Laurence McKeown

Laurence McKeown ( Irish : Labhrás Mac Eoghain ), (* 1956 in Randalstown , County Antrim in Northern Ireland .) Is a writer , playwright , screenwriter and was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), which took part in the Irish hunger strike in 1981 .

Laurence McKeown intended to become an architect and at the age of 16 he took up a job in an appraisal office. He joined the IRA at age 17 and was arrested in August 1976 when explosives were found on him and he was suspected of murdering a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary . He was found guilty in April 1977 and was imprisoned in Maze Prison for life .

In prison, McKeown took part in the Blanket Protest and Dirty Protest in an attempt to regain special category status with privileges for paramilitary Republican prisoners. In the late 1980s this conflict escalated further, leading to a 53-day hunger strike , which the British government was able to end with pledges, and in which there were no deaths. When it became clear that not all of the strikers' demands had been met - especially to wear their own clothing - the 1981 Irish hunger strike began on March 1, led by Bobby Sands , the commander of the IRA in the prison. McKeown went on strike on June 29, 1981 after Sands and three other prisoners died. After six more strikers died, the McKeown family authorized medical intervention to save his life on September 6, 1981, the seventieth day of his hunger strike.

He described his rescue in an interview:

"You're very sleepy and very, very tired and you're sort of nodding off to sleep but something's telling you to keep waking up. This was the thing that kept everybody going through the hunger strike in trying to live or last out as long as possible. I knew death was close but I wasn't afraid to die - and it wasn't any sort of courageous or glorious thing. I think death would have been a release. You can never feel that way again. It's not like tiredness. It's an absolute, total, mental and physical exhaustion. It's literally like slipping into death. "(" You get very sleepy and very, very tired and you want to sleep, but something is keeping you awake. That was what got us all through the hunger strike: that we tried to last as long as possible I knew I was close to death; I wasn't afraid to die - it has nothing to do with courage or glorious things. I think death would have been a liberation. You can never feel that way again. It isn't like tiredness. It is an absolute, total, mental and physical exhaustion. It is literally the sleep in death. "

McKeown was released in 1992, completed his bachelor's degree in social science from the Open University , which he had previously taken in prison, and then graduated with a Ph.D. from Queen's University Belfast . He co-founded the Belfast Film Festival in the mid-1990s and wrote two books on Republican prisoners in Maze Prison, co-authored by Brian Campbell and Felim O'Hagan: Nor Meekly Serve My Time: The H-Block Struggle 1976 -1981 . It was published in 1994 and his book Out Of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners, Long Kesh, 1972-2000 was published in 2001. McKeown and Campbell were co-authors of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike film H3 , directed by Les Blair and premiered in cinemas on September 28, 2001. Before Campbell's death in 2005, they co-wrote two plays: The Laughter of Our Children that 2001, and A Cold House that was first performed in 2003. The first stage play, The Official Version , which McKeown wrote alone, debuted on September 18, 2006. In 2006, a two-part television documentary by him entitled Hunger Strike , which was broadcast on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Irish Hunger Strike in 1981 by the Raidió Teilifís Éireann , was released has been.

McKeown was also responsible for setting up the Coiste na n-Iarchimí , an umbrella organization of republican groups in which former prisoners are organized.

Works

• Nor Meekly Serve My Time: The H-Block Struggle 1976-1981 (1994, with Brian Campbell and Felim O'Hagan) ISBN 978-0-9514229-5-3 .
• Out Of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners, Long Kesh, 1972-2000 (2001) ISBN 978-1-900960-10-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Laurence McKeown (born 1956) . Searc's. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 5, 2007. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Melanie McFadyean: The legacy of the hunger strikes . The Guardian . March 4, 2006. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
3. ^ A Chronology of Main Events . CAIN. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
4. ↑ ^{a b} List of Dead and Other Hunger Strikers . CAIN. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
5. ^ Provos The IRA & Sinn Féin , p. 250.
6. ^ The prison that served its time . BBC . July 27, 2000. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Long Kesh memories . Irish Resistance Books. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
8. ^ Harsh facts of the hunger strikes . The Sunday Business Post . September 30, 2001. Archived from the original on December 21, 2004. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 5, 2007. 
9. ↑ Lawrence McKeown . dollee.com. Archived from the original on April 22, 2005. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 5, 2007. 
10. ↑ A Cold House . Phoblacht . May 22, 2003. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
11. ^ Aine Ni Bhriain: New play commemorates Hunger Strikes . Phoblacht . September 14, 2006. Retrieved October 5, 2007.
12. ↑ Emmanuel Kehoe: Hunger strikes: A tale of two Irelands . The Sunday Business Post . May 7, 2006. Archived from the original on August 28, 2006. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 5, 2007. 
13. ↑ Laurence McKeown: Out from behind the doors . Phoblacht . January 25, 2007. Retrieved October 5, 2007.