Word: hungering
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Catherine Quinn's desperate boldness sent a wave of hope through hundreds of families who live in dread of the sudden news that their sons have volunteered to starve. When the name of the latest hunger volunteer, Liam McCloskey, 25, was announced last week, his parents protested to the I.R.A. that their son had a chronic ear infection that could cause early death. They dared to express their indignation...
Nonetheless, some families are caught up in the cause even more than their sons. Hunger Striker Raymond McCreesh, 24, went about 50 days without food and one day wondered aloud to a member of the prison staff if a single glass of milk would violate his fast. After all, McCreesh said hesitantly, it was only liquid, like the five pints of water and salt he took each...
...them pulled a chair close to the bed, for by now Raymond was partly deaf, and reminded the prisoner that he had made a pledge to his comrades. Then the relative alluded to the first hunger striker to die this year: "Remember, Bobby Sands is waiting for you in heaven." Raymond gave up asking for milk and died a week later...
...always, as life goes on in the Maze, the I.R.A. men are inspired and haunted by those who are about to die. The fate of the hunger strikers dominates the prison. Guided by orders from outside the Maze, McFarlane and his lieutenants still have a great deal of control over the prisoners and spend hours picking volunteers to replace the strikers who die. The leaders choose grit rather than physical strength, often quoting Bobby Sands, a small man, who said of his own hunger experience: "The body fights back, sure enough, but at the end of the day, everything returns...
...pressure from fellow prisoners is heavy. To volunteer to go on strike and then quit would be an overwhelming disgrace, roughly akin to the basic Irish horror of becoming an informer. One prisoner, Sean MacStiofain, at the time the No. 2 man in the I.R.A., started a hunger strike in 1972 and quit after 57 days. He was relieved of his command...