Irish history and mythology and argues that republicans including Thomas Ashe chose to refuse food in light of the influence of a national revival in traditional Gaelic cultural practices. 33 However, it seems more conceivable that republican prisoners were cognisant of the recent efficacy of the suffragette hunger strikes in garnering public attention and sympathy. As Murphy suggests, suffragette hunger striking provided a template referred to by republicans during their campaign for independence. 34 Irish republicans knew full well that force-feeding brought state policies into question and severely disrupted prison management. Nonetheless, war had now hardened the attitudes of state bodies and prison authorities to prison militancy and also towards republicanism, viewed from British and unionist standpoints as a betrayal to the more urgent cause of defeating German aggression. 35
Relentless Strike Epub Download Site