He said: “Having spent the whole of Sunday in the prison, I was shocked at the inhuman conditions prevailing in H-Blocks 3,4 and 5 where over 300 prisoners were incarcerated. As prison rules required the prisoners to wear prison uniform when leaving their cells, they were confined to their cells for twenty-four hours a day. That seemed to be a bit of a Catch-22 to me: how can you become a big-named author if the publishers are not going to run with your books because you’re not a big-named author? I also liked the strength in the name “Panzer O’Hare” (Panzer being a German WWII tank, Ructions’ uncle, and the head of the O’Hare family).

The majority of protesting prisoners, both men and women, were in their late teens or 20s and over 80% were imprisoned solely on the strength of forced confessions. Five years ago this day, the British government declared that anyone arrested and convicted after March 1st, 1976, was to be treated as a criminal and no longer as a political prisoner. One of the 'Blanketmen', he took part in the dirty protests that led to the hunger strikes of the early 1980s. Fleming was rearrested in May 1918 and refused to wear prison uniforms which resulted in him being left naked and locked in his cell and (because he destroyed his cell) was restrained with a straight jacket. Kept in cells on a punishment diet, with loss of all remission and without furniture, they were constantly beaten and harassed.That the arrests were arbitrary, the charges based on forced confessions, the remands lengthy, the trials farcical and the sentences totally unjust was incidental,. In the draft that had been rejected by the London publishers, Ructions had been shot dead at the end of the book).

The Guardian ***After the recent release of historical state and personal papers, Richard O'Rawe's courageous statements, ten years after Blanketmen's initial publication, stand vindicated. In the 1923 Irish hunger strikes thousands of Irish prisoners went on hunger strikes resulting in several deaths. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The second is O'Rawe placing you in his mind both in real time and with the benefit of hindsight as a defining era in the history of the troubles played out. During the 20th century a total of 22 Irish Republicans died on hunger strike while demanding political status - see Groups who have conducted hunger strikes in List of hunger strikes.The first is the graphic and lucid description of barely comprehensible prison conditions on the blanket/dirty protests. A first-hand, very blunt telling of the behind the scenes and morally-fraught actions of the 1981 hunger strike in Long Kesh. But to read this story as an adult and having outlived some of these men it's a mixture of pride for what they did for their country but sadness that didn't leave to see peace and also what they could have achieved had they not died. As further demonstration of our selflessness and the justness of our cause a number of comrades, beginning today with Bobby Sands will hunger strike to the death unless the British government abandons its criminalisation policy and meets our demand for political status.

Ructions conjured up, in my mind, an individual who was a menace to society, someone who would be capable of committing murder on the one hand and showing common decency on the other.

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