Reviews

Taken inside infamous Long Kesh prison in Belfast, the reader of this searing journal experiences the emotional stranglehold that the legacy of troubled Ireland has on 10 men who in 1981 chose to perish in a hunger strike. Written by a reporter who covered the story for The Guardian , the book is shaped around secret communications, scraps of cigarette paper which the prisoners wrote on and concealed in bodily orifices until the messages could be smuggled outside to the IRA leadership. These ``comms'' are intimate, meticulous records of the men who went first ``on the blanket'' in naked protest, then to their self-scheduled deaths. We see and hear the families, alike and yet different in their grief; the churchmen and political leaders in attempts to dissuade and negotiate; and ``Iron Lady'' Margaret Thatcher, resolute in the grim battle of wills. In the final compelling words of Beresford, ``They died for a cause more ancient than the gray walls of Long Kesh prison.'' (Mar.)

The author, a journalist from The Guardian , was given access to the secret IRA communications (``comms'') that flowed in and out of the H Blocks at Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland during the strike. These add an important new dimension to the history of the event. The choice of the hunger strike, the goals, the recruitment of volunteers, the agony of the ten deaths, and the capitulation of the IRA, in the end, to the families who would not allow their sons to die, is recounted with compelling intensity. Beresford writes with empathy for all those involved, but his book is not an IRA tract. His excellent, thorough narrative finds blame enough for everybody, and serves to show how the hunger strike tragedy mirrors the larger tragedy of Ulster. Recommended to those who want to know more about the IRA and the price nationalism extracts from its supporters.-- Richard B. Finnegan, Stonehill Coll., North Easton, Mass.