Pat McGeown
Encyclopedia
Volunteer (Irish republican)
Volunteer, often abbreviated Vol., is a term used by a number of Irish republican paramilitary organisations to describe their members. Among these have been the various forms of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army...
in the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
(IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike
1981 Irish hunger strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners...
.
Background and IRA activity
McGeown was born in BelfastBelfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
on 3 September 1956, and joined the IRA's youth wing Fianna Éireann
Fianna Éireann
The name Fianna Éireann , also written Fianna na hÉireann and Na Fianna Éireann , has been used by various Irish republican youth movements throughout the 20th and 21st centuries...
in 1970. He was first arrested aged 14, and in 1973 he was again arrested and interned
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
in Long Kesh until 1974. In November 1975 McGeown was arrested and charged with possession of explosives, bombing the Europa Hotel
Europa Hotel
The Europa Hotel is a four-star hotel in Great Victoria Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland. It has hosted presidents, prime ministers and celebrities, including President Bill Clinton during his visits to Belfast in 1995 and 1998....
and IRA membership. At his trial in 1976 he was convicted and received a five-year sentence for IRA membership and two concurrent fifteen-year sentences for the bombing and possession of explosives, and was imprisoned at Long Kesh with Special Category Status
Special Category Status
In July 1972, William Whitelaw, the British government's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, granted Special Category Status to all prisoners convicted of Troubles-related offences...
.
In March 1978 he attempted to escape dressed as a prison warder along with Brendan McFarlane
Brendan McFarlane
Brendan "Bik" McFarlane is an Irish republican activist. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he was brought up in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast, Northern Ireland. At 16, he left Belfast to train as a priest in a north Wales seminary...
and Larry Marley. The escape was unsuccessful, and resulted in McGeown receiving an additional six-month sentence and the loss of his Special Category Status.
Prison protests
McGeown was transferred into the Maze Prison's H-Blocks where he joined the blanket protestBlanket protest
The blanket protest was part of a five year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners held in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. The republican prisoners' status as political prisoners, known as Special Category Status, had...
and dirty protest
Dirty protest
The dirty protest was part of a five year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners held in the Maze prison and Armagh Women's Prison in Northern Ireland.-Background:Convicted paramilitary prisoners were treated as ordinary...
, attempting to secure the return of Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. McGeown described the conditions inside the prison during the dirty protest in a 1985 interview:
In late 1980 the protest escalated and seven prisoners took part in a fifty-three day hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...
, aimed at restoring political status by securing what were known as the "Five Demands":
- The right not to wear a prison uniform;
- The right not to do prison work;
- The right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;
- The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;
- Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.
The strike ended before any prisoners had died and without political status being secured, and a second hunger strike began on 1 March 1981 led by Bobby Sands
Bobby Sands
Robert Gerard "Bobby" Sands was an Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and member of the United Kingdom Parliament who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze....
, the IRA's former Officer Commanding
Officer Commanding
The Officer Commanding is the commander of a sub-unit or minor unit , principally used in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. In other countries, the term Commanding Officer is applied to commanders of minor as well as major units.Normally an Officer Commanding is a company, squadron or battery...
(OC) in the prison. McGeown joined the strike on 9 July, after Sands and four other prisoners had starved themselves to death. Following the deaths of five other prisoners, McGeown's family authorised medical intervention to save his life after he lapsed into a coma
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
on 20 August, the 42nd day of his hunger strike.
Freedom
McGeown was released from prison in 1985, resuming his active role in the IRA's campaign and also working for Sinn FéinSinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
, the republican movement's political wing. In 1988 McGeown was charged with organising the Corporals killings
Corporals killings
The corporals killings was the killing of corporals David Robert Howes and Derek Tony Wood, two British Army soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals killed on 19 March 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The non-uniformed soldiers were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army , after they...
, an incident where two plain-clothes British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
soldiers were killed by the IRA. At an early stage of the trial his solicitor Pat Finucane argued there was insufficient evidence against McGeown, and the charges were dropped in November 1988. McGeown and Finucane were photographed together outside Crumlin Road Courthouse
Crumlin Road Courthouse
The Crumlin Road Courthouse was designed by the architect Charles Lanyon and completed in 1850. It is situated across the road from the Crumlin Road Gaol and the two are linked by an underground passage....
, a contributing factor to Finucane being killed by the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
in February 1989. Despite suffering from heart disease as a result of his participation in the hunger strike, McGeown was a member of Sinn Féin's Ard Chomhairle and active in the Prisoner of War department, and in 1989 he was elected to Belfast City Council
Belfast City Council
Belfast City Council is the local authority with responsibility for the city of Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland. The Council serves an estimated population of , the largest of any district council in Northern Ireland, while also being the fourth smallest by area...
as a local councillor.
Death
McGeown was found dead in his home on 1 October 1996, after suffering a heart attack. Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlinMitchel McLaughlin
John Mitchel McLaughlin is the former General Secretary of Sinn Féin and an MLA.McLaughlin was born in Derry city, Northern Ireland and educated at Long Tower Boys School, Derry and Christian Brothers Technical College, Derry....
said his death was "a great loss to Sinn Féin and the republican struggle". McGeown was buried in the Republican plot
Republican plot
In Ireland, a republican plot is a cemetery plot where combatants or members of various Irish republican organisations are buried in a common grave, as opposed to being buried with family members. These plots may often also hold the bodies of casualties of earlier 19th and 20th-century campaigns by...
at Belfast's Milltown Cemetery
Milltown Cemetery
Milltown Cemetery is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland.It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway. Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 and there are now approximately 200,000 of Belfast's citizens buried there. Most of those buried there are...
, and since his death is often referred to as the "11th hunger striker". In 1998 the Pat McGeown Community Endeavour Award was launched by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
, with Adams describing McGeown as a "a modest man with a quiet, but total dedication to equality and raising the standard of life for all the people of the city". A plaque in memory of McGeown was unveiled outside the Sinn Féin headquarters on the Falls Road on 24 November 2001, and a memorial plot on Beechmount Avenue was dedicated to the memory of McGeown, Kieran Nugent
Kieran Nugent
Kieran "Header" Nugent was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army and best known for being the first IRA 'blanket man' in the H-Blocks...
and Alec Comerford on 3 March 2002.