Chapter 10
The Hunger Strike—A Weapon
When the Administration refused to grant the demand of the prisoners and of that portion of the public which supported them, for the rights of political prisoners, it was decided to resort to the ultimate protest-weapon inside prison. A hunger strike was undertaken, not only to reinforce the verbal demand for the rights of political prisoners, but also as a final protest against unjust imprisonment and increasingly long sentences. This brought the Administration face to face with a more acute embarrassment. They had to choose between more stubborn resistance and capitulation: They continued for a while longer on the former path.
Little is known in this country about the weapon of the hunger strike. And so at first it aroused tremendous indignation. “Let them starve to death,” said the thoughtless one, who did not perceive that that was the very thing a political administration could least afford to do. “Mad fanatics,” said a kindlier critic. The general opinion was that the hunger strike was “foolish.”
Few people realize that this resort to the refusal of food is almost as old as civilization. It has always represented a passionate desire to achieve an end. There is not time to go into the religious use of it, which would also be pertinent, but I will cite a few instances which have tragic and amusing likenesses to the suffrage hunger strike.
According to the Brehon Law,[1] which was the code of ancient Ireland by which justice was administered under ancient Irish monarchs (from the earliest record to the 17th century), it became the duty of an injured person, when all else failed, to inflict punishment directly, for wrong done. “The plaintiff ‘fasted on’ the defendant.” He went to the house of the defendant and sat upon his doorstep, remaining there without food to force the payment of a debt, for example. The debtor was compelled by the weight of custom and public opinion not to let the plaintiff die at his door, and yielded. Or if he did not yield, he was practically outlawed by the community, to the point of being driven away. A man who refused to abide by the custom not only incurred personal danger but lost all character.
[1] Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol. I, Chapter VIII.
If resistance to this form of protest was resorted to it had to take the form of a counter-fast. If the victim of such a protest thought himself being unjustly coerced, he might fast in opposition, “to mitigate or avert the evil.”
“Fasting on a man” was also a mode of compelling action of another sort. St. Patrick fasted against King Trian to compel him to have compassion on his [Trian’s] slaves.[1] He also fasted against a heretical city to compel it to become orthodox.[2] He fasted against the pagan King Loeguire to “constrain him to his will.”[3]
[1] Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, CLXXVII, p. 218.
[2] Ibid. CLXXVII, p. 418.
[3] Ibid. CLXXVII, p. 556.
This form of hunger strike was further used under the Brehon Law as compulsion to obtain a request. For example, the Leinstermen on one occasion fasted on St. Columkille till they obtained from him the promise that an extern King should never prevail against them.