Stuff You Should Know - What were the IRA hunger strikes?

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

In the early 1980s, imprisoned IRA members went on a prolonged hunger strike, leading to the death of ten men. This is their story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there. And this is Stuff You Should Know. Just the two of us doing it together. We're hanging out

and we're going to get to the bottom of some stuff. That's right. And you know, the Grabster helped us out with this one a little while ago and it almost feels now like I was purposefully sitting on it because of the turnout of the recent elections across the pond there. Oh, okay. I'm not familiar with what happened. Well, the Sinn Fein is now in place as the largest party in 2022 in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. And this means that this is probably the best chance they've had in a long time for reuniting Ireland. Oh, wow. That'd be something. Well, you really did save it for just the right moment, Chuck. Yeah, it was just a couple of weeks ago. And I read a bunch of articles

on it on the likelihood and it seems like a hard road still. But it's something they're interested in, I think, that party that is. And polls are very split. Yeah, I'm interested to see how it turns out. But that is pretty interesting that they're finally in a position to do that because that means they've come a very long way in the last, what, 50 or so years. Yeah. For those of you who aren't familiar, the Sinn Fein is considered the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. And the reason we're talking about either one of those is because we're talking about hunger strikes, specifically a set of hunger strikes that took place at the beginning of the 20th century and then toward the end of the 20th century. And they are very much associated with the IRA. In fact,

if you ask most people who are familiar with hunger strikes, they will probably bring up the IRA. It's like that closely associated with them. Yeah. And we should just say we're gonna do our best to get this right. But this is one of those that is, it's so fraught with emotion on both sides. So we just want to tell all of our friends in Northern Ireland and all of our friends in the Irish Republic that we're doing our best here as two Americans trying to understand a very deeply long-rooted, oftentimes hostile situation. Yeah. And for those of you like Morrissey with Irish blood, but English heart, we will hopefully not tick you off either. We're doing our best here. Just a couple of Yankee American Joes doing what we can. That's right. And we had a great time,

by the way, in Dublin and our only regret was not being able to go and do a live show in Northern Ireland. We just couldn't squeeze it in, but we'd love to check it out one day. Agreed. So you said that like this is a very emotionally fraught subject and that is a gross understatement really because what we're gonna focus on are called the Troubles, which started at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s. But really, it goes back even further than that. And you can kind of place the beginning of hostilities in 1609 when the Protestant English came into Catholic Ireland and said, hey, we're gonna take some of this land and we're going to take some of your land rights away from those of you with documented land rights. And we're going to set up some English

enclaves and we're just going to basically show up and sit here for a while. And that didn't sit very well with the ethnic Irish or Gaelic people who lived in the area. So that was one part of it. And I also hit on another part too, Chuck, that we've got Protestant and Catholic basically versus each other now. Yeah. And you know, I think Ed makes a good point that it's not strictly about religion. But when you're over there and you're talking Catholic and Protestant, it's so intertwined in the fabric of kind of everything that goes on, including the politics that it's really, you know, there's no way you can separate it, but it wasn't necessarily an Irish or a, well, yeah, I guess Irish Catholic English, Scottish Protestant battle.

Right. But it is, the seeds are there. So in particular in the north of Ireland around Ulster, a bunch of Protestant English and Scottish people kind of settled there over the years and formed what's basically known or what was known as the plantation of Ulster. And so over time, you've got this largely Gaelic population inhabiting the central and south part of Ireland and then a mixed Catholic, Gaelic and English and Scottish Protestant kind of group coexisting for better for worse in the northern part of the country. And it's remarkable that it lasted like this for, you know, several centuries before it finally came to a head at the beginning of the 20th century. Yeah. And as far as, you know, how those

people in northern Ireland that were kind of, you know, mixed in together, felt about things then and how they feel about things now, you know, Ed makes some kind of sweeping statements that it's just kind of hard to do, especially when you look at like modern day polls on reunification and stuff like that. Those seeds run deep and people are still kind of divided on it. So you can't necessarily just say that, you know, these days, the people in northern Ireland 100% favor Protestantism and want to be a part of the UK, it's a mixed bag. Right. Yeah. I would guess it'd be akin to, you know, people wanting to their state to secede or the United States to break into five different countries or something like that, although probably with much more emotional

opinions about that. Yeah. And then throw religion in there. Exactly. Just that little light thing. So like I said, this kind of precarious living situation, this living arrangement, came to a head all the way in 1912 when an Irish nationalist kind of movement began. I think they started before that, but in 1912, they started really pushing for home rule, which is Irish governing Ireland. It's pretty much as simple as that. And that created the home rule crisis. And it was a crisis as far as the British were concerned, because all of a sudden their Irish people were saying, hey, we basically want you out and we want to rule Ireland. So let's just end this four centuries of occupation, shall we? The way you put it there just sounds very nice. Yeah. I'm sure

that's how they put it. This was sort of put off a bit by World War One. Obviously, that kind of disrupted a lot of things. But eventually in 1916, the nationalists did revolt. And it was called the Easter Rising of 1916. And this was a bloody affair. It was, I mean, I think there were more than a dozen leaders executed, many thousands of people imprisoned. It was just a, it was a brutal conflict. And that was just, you know, that kind of kicked things off in 1916. It continued, again, in 1919, with what we know now as the, well, I guess what's called this then too, the Anglo-Irish War. And there were a lot of sort of governmental policies going on during this time. The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 officially, as far as they were concerned, created two islands, Northern

Ireland and what they called Southern Ireland, that were all still under the rule of the UK and Great Britain. But Southern Ireland was like, no, we're not, what is Southern Ireland? We're the Irish Republic. Like, don't even call us Southern Ireland. Yeah. So that actually kind of got translated into a treaty that ended the Anglo-Irish War. It was a 1921 treaty that basically recognized Ireland as two separate nations. You've got Ireland itself, which is again the central and southern part of the country. And then you have Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. It's a totally different country, at least geopolitically speaking. It's a totally different country. And again, there's a big distinction between Ireland and Northern Ireland

and the population makeup, because those Protestant, Catholic, and Scottish people that settled in the Northern part of Ireland over the centuries had descendants. And those descendants stayed loyal to the crown. They stayed Protestant. And at times, they were more powerful than their Catholic neighbors. So in the late 60s, by the time the late 60s roll around and you've got two Ireland's, you have a Protestant elite, small minority of Protestants ruling Northern Ireland, much to the chagrin of the Catholic, Gaelic people who lived there. And that kind of set up or set the stage, I guess, for the troubles that followed. Yeah. And the troubles, I know you said, began in the late 60s. They carried through till about 98 more than, I mean, the numbers kind

of vary depending on what you're looking at. But at least 3,500 people died, 50% of which were civilians. And these were, it was a mess. There were paramilitary groups on both sides. There were British military taking part. There were street battles. There were bombings. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that in the, like when you and I were growing up in the 70s and 80s, this was all over the news at the time. And it was, I had no idea. I didn't understand it at all at the time. No, me either. And it took, you know, me listening to a lot of you too. Same here. And then trying to educate myself over what was going on over the years. But I don't think I fully really understood it until like the past few days when I really dug in. Absolutely. Same here, man.

So one of the things that kicked off those troubles you just described was the Gaelic Catholics protesting the unfair rule, as they saw it, of the Protestant minority. And the problem is these protests were kind of suppressed brutally by the Protestant government and with the aid of the British military and British police, I believe. And that's, that turned quickly into rioting. And then eventually, like you said, the paramilitary groups assembling and basically guerrilla warfare breaking out in Northern Ireland. So imagine like, you know, going to work one day and you're Catholic and your coworkers Protestant. And the next day, you guys are fighting each other on the street for control of your, both of your country.

Yeah. It's nuts to think about it as an American because like we can't fathom something like that, you know, to Gen Xers growing up in the Cold War Reagan era. Right. I mean, we're pretty far removed from the Civil War here in the United States. This is like Civil War that took place in the early 70s or started in the early 70s and continued for almost 30 years. Yeah. And previous, you know, we should back up a little bit, I guess, and talk about the origins of the IRA. This had to do with the Easter Rising that we talked about of 1916. It was initiated by what was called the Irish Volunteers in 1916. And by the 20s, they were known as the IRA, the Irish Republican Army. And they fought a Civil War in the early

1920s. And 1922 and 1923, there were a lot of different nationalist factions fighting one another. One of these was the IRA. And there was Civil War going on back then as well. So there's just been decades and decades of unrest by the time the 1960s roll around. Yeah. And that 1920s Civil War was in Ireland itself. So after it became a sovereign nation, all those groups that had fought the British started fighting each other to figure out who was going to run the show from then on. That's right. So the IRA that you and I think about, that, you know, we learned about from you two and the news in the 80s and all that, they're the ones that you would call the provisional IRA. And they formed out of the beginning of the

troubles, those protests and riots beginning in 1969. They were one of the paramilitary groups that developed. And they became pretty famous in no small part because of the hunger strikes that they ended up carrying out. Should we take a break? I think so. I think we've reached breakness. I know. I was nervous during that set up. Were you? You thought I was just going to keep going and going? No, no, not that. I was just like, man, this stuff is so, you know, there are fine lines and I just don't want to misspeak. Oh, I don't think we did. But now that I just said that, of course we did. All right. Well, we'll gather ourselves and we'll be right back to talk about the history of hunger strikes a little bit right after this.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one.

Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and

pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck. So why would anybody engage in a hunger strike and why would they be

the most closely related or thought of in relation to the IRA? Well, you know, there is some evidence that they were rooted in Celtic tradition. Hundreds of years ago, there were stories of people undergoing hunger strikes and it might, you know, it wasn't necessarily political at the time. So how it would go down is like maybe somebody owed you money and wouldn't give it to you. So you would go very publicly to where they live, camp out on their doorstep and engage in a hunger strike. And it was sort of just a very public display of, you know, maybe you didn't have means to get it any other way. So it was a very public display and way of saying, this person is doing me wrong and I am out here like starving

myself. Pay attention. Right. It was so common. It was actually written into Gaelic law. It was called the Truscad or Truscad. I'm going with Truscad. And it was the concept of hospitality in Ireland among the Gaelic people was so strong that it was just unthinkable to let somebody starve on your doorstep. So it was really kind of playing on two things. It was drawing attention to somebody and then it was also showing what a terrible person they were for letting this person starve on their doorstep. The thing is, this is real, that really happened. Like it comes up in some of the epics from the Gaelic culture and like it's documented that it was a real thing. But what's not documented is it's linked to the IRA hunger strikes of the beginning of the 20th

century and then toward the end of the 20th century. Because nobody involved in those ever said I'm doing, I'm pulling a Truscad. They didn't link it to it. But you could make a case that it was kind of like in the culture to think of doing something like that because it had been around for hundreds of years. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. And it continued like in the early 1900s, there were, how do we say it, suffragists? Suffragists. Suffragists. Yeah, like how you call a female or male server a server or a female or male actor and actor. We don't do, you know. I know. The David Bowie song always confuses me though. Well, it's a good song and it should remain. But they would undergo hunger strikes, but they would bring in sort of like religious

iconography sometimes and sort of paint themselves as martyrs. They would invoke the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc and stuff like that. And again, this is not exactly the same thing, but this is just to say that in the early 1900s, there were women in Ireland that were undergoing these hunger strikes. They also happened in Russia. And I think they called some of these like the Russian method. They would get their, they would do this reverse, like force feeding, like reverse stomach pumping to force feed some of these people. Sometimes that would kill them. So it was just a nasty way to draw attention. And the way that it was countered was also nasty. Yeah. So the first IRA members to hunger strike, go on hunger strike were inspired by the suffragists

who were sometimes in the same prison as them. The first IRA member to do it was James Connolly, who went on hunger strike in 1913 and was actually released from prison as a result. And then a few years later, the case of Thomas Ash drew national, I think maybe even international attention, because he went on hunger strike and they accidentally killed him when they tried to force feed him. Yeah. They pumped milk and eggs into his lungs by accident, which is, I mean, it's hard to think of like what kind of an awful death after you're already starving yourself. Right. And we should also point out to that another similarity that they had with these original early 1900s suffragists with their hunger strikes is they were, and this is a very key

thing for what ended up being, you know, the hunger strikes in the 1980s that we're going to talk about in a bit, but they, one of their main aims was to be looked at as political prisoners and not criminal prisoners. Yeah. That was a big ongoing thread throughout all of this. All of this, starting with the suffragists and then all the way into the 80s with the modern IRA. So, I mean, should we talk about that for a minute? Yeah, sure. Well, you know, there's a huge difference in being viewed as a criminal and wearing prisoners' clothing and having a prisoner's rights, which are to say, like criminal prisoners' rights, which are to say not very many and what they were fighting for and what the IRA was later

fighting for in the 80s and the 70s, which was we're political prisoners. We want to be able, we don't want to look like common criminals. We want to wear our own clothes. We want to be able to associate with each other and walk about outside of ourselves and congregate. And in 1976, you know, they allowed this for a while, but 1976, the British government said, no, we're going to treat you like your terrorist and like your common criminals. And you've got to wear these. You can't congregate anymore. You've got to wear, you know, a prisoner's jumpsuit. And this was a big, big deal. It really was for a number of reasons. One, the reason why the Brits said we're not going to recognize you as political prisoners was because they had it at

first. And they decided that this was generating too much sympathy and legitimizing the IRA and its struggle for Irish independence way too much. And by casting them as criminals, rather than political prisoners, they were saying like, hey, these people are dangerous. They're thugs. They're terrorists. And you should be on the side of us, the Brits and the Protestants who are cleaning up the streets and getting these people off the streets and into jail. So it wasn't just the the way your day-to-day life panned out in prison. It was also like the larger public perception, a battle for that that was going on, that both sides were really entrenched in their way of thinking with that. Well, yeah. And that's the reason a hunger strike in the case of the IRA was,

or could be at least very effective as a PR tool, because a common criminal prisoner, is it going to literally starve themselves to death for a cause? So on one hand, you have the British government saying, we're not going to recognize you. You're just terrorists. On the other hand, you've got the IRA starving themselves to death, fighting for rights to wear their own clothing. I think this one thing you sent me said, as far as them congregating, is that in prison, they just saw that as another IRA headquarters, basically. Yeah, they did a lot of strategizing in the early 70s. And they were able to chuck because of something called Operation Demetrius. And that was something that the British army carried out in 1971. And it ended up backfiring

because it generated a tremendous amount of public sympathy for the IRA and its movement. Because the British army just started rounding up suspected members of the IRA and put them in what amounted to a prisoner of war camp. There was no due process. They didn't get to plead their case in front of a judge. If they accidentally got scooped up and they really had nothing to do with the IRA, TS, there was no recourse for getting out of there. And they set up, the Brits set up a prisoner of war camp in Northern Ireland to hold, I think, hundreds and hundreds of prisoners starting in 1971. And it really, really rubbed the public the wrong way because it's 1971. You know, this isn't like the 17th century all over again. It's 1971. And they're rounding

people up and holding them in prisoners of prisoner of war camps against their will. That's crazy. Yeah. So, you know, a hunger strike could be a pretty effective way to draw attention to this. You know, Ed points out a few things about hunger strikes that could make it more effective, which is obviously to do it as a collective action is a much stronger message that you're sending than any individual. So, if you have a group with a political cause, you're going to get more attention. You know, it casts the prison officials in a light of which they're either allowing these people to starve to death, which is, you know, a monstrous thing to do, or they're force feeding them, which sometimes kills them, which is a monstrous thing to do.

And, you know, your body basically shuts down. I think we've talked about starvation in other episodes before, but, you know, your body uses up your fat stores. And once that's gone, it starts literally like eating at your muscle, eating at your internal organs. And between, you know, 40 and 70 something days, your body is going to finally succumb to organ failure and you're going to die. Yeah. Once your body starts eating its own organs, you're in trouble. And even if you manage to survive the hunger strike, you probably have done some serious permanent damage to yourself. So, like we were saying, after Operation Demetrius, right, they rounded up a bunch of suspected IRA members, treated them as prisoners of war.

But at the same time, they were also busting other IRA leaders with legitimate and legitimate criminal acts like gun possession, things like that. So, you had two groups of IRA prisoners being treated separately, the ones in the internment camp being treated like political prisoners or prisoners of war, and then the ones in the jail being treated like common criminals. So, to kind of get the same treatment in the jail as the political prisoners in the POW camps were given, a guy named Billy McKee, who was an IRA leader, staged the first modern hunger strike in 1972. That's right. And it was an effective strategy for about four years. But this was right at that time, I think it was 1976 when they had that shift from recognizing

them as political prisoners to just, you know, criminal prisoners. So, this was pre that time and kind of led up to that shift. Yeah. And then, so, you've got the criminalization campaign being carried out by the Brits and the Protestants in Northern Ireland who are running the government. And remember, it has a twofold effect. Like, you can no longer congregate, you can no longer strategize, we're no longer going to recognize your hierarchy of ranks and just deal with your leaders. Like, you're just a common criminal now. And it also turned the tables on the IRA prisoners who had formerly been treated with general respect by the guards. The guards were let loose on these people. And it led to a really horrible time to be an IRA prisoner because it's almost like there

was pen up rage or something among the guards. And they just released it on the prisoners. They poured scalding water on them. They hosed them down with cold water hoses in winter time. They beat them regularly and routinely. And again, they were treated as common criminals. And it was a, from what I can tell, from about 1976 to 1981 was about as bad a time as you could be an IRA prisoner as there ever was. Yeah. We'll take a break in a sec. But before we do, I do want to mention the movie that I watched today because I figured there was probably a movie about this. Steve McQueen, the director that did 12 Years a Slave and Shane directed his first movie actually. Nymphomaniac. Was it Nymphomaniac you watched? No, no, no. That wasn't him. Oh,

wait, was that that? No, that was Lars von Trier. Yeah, but he did one where Fossbender is a sex addict, right? That's Shane. Okay, Shane, that's what I meant. Is that what you watched? No, no, no, that's not what I watched. You're like, when's the hunger strike gonna start? It was his first movie from 2008 also with Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, who we'll, you know, get to after the break, but it was called Hunger. And boy, oh boy, I recommend it in one sense in that it was a powerful film, but it was hard to watch, my friend. I can imagine. It was brutal. It's a very, the way he structures it is sort of a kind of a non-traditional narrative. It's not like a traditional biopic that you would expect. It's a very quiet, not a lot of dialogue.

It's only 96 minutes long, but it's a very slow paced film. But just a really, I mean, I get the sense that it was a really realistic depiction of those years that you were talking about between 76 and 81. And these guys were just brutalized, man. They were like, they would call in the riot squad and basically open the cells and throw their naked bodies into the hallway and beat them with batons and like, like cut off their hair and their beards like till they were bloody. And it was, it was a very, very tough movie to watch. And the hunger strike part of it is only like the last 20 minutes or so of the film. The whole first part is just sort of the conditions in prison and what's going on. So I recommend it on one hand. It is not for the faint of heart,

but we'll kind of take a break now and we'll talk about what else is going on in the prisons in 1976 right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush

boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangeh Shatikler and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and

pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So in the film and in real life, in fact, this is how the film starts out is

the first prisoner that comes in, refuses his prison clothes. And that's what started the blanket protest when they were basically like, I'm not going to wear your common criminal outfit. And they basically said, okay, well, you're just going to be naked 24 seven for years. And here's your blanket and that's going to be your clothing. And that's what they did. It's called the blanket protest. That first prisoner under this new criminalization scheme said, final, just wear a blanket. And like in very short order, I think 400 other IRA prisoners did the same thing. It's called the blanket protest. They were all just naked in the movie the whole time. Were they really? Yeah. Have you seen the new kids in the hall?

I haven't yet. I'm dying too, though. Are they naked the whole time? No, but in some places and it's like, wow, it's pretty hilarious. Really? Yeah. And I have to say, I think they're better than they were in the first go-round. Oh, wow. Which is very surprising, but it really, I laughed out loud more than I did, than I remember doing in the average kids in the hall episode. Okay. Well, I was a little actually worried to watch it. Don't be. For fear of like, they're not going to be as great anymore. And I would be, it would taint the original or something. No, definitely not. And I've never understood that.

Okay. How does something like a follow up taint in original? It doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't taint the original. It taints the whole for me sometimes as a whole memory. I got you. Yeah, that makes more sense for sure. But yeah, it doesn't mean like, those originals aren't funny now. It's not like that. It's just like, oh, like, oh boy, then they went on to do something not good. So yeah, I wouldn't worry about that. And I don't want to talk it up too much. So you're expecting like, yeah, I don't want you to be let down, but I don't think you will be. Fantastic. Can't wait. Nakedness. Yeah. So yeah, so this blanket protest, I'm not sure how long it went on, but it went on for

quite a while. And it happened during that period that I guess hunger covers, which again, is about the worst time you could be an IRA prisoner, because like they weren't doing this to common criminals that were in the same prison, they were doing it to the IRA members. So they went from treating them as political prisoners with a general amount of respect and all of the freedoms that that came with to regularly beating them and posing them down with cold water in the winter and like taking their clothes. And like that was the shift, the change in treatment. And they were doing it to the IRA because they were trying to send a message. The British government was like, this is what we

think of you. This is how we're going to treat you. You should probably stop right now because this is what you can expect if we catch you from now on. That gentlemen's agreement that we had before, that's gone. Yeah. So in 1978, and the film kind of portrays the blanket protest as concurrent with the dirty protest. Not sure if that's the case, because the dirty protest came around in 1978. This is when, and this was really gross and hard to watch in the film. Oh, I'm sure Steve McQueen covered it very well. I know. And believe it or not, this makes me want to see 12 Years a Slave more because like I knew it was tough, but now that I've seen this,

I know it's going to be hard to sit through again and I'm still avoiding it, but I want to see it more because I know it's going to be like super realistic, I think. So hunger was your gateway drug to 12 Years a Slave? I guess so. But the dirty protest is when the prisoner said, all right, well, if we're going to be in here and you're not going to give us any rights, we're not going to bathe. We're going to smear our feces all over the wall and our food all over the wall. And we're going to take our urine and feces and dump it under the cell door out into the hallway. So you have to deal with it. And it was a very, very, it's a disgusting movie to watch, but this really happened. So one of the other things that happened too was that among those IRA prisoners who were

treated like this, they formed a bond that has probably never been formed in the history of humanity because no group was ever necessarily subjected to that exactly like that in exactly the same way. So I mean, I'm sure there are other similar bonds among enslaved and imprisoned populations, but because they were already fighting for a cause that they believed in and they were suffering for a cause that they believed in, this stepped up treatment just made that bond between them even stronger. So one of the things that came out of all this was what's called the five demands. And it was basically like you could summarize it as we want to be treated like political prisoners again. Yeah. And they're all reasonable demands. One was, again, to wear their own clothes.

Number two was to not have to go on work detail. They said they wanted to be allowed a visit and a package and a letter, one, one and one per week. And in the film, they did get visitors and they were smuggling in all kinds of things under the table, which is always a great part of any prison film. Sure. They wanted the freedom to associate again and organize and congregate. And then they wanted to revoke any of the punishments that happened because of these protests that were already in place. Yeah. And like you said, they're reasonable and they're so reasonable. They almost seem small, like the IRA is going through this and that's all they want. But again, remember being treated like a political prisoner has a lot to do with optics in the general public, right? Yeah. So that makes a

little more sense that it was just that is all they were asking for. And they got a big assist by a woman named Bernadette McCaliskey, who had been a member of Parliament, not the George Clinton version, but like the original. She played keyboards. So she was fairly well known and she actually ran in the European Parliament on a five-demand platform in 1979. And there was an assassination attempt on her life from the Ulster Defense Force, which was one of those paramilitary groups that began at the beginning of the troubles. But they were a Protestant paramilitary group. And she survived the assassination attempt and would show up to rallies and protests on crutches. But she did a really great job at focusing public support

and attention on what was going on in the prisons and the protests that were being carried out and why they were being carried out. That's right. And following that, the early 1980s, this is when we saw sort of the two main modern hunger strikes. There was the one in the 70s, but the two in the 80s really, I think, got the most media attention. One began October 27th, 1980. And this was, I believe, seven strikers quit eating again to try and get these five demands carried through. It lasted 53 days. And remember, that's right in the wheelhouse of where you could die. And one named Sean McKenna was very near death. And this whole time, Margaret Thatcher is, she's known as the Iron Lady for a reason. And she was very much a hardliner. And I think it was a

direct quote in the movie. She said basically that these terrorists are resorting to a last resort, which is pity, that we should have pity on them. But basically, that's not going to happen. But she was prepared to come to a settlement in this case because of the optics. The strike did end because they didn't want Sean McKenna to die, because that would be really bad optics. So that was the 1980 strike preceding the one in March of 81. Yeah. And the reason the March of 81 hunger strike started is because the Brits had agreed verbally to giving in on the five demands and treating the IRA prisoners as political prisoners again, and then reneged on it. They just didn't follow through. They never got it in writing,

basically, is what it amounted to. And so they staged an even bigger, even more public hunger strike starting March 1st, 1981. And I think it involved at least 23 hunger strikers. But rather than all striking beginning at the same time like they did in October, they staggered it, five people a week, so that this hunger strike would be drawn out even longer. Yeah. And that makes sense. I also was wondering too during the film, or before the film, why can't they just quash this in the press and not let any of this out? Because a hunger strike is only good if the public knows about it. But they were still getting visitors throughout this whole time. So there were Bobby Sands' parents visited him in prison and saw like his condition as he

was slipping away. And we mentioned Sands because he was very much the main public face of this 81 strike. Bobby Sands actually was elected to the British House of Commons while he was wasting away in prison. He obviously wasn't allowed to campaign or anything like that and couldn't have because he was slowly dying of starvation. But this was a very big deal that he was actually elected to the House of Commons. Yeah, it was a big deal because it focused a tremendous amount of public attention. Like every paper in the world was writing about how a guy in prison was elected to parliament. And now that we're talking about him, why is he in prison? And oh, he's on a hunger strike. Why is he on a hunger strike? So it was a really big PR coup for the IRA. But then

also politically speaking, it was a really big signal that the only way he could have been elected was if moderate Catholics who normally just didn't go to the polls because they didn't want to support the IRA, but they also weren't about to vote for a Protestant candidate, they came out and they voted for the IRA member. So it showed that the average person in Northern Ireland, the average Catholic, was really upset with how the British were treating the IRA and their treatment of the IRA was starting to backfire and that it was generating public sympathy and support that hadn't been there before. Yeah. And we should point out, he was a young guy. He was 26 years old when he started this strike and I think he turned 27 during the strike. So he wasn't, you know, I

think I had heard of Bobby Sands and I always just sort of pictured him as maybe some guy in his 40s for some reason. Me too. But he was a very young guy and he finally, you know, died of starvation on May 5th. This was 66 days into the strike. Riots start erupting all over the place and protest all over the world. Basically, it was a very, very public matter. And I remember hearing about this when I was a kid, even though I didn't understand what was going on. I remember hearing about Bobby Sands dying. Oh yeah. Wow. It was definitely not in my wheelhouse at the time. I think I was playing with a Tonka truck maybe. No. I remember big news events like that though. I didn't, you know, I remember John Lennon dying and I was like, he's the guy with the round glasses.

Yeah. That kind of thing. So when Sands died, that was a really, really big deal. Thousands and thousands of people turned out for his funeral, including very famously IRA paramilitary members who were wearing like balaclavas basically at the funeral. Along the streets, along his funeral procession, there were thousands more people, you know, who turned out. So it showed just how much like people supported the IRA or at the very least sympathize with the IRA that they were willing to die to starve themselves to death for their cause. And Bobby Sands knew he was going to die. He said toward the beginning, he fully expected to die. Yeah. And he did. He put his, he did what I would say most of us would never do. He starved himself to death for the cause that

he believed in to help the cause that he believed in, to help to basically serve as an inspiration, to show this cause means so much that me and some other people are willing to die, to starve ourselves to death. Brutal, brutal death. To help, to help further the cause, to help generate publicity for this cause. So by the way, Fassbender dropped 40 pounds for this role. So he kind of pulled a Christian bail. It was, it was really like tough to see that, you know, on screen. I mean, he's already, he's a pretty slight guy, even like under normal circumstances, you know? He weighed 170 and dropped down to 130. Wow. He apparently ate like nuts and berries and stuff every day, and that was about it. Wow. So Sands obviously was the main headline, but he was just one of 10 men

that died in prison during these hunger strikes. I think there were 23 total, 13 survived. And Ed is keen to point out that, you know, the reason that some of these men survived is, you know, eventually you're going to lose consciousness and your family might step in and, you know, you're going to get your medical nutrition intravenously in that case. That wasn't the case, obviously, with the 10 who did, who did die in prison. But I think in a lot of the cases of the 13 that survived was because they weren't able to make their own choice and their family intervened. Right. So this strike, get this, this hunger strike, the second one went on from March 1st, 1981 to October 3rd, 1981 and claimed the lives of 10 men, 10 people died during that brief period

of time from hunger, from starving themselves. And it finally ended, at least in part, because one of the villains in this story, Humphrey Atkins, who was at the time the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and was very much aligned with the no pity viewpoint of Margaret Thatcher, he was replaced. He was replaced by somebody who wasn't quite as much a hardliner, a guy named James Pryor. And Pryor is like, I want to put an end to this. So let's start negotiating. And they ended the strike on October 3rd, 1981, again, with 10 people dead in that six-month period from starvation. Yeah. And it kind of depends on which side you're on and whether or not you believe it was an effective thing because they ended up sort of in a roundabout way

getting a lot of the five demands met. But it was never like an official declaration that you are a political prisoner and we're going to meet your five demands. So if you look at it from the Thatcher side, they never gave in. If you look at it from the IRA side, they ended up in a roundabout way getting the same status. But I think there were probably a lot of IRA too that saw it as a defeat because they weren't officially recognized as such. Right. And we should say going on outside the prison gates in Northern Ireland throughout this time are car bombings, assassinations, protests, riots. There were a lot of riots around Northern Ireland when Bobby Sands died. And so it's not like this is the only thing the IRA

was doing. We just focused on this. But one of the things that came out of these hunger strikes was this idea, especially among the Sinn Féin leadership, that they were never going to liberate Northern Ireland just through the paramilitary, that it was going to require politics. And this showed, especially the election of Bobby Sands to parliament while he was in prison, that the IRA was viable politically speaking. Yeah. It's going to be real interesting to see what happens moving forward. Yeah. But that's where they can source that where they are today is pretty much there from those hunger strikes in 1981.

Yeah. And I would love to hear from our listeners in Northern Ireland and in the Irish Republic what their thoughts are of... Because I trust stuff you should know, listeners generally, is being alive in the world and having studied learned opinions, learned opinions. So I would love to hear from both sides to see what they think. I want to know what the tenor is over there. Yeah. Same here. The word on the street. The word on the cobblestone street. You got anything else? No. This is a good one, Chuck. Good pick. I'm glad we did it. And since I said I'm glad we did it, it's time, of course, for Listener Mail. By the way, do you know... I'm way late on this, but do you know Bono's son has a band?

No. They may sound... No. He has a band called Inhaler and I just heard about it and listened to it. They put out an album last summer and it sounds exactly like you two. Oh boy. He sounds just like his dad and it has the energy of the early you two. It's really good. I like it. Yeah. Okay. I'm good. Yeah. I don't mean that in a negative derivative way. Your voice sounds like somebody you're related to just by genetics. I don't think he's like, I want to sound like my dad. Sure. Yeah. I don't think he's using auto-teen like that. I'm just surprised he didn't go in like a totally different direction musically, like maybe like folk rock or folk prog or something. Yeah. I mean, I did see that. I read some reviews too. Some people kind

of knocked it for like going for that, you know, big stadium, anthemic you two thing right out of the gate. But, you know, stuff it is what I say where the sun don't shine. Let someone make the music they want to make and good for them if they're getting huge. I love it. Yeah, for sure. All right. So this is just one of many squirrel emails we got. Who knew that that was going to generate so much email? Momo did. Oh man, it's crazy. Like we got videos of people scritching on little squirrels that they've been feeding, squirrels crawling up people's laps and up there sitting on their shoulder like wild squirrels. It's pretty amazing. Like white albino squirrels or black squirrels. Where was it that had the ones with the big long ears? I don't know. No,

I didn't see those. Oh, those Toronto or is it Utah? I'm guessing Utah. I can't remember. I feel bad now, but yeah, they have these little sort of wizard long ears that stick up. It's amazing. Wizard ears? Yeah, you know, wizard ears, elf ears. That wizard. Oh, okay. I got you. Elf and wizards, right? Yeah, I don't think so. Not according to Gary Giacs. All right. All right, so here we go. In the recent squirrel episode, Chuck said, show me a kid that can get a squirrel and hit it with a stick. And here's my story. 2020, my wife and I were on a National Park road trip in the Western US. And while hiking in Zion, I heard a commotion on the trail behind me. I looked back, a couple was rushing over to the side of the trail where there was a significant

drop off because her son had gone over the edge. It was terrifying to witness, but thankfully the boy had been had gotten caught on a tree and was not noticeably injured. Here's how we got there. The boy spotted a squirrel in the trail and hit it with a stick. It came after and screeched at the boy, startling him and causing him to retreat straight over the ledge. Let this be a teaching moment. Don't go after squirrels with sticks or you may be in for a nasty spill. And that is from Reed Stiller in Dallas, Texas, who is a Texas A&M grad and came to Athens for the Aggies Bulldogs game a couple of years ago and had a great time in Athens and said to come out to College Station for a game and you will have a great time as well. Very nice. Thanks for the invite. We appreciate

that. Who was that? That is Reed Stiller. Well, thanks a lot, Reed. We appreciate that big time. That is a really good story, actually, my evil part says. If you want to get in touch with us like Reed did, you can send us an email to stuffpodcastatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Life, tell everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Shtetikler and it turns out astrology is way

more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's to the great American settlers. The millions of you have settled for unsatisfying jobs because they pay the bills. Of course, there is something else you could do if you got something to say. Start a podcast with Spreaker from I Heart

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