Biting at the Grave; The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair

Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/good. Peter Marlow (Dust Jacket photograph). xiv, 330 pages. Endpaper map. Chronology of Events. Notes. Glossary. Sources. Bibliography. Index. Dated inscription from author on title-page. DJ stained inside and has slight wear and soiling. Cover okay. Padraig O'Malley (born 1942 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish peacemaker, author and professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston who specializes in the problems of divided societies, such as Northern Ireland. He has written extensively on these subjects and has been actively involved in promoting dialogue among representatives of differing factions. O'Malley spent 20 years involved with the conflict in Northern Ireland. Working with all the political parties, he convened the Amherst Conference on Northern Ireland, the Airlie House Conference, and co-convened the Arniston Conference with the government of South Africa. In 1992, he participated in bringing some South African figures to Boston, Massachusetts for a meeting with representatives of the factions in Northern Ireland. In 1996, helped arrange a second such meeting, in Belfast. In 1997, the Arniston Conference convened all the key parties of The Northern Irish peace process in South Africa to meet with Nelson Mandela. Included in the meeting from Northern Ireland were Martin McGuinness, David Trimble and Peter Robinson. Seven weeks after the conference, Sinn Féin declared a cease fire that paved the way for the Good Friday Agreement to share power. Trimble and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, were awarded the Nobel prize for peace. Derived from a Kirkus review: O'Malley presents a moving, informed telling of the hunger strikers in Northern Ireland. Between March 1 and October 3, 1981, ten convicted terrorists starved themselves to death in the prisons of Northern Ireland in the hope of pressuring the English government into granting them political status. The first to die, IRA member Bobby Sands, was front-page news worldwide. O'Malley traces the background of Sands, the hunger strike (a vintage Irish custom), and the reactions of the various governments--each with a skeleton, so to speak, in the closet. The English government had previously granted political status to some IRA members; the government in the Republic of Ireland, although officially concerned with the rights of the Catholic minority in the North, banned the IRA and its sympathizers from radio and TV. O'Malley arranged interviews with some of the families of the hunger strikers--though Bobby Sands' family is significantly absent--and quote extensively from all the different reactions to the deaths. A familiar story told, again, once more with feeling.