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(light dramatic music)

(car engine rumbling)

- [Radio Announcer] Radio One News at 10 o'clock

with Michael Murphy.

- [Michael] Good morning, Gardai County Louth have recovered

the body of a man believed to be murdered

by the IRA more than 20 years ago.

They body is thought to be the first

of a number of the so-called Disappeared

whose whereabouts the IRA is preparing to disclose.

The man's remains were in a coffin that was found

about seven o'clock this morning at Old Faughart Graveyard,

about four miles north of Dundalk.

The coffin is thought to have been taken there

from another location during the night.

Gardai haven't yet formally identified the victim.

(dramatic music)

(phone ringing)

(dramatic music)

(woman panting)

(light dramatic music)

- [Ed] Let's start talking

about your family history and republican background.

Tell me about your mother, your father,

your aunts and the sort of Republican influences

that came up as you were growing up?

- I come from a strong, very staunch Republican background

on both sides.

On my father's side, I had a very religious aunt

who would have said, for God and Ireland.

On my mother's side, Ireland came first, came before God.

In 1939 when the IRA very grandly declared war on England

my father and some of his comrades went over

as the expeditionary force

to wage war on the Imperial master.

- [Announcer] A scene of havoc in Broadgate, Coventry.

The crowded thoroughfare was suddenly plunged into turmoil

and confusion as a violent explosion

swept bystanders off their feet.

Five people were killed and nearly 60 injured.

The cause is attributed again to IRA agents.

- My father's two mates were arrested

and they actually didn't have anything to do

with that particular operation but they were convicted

and executed for it.

So as children growing up that's the kind of

bedtime story we would hear.

We wouldn't hear Little Red Riding Hood, we would hear

they hanged my mate Jimmy.

As children, we looked forward to these nights

when he'd gather us round

and tell us about his time in prison

- The time was fast approaching, a lad lay sentenced

for to die and on the 2nd of September

he meets his God on high.

Now he's walking to the scaffold,

head erect he shows no fear,

for on his proud and gallant shoulders,

Ireland's cross he holds so dear.

Now the cruel blow is fallen,

for Ireland he has fought and died,

and we the countrymen who bore him,

will love and honor him with pride.

Brave Tom Williams we salute you, and we never will forget,

those who planned your cruel murder,

we vow to make them all regret.

So come all you Irish rebels,

if from the path you chance to stray,

bear in the memory of the morn,

when Ireland's cross was proudly borne,

but a lad who lay within these prison walls.

- My father spent seven years altogether

interned in different prisons but he never was charged.

He often said, I blew them up before you did,

the only thing was I didn't get caught.

We had the great honor of having had three generations

of women in my family spend time in Armagh Gaol.

We would have, as children, been aware

that my aunts had a dedication to the prisoners,

create parcels for them on special occasions

which, as children, we were always very envious of

and I think it made me begin to think

prison wasn't all that bad a place to be.

You got these cakes and bars of chocolate

and you got all sorts of wonderful stuff

if you were in prison.

(dramatic music)

- [Terence] Here in Ulster, the Union Jack

is the flag of freedom and my task, my duty,

my resolve are to keep it hoisted at the top of the mast,

here in our beloved Ulster.

(crowd applauds) (dramatic music)

- The Catholic population in my growing up time

were very down-trodden people,

and very accepting of their second-class citizenship.

Whereas we, as Republicans had a kind of strange arrogance,

because we believed that we were the possessors

of the truth, the absolute truth about how the island

should be run and we believed ourselves

to be the custodians of the men of 1916,

and we, in many ways regarded ourselves as elite.

We were a very angry people actually

the runt of Republicans that were left behind in Belfast

because we always regarded the fact

that when they signed away the 6 counties,

they actually signed us away.

(upbeat music)

♪ Hear it, hear it, hear my heartbeat ♪

- Dolours be a good girl,

your aunt Bridie's ready for tea now.

♪ Pounding, pounding like a drum ♪

♪ Louder, louder, goes my heartbeat ♪

♪ As nearer, and nearer, and nearer you come ♪

♪ So hurry, hurry, says my heartbeat ♪

♪ Take me, touch me, make me thrill ♪

♪ Faster, faster, goes my heartbeat ♪

♪ I try but I cant keep it still ♪

- My aunt Bridie was an inspiration to us.

Bridie was a living martyr and as children growing up

we were always very aware of this,

of the enormous sacrifice that she had made

because of her part in the struggle.

In 1938, she went to lift an arms dump

and the volunteer who was to lift the dump,

and she was to be his escort, didn't turn up.

She decided herself that she would lift

the arms dump and she did.

(dramatic music)

It exploded on her and her hands were blown off,

her eyes were blown out and she was very badly mutilated

and she looked like that for the rest of her life.

She was 25 and my grandmother put the house into mourning,

the girls weren't allowed to go dancing,

it was like having a wake but with a living body.

She was a smoker and as children once you got to be

eight or nine you had to be able to hold the cigarette

for her and put it to her mouth and take it away

and I hated the job, I thought it was the most awful job,

I couldn't stand it, but I did it because it was Bridie.

The fact that she was in the state that she was in

and the condition she was in obliged me in some way

to continue the struggle because it validated her sacrifice

and to have ignored the struggle would have been

to make her sacrifice futile, useless.

(dramatic music)

I went in one day and I could see these great big tears

rolling down her cheeks and I went to my mother

and I said, Mummy, how can my Aunt Bridie cry

when she has no eyes?

And my mother burst into tears and said, "My poor sister",

and it was really a very, very touching, touching moment

and as a child I can remember her how much pain

actually there was in that family that they hid,

that was concealed by this strength,

this Republican strength that they maintained.

As a family they didn't cry.

We were too strong to cry and to cry was a sign of weakness.

♪ We shall overcome we shall overcome, some day ♪

- I would have still been a sixth-former at school,

doing my A-levels and we would go regularly

to the student meetings and we would take part

in the debates and the discussions as to what we could do,

to bring about civil rights, one man one vote,

one family one house and all of the slogans

that we had gathered,

because I had often debated with my father,

that this is the way that it would change and he would say,

oh, you'll learn, you'll learn as you grow up,

and I'd say, no I have learnt, I've learnt that

you didn't win the war, you fought the war in 1940,

yous didn't win, this way we can change the system.

(crowd chanting in foreign language)

♪ We shall overcome some day ♪

♪ For deep in my heart ♪

(people screaming)

- Please, God save us. (screams)

(crowd shouting)

- [Dolours] October 5th happened, the RUC were seen

in their true light as being a very sectarian police force.

Things were becoming more polarized.

I think as Republicans we began to see a glimmer of light

that there could be a change.

♪ We shall overcome ♪

♪ We shall overcome some day ♪

- [Dolours] We had long debates about the only way

to change the system was to unite the Protestant

and the Catholic working class

against the Imperialist system.

- Well I think it's been very successful so far,

we've had a very good turnout.

Now we've had some difficulties along the route

and there have been times we've been prevented

from going through, we don't like that,

but we feel that that demonstrates the fact

that in Northern Ireland we have a situation

like the Southern States of America where you do not have

the basic democratic liberty of free procession.

- This march flew its proper flag

into an outlawed Republican club banner

and this unmasked this march as nothing what-so-ever

to do with civil rights but simply an outlawed rebel march.

- [Dolours] We were marching along to Derry being stopped

at every Protestant town and being turned back

and re-routed and eventually ending up at Burntollet Bridge.

We did get a kind of warning

that it wasn't going to be peaceful

or be allowed to be peaceful.

- There is a good possibility that some stones

may be thrown, some people may be hurt.

- [Dolours] The gathered Loyalists stockpiled stones

to throw at us and they had their cudgels with nails in them

and they had all their weaponry.

Clearly the police saw them there and the police led us

into the trap.

We were massively decimated.

- We had to get into the water, and they came after us,

we tried to go up the back field to get away from them,

they surrounded us in the back, we were stuck in the water,

we waded in and out of the water for half a dozen times

up to our waists, and they all battered us

and they took a fella singly and they battered him

and then they came for another fella and they battered them,

and not one policeman in sight opened the gates, jeez!

- It was at that point I think, I looked into the eyes

of some of these people who were beating us,

and they were glazed over with some kind of hate,

and I thought to myself I thought, no,

that person is never going to want to walk alongside of me.

I'm never gonna convert those people.

(soft dramatic music)

It changed me entirely.

It brought me back round towards Republicanism.

The Northern state was rotten.

Change wouldn't be brought about by us marching

up and down the road or being hammered into the ground.

(crowd shouting)

(explosions booming)

(fire roaring)

My Aunt Kathleen was burnt out of Dover Street,

my Aunt Evelyn was burnt out of Percy Street.

The B-Specials, Loyalists and RUC brought out the guns

and began to shoot down towards the Falls Road

and we didn't have any guns, but we suddenly realized

there were no guns to protect the community.

- They machine gunned us. - All those people.

- [Reporter] Did you shoot back?

- What with, peashooters and bottles?

Armored cars paving the way for hooligans to come in?

- We found out that the young Fianna boy,

Gerald McCauley had been shot dead and I think also

the little boy in Divis Towers had been shot dead,

the young child of I think he was nine.

And so we realized it was quite serious.

There was a lot of gunfire coming

and we were dodging bullets and I decided

I'd make my way home, nothing else to do

except stand around and wait to be shot

and when I arrived home to our house

there were sitting the leadership of the Republican movement

of the day, Bobby McKnight, Billy McMillen, Jimmy Sullivan,

and they were sitting in our house, my house,

waiting for their transport to take them

across the border to Dundalk.

And I remember thinking, you cowards, you're running away

and the people of the Falls Road are now,

are being burnt out, being shot at, being murdered,

and that would have been a time

when I would have been turning against them

and I would have been looking for leadership

in a different direction.

(soldiers shouting)

- Boys, d'you want a cup of tea?

- There you are love,

that's for after your lunch or after your dinner.

- Thank you very much, appreciate it, thank you.

- The honeymoon period cannot continue forever obviously.

We're perhaps at the peak now, everybody is smiling

and swapping cups of tea and all this sort of business

and cracking jokes but unless there is a solution,

or some hope for the future,

the soldiers are not going to be welcomed on the streets.

(dramatic music)

(crowd shouting) (glass shattering)

- [Reporter] Two men have died in rioting in Belfast

after a big round up of suspects this morning

which was followed by an official announcement

that there's to be internment.

- I have decided, after consultation

with Her Majesties Government in the United Kingdom

last Thursday, to exercise where necessary,

the powers of detention and internment vested in me

as Minister of Home Affairs.

(people shouting)

- [Dolours] The place was in upheaval, but the strange thing

was that the local people had suddenly changed

and they had suddenly become Republican.

- Protestant extreme organization are shooting over

into the Catholic areas and being protected,

protected by the British army, and then they tell you,

oh, if you complain about us or say about this,

its only IRA propaganda.

Now, wait til I tell you something, everybody around here

don't need to be an IRA man,

but they'll definitely support it now!

- [Dolours] Young boys who were out throwing stones

were pulled in to have cups of tea handed to them

and sticky buns and back out to throw more stones

and there was a sea change

within the thinking of the Catholic population.

♪ If you hate the British army clap your hands ♪

♪ If you hate the British army, hate the British army ♪

♪ Hate the British army clap your hands ♪

(people shouting)

- I suppose that was the seeds of the Provisional movement

coming along and the seeds of people who had been,

not really politically inclined,

becoming politically inclined because of necessity

and they began to look to republicans as protectors.

(dramatic music)

I, Dolours Price, promise that I will promote

the objects of the Irish Republican Army

to the best of my knowledge and ability and that I will obey

all orders and regulations issued to me

by the army authority and by my superior officer.

That was basically it.

I put my hand up, I made that declaration

and I was a member of the IRA.

You had spent your life learning this as a way of life

and you had spent your life being taught

that it was a glorious way of life,

and it was a proud and honorable way of life.

When I reported to the army and said I wanted to join,

I said, I don't want to be rolling bandages,

that's not what I want to do, I want to fight,

they put me in a room with a load of rusty bullets

and some steel wool, and my job was to clean these bullets.

That incensed me, but I did it.

I obeyed all orders.

(light music)

One of my jobs was to transport explosives

from Dundalk to the Battalion areas.

I would travel to Dundalk, sometimes twice a day,

certainly four or five times a week

and have my car loaded up with explosives.

- [Ed] Where were the explosives hidden?

- [Dolours] In the door panels.

We robbed a couple of banks,

once we went in dressed as nuns.

I'm withdrawing funds on behalf

of the Irish Republican Army.

And he said to me, I need to see your credentials?

Here's my credentials, now we'll do this really calmly.

Just open the safe and fill the little bag

and we'll all get this done very quickly.

I would hire a car using a fake license

that I had been given.

I got so familiar to the soldiers on the border

that they knew me by my first name.

- [Ed] They knew you as Dolours?

- They knew me as Rosie, no Rosie was my fake name

on my driving license, on the fake license.

I found it so much easier than you would imagine

and I think that probably comes

from the recklessness of youth.

We were young we were very idealistic,

we were very dedicated.

When we carried out operations like that,

we did it in a remarkably calm way.

(crowd shouting)

(somber music)

(explosion booming) (glass shattering)

- One has just got to be blunt, almost brutal at times

at telling you your wife has lost both her legs.

Your young son has been killed in an explosion.

This is the sort of situation which we're faced with

almost daily in this hospital.

Taking a father to the morgue to identify his only child,

who is unidentifiable following an explosion.

- [Man] Marion?

- The IRA in Belfast was divided

into three operational areas, the First, the Second

and the Third Battalions, or Batts,

as they were usually called.

On top of all three Battalions, was the Brigade,

headed by the Brigade Commander.

Each Battalion also had a Commander with his own Staff.

- Cock, check that there's nothing in the breach

- The Brigade Commander was in charge of the IRA

in all of Belfast and he, never a she,

reported to the IRA's Chief of Staff.

(dramatic music)

- [Ed] It seems to be about that time

that this special squad called The Unknowns was set up,

what can you tell me about The Unknowns?

The Unknowns, they were supposed to be unknown people

who were trustworthy, dedicated, had their wits about them

and could be trusted with very specific jobs

and obeying orders without question.

I was selected to be one of them.

There would have been 12 or 13 in all.

- [Ed] Was there a Commander of The Unknowns

and to whom did he report

and from whom did he get his orders?

- Well Pat McClure would have been one of

the immediate commanders within the squad

and they would have reported back to the Officer Commanding

in Belfast who would have been Gerry Adams.

(dramatic music)

They came away very willingly because they had been told

they were going for a break, a holiday.

Occasionally volunteers who were stressed would be sent away

and given time off and taken across the border

to spend a few weeks somewhere.

They were generally in holiday mood, I just,

I mean I had to bring them across the border

and leave them there.

I believe they hung out with the local unit for a while,

that they had some fun with them,

they were taken to pubs and they did have

some kind of break.

Ultimately I believe they were shot.

We believed that informers

were the lowest form of human life.

They were less than human and death was,

was too good for them.

- [Reporter] The widowed mother of 10 children was kidnapped

last December, from her home here in the Divis Flats complex

on Belfast's Lower Falls Road.

On the evening of December 7th, four women entered the home

of Mrs Jean McConville, told her family

that their mother would be returned in half an hour,

and then left with her.

Helen, when did you last see your mother?

- On the 7th December '72.

- [Reporter] Before this did she give you any idea at all

as to why she was going to go away?

- No.

- [Reporter] Where do you think she is gone?

- I dunno.

- [Dolours] This where it gets dangerous for me.

- [Ed] Yes okay.

It's one of these areas we were talking about before okay,

so we're going to handle this very carefully

but I need to know the facts.

- [Dolours] Jean McConville was identified as an informer,

her house, her flat in Divis Flats had been discovered

to have had a transmitter where she was supposedly

passing information over to the British Army.

She was also observed by some volunteers

who were taken into Hasting Street Barracks

to be identified by a person concealed behind a blanket.

- [Ed] And what actually happened,

where was she, was she with you?

- She was behind the blanket,

she was concealed behind a blanket with a slit in it

that she could see through

and the blanket stopped short of her feet.

- [Ed] And that's how she...

- And some of the volunteers who went through

that identification process recognized the slippers.

When Cumann na mBan arrested her, and questioned her

she made an admission to the fact

that that's exactly what she had done for money.

She was ordered to be taken across the border

to be taken away and in her case

the verdict was, again, death.

Our first contact with her

was to just pick her up in the house.

- [Ed] And was again, Pat McClure.

- [Dolours] Pat and myself and another volunteer

took her and we went with her across the border.

She having told everything believed

that she was being taken away by the legion of Mary.

- [Ed] Where did she get that idea from?

- [Dolours] She was told that.

- [Ed] By you?

- [Dolours] Yes.

And it was only at that stage that I realized

even that she had children.

- [Pat] All right, chips for everybody?

- [Dolours] And she talked a lot

and she was very arrogant.

- My children, they will be brought to me?

- Yes I'm sure they will be.

- Will they give me money, will they get me a house?

- Well I imagine so.

- I knew those Provo bastards

wouldn't have the balls to shoot me.

- [Dolours] And at one point she said,

"I knew those Provo bastards

"wouldn't have the balls to shoot me."

And the Provo bastards who were driving her

thought oh, wouldn't they?

Which was unfortunate for her, she talked too much.

She was left in Dundalk with the Dundalk unit

and stayed with them for some days.

- [Ed] But I understand that the Dundalk IRA

didn't want to do it?

- [Dolours] They didn't want to do it, no.

- [Ed] So you guys had to do it, is that right?

- [Dolours] Yeah.

They couldn't bring themselves to execute her,

probably because she was a woman.

- [Ed] What actually happened that day?

- There had been a grave dug by the Dundalk Unit

and she was taken by the three volunteers to the grave

and shot in the back of the head by one of the volunteers

and then the other two volunteers each fired a shot

so that no-one would say that they for certain

had been the person to kill her.

She was left in the grave and the local unit buried her.

- [Ed] They covered up the grave?

- Yeah.

(somber music)

- [Ed] There are those who regard the disappearing of people

as a war crime, do you think its a war crime?

- I think its a war crime yes.

I think its a war crime.

It had never before been done

within the Irish Republican Army.

I certainly advocated and said that it was nonsense,

that informers should be thrown out,

their bodies should be thrown out on the street

to put the fear of God and the Republican movement

into anybody who would choose that form of life.

(glass shattering) (explosions booming)

We had lots of discussions as to what we could do

to bring the war to a higher level.

It was at that time that we discussed the possibility

of bringing the war to England,

back to what my father had done.

We selected targets that were emblems of the British Empire.

Gerry Adams was there.

Gerry announced to the room

that this was a very serious operation

they were being asked to volunteer for

and that it could be a hanging job,

and he instructed those who did not wish

to have any further input into the operation,

he instructed them to leave.

I was very shocked and surprised

that people were so unwilling to actually undertake

an important operation,

which I was only too happy and too willing to undertake.

(somber music)

I carried the role of OC on that operation.

We could set off 10 car bombs in Belfast

and they would have little effect

on the English public opinion but that one car bomb

in London would change English opinion

to such an extent that they would perhaps

begin to call to have their troops taken out.

A lot of time and effort was put into planning

the operation which was decided should happen

on the 8th March which was the day

there was to be a Referendum held in the North

as to whether or not people of the North

wish to remain part of Britain or not

and that being a foregone conclusion,

the car bombs placed in London

were to be the IRA response to that referendum.

The plan was that we would take six car bombs,

four cars got through, I had already been to London

to select the targets.

The boys had been instructed to not acknowledge each other,

to be oblivious of each other,

nothing untoward was to happen

and they of course disobeyed all of that,

went to pubs, got drunk, were carried into boarding houses,

and generally the thing became a haimes.

As I approached Gerry Kelly outside the art museum

in Trafalgar Square he was leapfrogging

over the bollards and shouted across the road to us,

what about yous, in a broad Belfast accent.

(phone ringing)

But having said all of that it didn't really matter,

we were set up.

(sirens wailing)

- [Reporter] Unidentified terrorists strike

at the heart of London.

The first bomb explodes in Great Scotland Yard

on the riverside of White Hall injuring 38 people.

The second bomb explodes outside the Old Bailey,

shattering the windows and buildings...

- [Reporter] in the explosions, one man was killed,

two policemen were seriously hurt,

more than 180 people were injured,

police concentrated their hunt for the bombers on the IRA.

London now knows what Belfast is like.

- The police in London were waiting for us,

they knew we were coming, they had my photograph

and Marian's photograph available to Special Branch

so basically the operation was going to be a failure

from the start.

- [Ed] Was there an informer on the job?

- There was an informer.

There was an informer back in Ireland.

(dramatic music)

They interrogated Marian first and she said nothing.

And then they interrogated me.

To every question they asked me I responded,

I have nothing to say, and, I have nothing to say

and eventually after the 20th nothing to say

I did remark that, At the risk of sounding repetitive,

I have nothing to say.

We were put in cells, stripped,

given blankets to wear which I refused to wear

because I said it was filthy.

I was walked through the police station naked

in front of the gathered accumulation of policemen.

- Mummy?

- Don't cry.

Don't cry.

- My mother arrived, to visit us after about four days.

She whispered in my ear, no tears,

not in front of these people.

So that's how staunch we had to be.

That's how staunch my mother was.

She told us not to cry in front these people.

And she continued that all the way through our prison time.

I asked her, what's prison really like Mummy?

And she said, I did 14 days and it was like 14 years,

and I thought that was a very honest answer

but not very consoling for ourselves

who were looking at enormous sentences

when we would be convicted,

being fully aware we would be convicted.

(somber music)

To be on a hunger strike you've got to condition your mind

and convince your mind that food is bad,

to have food, to take food, to eat food is failure,

is defeat, is wrong.

(Dolours sobbing)

- No, no!

(shouting)

Our hunger strike was 208 days and 180 something

of those days we were forcibly fed each day.

Sometimes twice a day.

If you were sick enough, they would measure

how much sick you brought up

after the tube had been removed.

That had a very, very traumatic effect

on both myself and Marian.

- [Protesters] Release the Price Sisters, now!

Release the Price Sisters!

- [Reporter] Brixton Prison, London, and today,

inside these walls Dolours and Marian Price are dying.

The British Home Secretary Roy Jenkins

has got three options open to him.

One, he can accede to the Price Girls demands

and have them sent back to Northern Ireland

to serve out the remainder of their sentence in Armagh Gaol,

two, he can allow them to continue their hunger strike

without any interference and die,

or three, he can order the resumption

of the forcible feeding that has caused so much controversy

within sections of the British Medical Profession.

- [Albert] Well at the moment they're very weak

but in spirit and mentally they are very alert

and I suppose happy in their way.

- [Reporter] What did they say to you?

- Well they said, Dad its one way or the other,

we're going home to Armagh or we're going home some way.

We'll go home.

- [Reporter] How long do you feel they can survive?

- [Albert] The doctors would probably know more than I know

but, as far as I'm concerned

they're not the wee girls that left home.

- Something in my heart told me that it was that time,

I don't know why, I don't know what happened

but when I went into my cell I started packing my stuff,

I don't know why, put my coat on

and I started to gather my bits and pieces together

and the, the governor came in and she told us

we were going home, she says,

"Well not home, you're going to Armagh."

I said, that's near enough for me.

(dramatic music)

- [Reporter] She's just coming into Downing Street now,

here's comes the Priministerial Rover bearing now

Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister.

A wave that we've now become really quite well accustomed to

throughout this campaign, Mr Denis Thatcher

her husband standing behind.

- I know full well the responsibilities that await me

as I enter the door of number 10.

And I'll strive unceasingly to try to fulfill the trust

and confidence that the British people have placed in me

and the things in which I believe.

And I would just like to remember some words

of St Francis of Assisi which I think are really just

particularly apt at the moment,

where there is discord may we bring harmony,

where there is error may we bring truth,

where there is doubt may we bring faith

and where there is despair may we bring hope.

- [Dolours] After the hunger strike and the force feeding

and all of the psychological damage that that created,

we didn't ever have a normal relationship

with food or eating.

We both ended up with very distorted notions

of the function of food

which resulted in us both being anorexic

and not wanting to eat.

- Dolours, it's Marian, they've released her,

she's going home today.

- [Dolours] A little part of me had always hoped that,

because we'd been through everything together that again,

this would be a together thing, but it wasn't.

And actually I should be quite pleased

that we were treated as two individuals in that situation

because we hadn't been before.

We were always lumped together

as if we were some kind of Siamese twins.

So I suppose in a way I should have been quite pleased

that they released that individual prisoner

and the other individual prisoner had to stay behind.

And then I got really depressed

because it was like I'd been separated from my Siamese twin.

So I was lost without Marian, yes, I was lost without her.

- [Reporter] The prisoners believe that in ending

the dirty protest attention will be focused

on the second hunger strike,

this began yesterday in the H Blocks with one

of the prisoners, Bobby Sands

from Twinbrook in West Belfast refusing food.

According to Provisional Sinn Fein,

more prisoners will join the hunger strike

later this week or early next week.

- [Margaret] There can be no question of political status

for someone who is serving a sentence for crime.

Crime is crime is crime.

- [Fenner] Dear Margaret, you may remember

that eight years ago Dolours and Marian Price

received a life sentence for being involved

in a bombing outrage outside the Old Bailey.

I'd sought to influence them against violence and the IRA.

Marian has subsequently been released on health grounds

and Dolours is left isolated in Armagh Prison.

Her recent letters show me

that she is deeply upset psychologically.

I am quite sure that if Dolours were released

she would become active despite the dangers

in urging her fellow Catholics to refrain from violence.

I enclose a letter just received from Dolours,

it illustrates her condition of mind and her convictions.

- 30 is a marker in every woman's life, for me it is more,

it means nearly almost all my 20s wasted in prison.

It means no babies and my fruitful years passing me by.

- [Reporter] He said the lives of the hunger strikers

remain, as they have done since the protests began,

in their own hands.

And the RUC has now confirmed that...

- Marian comes to visit me very rarely,

she will visit this week for only the third time

since her release.

I no longer even pay lip service to any organization.

- [Reporter] With the condition of Bobby Sands

now deteriorating seriously it seems

that the British government is bracing itself

for the consequences if he dies.

Certainly, the Northern Ireland office

will make no moves to...

- Each day I live my solitary life and am made feel

an outcast, a traitor to their cause

because I declare it no longer to be mine.

- [Margaret] The men of violence have chosen to play

what may well be their last card.

They've turned their violence against themselves

- Am I to live through all those awful memories?

I will be eating, as well as any anorexic can,

but mentally I will live and starve each day with them.

I want to live, to love life again, to survive.

I cant do that here.

(typewriter clicking)

I was very, very, very ill.

I think the last time they'd weighed me

I was about five stone or something.

I suppose at that point it particularly didn't matter

to me one way or the other.

So I got to the stage where I thought,

well if I die, I'll still get out of this place.

I'd had enough of it, physically and mentally

there was nothing left of me to keep on going.

(somber music)

- [Reporter] Dolours Price, one of two sisters jailed

in 1973 in connection with IRA bomb attacks

in London is being released.

- [Reporter] The Northern Ireland statement

said that Dolours Price was being released

because there is unequivocal independent medical evidence

that she was in imminent danger of collapse

and death if she stayed in prison.

- [Reporter] Reverend Paisley failed to secure

an emergency debate about the release

of Dolours Price from Armagh Prison.

- [Reporter] The news has filtered through to this community

that Bobby Sands has died after 66 days of hunger strike,

and in scenes reminiscent of the early days of internment...

(birds chirping)

(dramatic music)

- [Reporter] The IRA has announced what it describes

as a complete cessation of military operations

from midnight tonight.

The statement, issued in Dublin just after 11 o'clock,

doesn't attach any conditions or time limit

to the ceasefire.

Reacting to the announcement, the President of Sinn Fein,

Gerry Adams, said it was courageous.

- [Gerry] I want to say a word or two

about the volunteer soldiers of the Irish Republican Army,

who have fought the British for the last 25 years

and who are undefeated by the British.

(crowd cheering) (typewriter clicking)

- I am a Republican, born and bred.

As were my mother and father before me

and theirs before them.

Give me an honest socialist any day

over a lying treacherous so-called Republican.

I would take no more joy in seeing my sons

follow their convictions to prison or the grave

than did my mother, or the mothers of all those

who lie in Republican plots.

It was my free choice

and I believe that we all have that freedom.

But I will never abandon my Republican beliefs

and state them whenever I choose.

Nobody will deny me that right.

That my own aunt lived without hands or eyes

with quiet dignity and without complaint for 40 years.

No deal has been done with the Brits.

I remember thinking, what?

We got nothing.

Congratulations Dr Paisley, you got what you wanted,

Stormont back, Northern Ireland secure

and the Fenians in their place.

Not this Fenian and a good few besides.

We don't recognize The Northern State.

Never have, never will.

Admit it lads, you lost the war.

Some of us see it as only having lost another battle.

You can lose all the battles but only when you surrender

do you lose your soul.

- A historic day at Stormont.

After two years of talks and after a generation of bloodshed

and decades of division and acrimony,

George Mitchell ushers in, what the whole island hopes

will be a new era of peace.

An agreement that unites Loyalists and Republican,

Unionist and Nationalist Leaders

in a wide-ranging historical accord.

- The principal of consent is absolute

and is throughout the agreement and the breakthrough

is that that is now accepted by all, North and South.

- [Dolours] I was on a very protracted hunger strike,

I suffered forcible feeding

which was a very horrendous experience,

I served 8 years in prison and for what Sinn Fein

have achieved today,

I would not have missed a good breakfast.

Sinn Fein quite cynically seem to me

to be climbing over the corpses of the people who have died

since the commencement of the struggle.

Volunteers didn't only die, volunteers had to kill as well.

- [Ed] Do The Disappeared haunt you at all?

- Yes, yes, I think back on those

who I had responsibility for driving away.

I'm not a deeply religious person

but I would say a prayer for them.

- [Ed] Can I turn to the very first of those operations

that you believe The Unknowns were involved in

and that's the, the Joe Lynskey affair.

- Yes.

- [Ed] What can you tell me about the Joe Lynskey business?

- Joe Lynskey was an extremely gentle, gentle man.

He made a horrendous and grave mistake

which I believe came from his naivety.

He'd been off to be a monk and he was a mature man

but he was in many ways immature,

certainly in the ways of the world

and he made the mistake of falling in love

with another volunteer's wife.

Joe set up this husband had another volunteer

go and shoot him and the volunteer acted in good faith

believing that this person was an informer.

Which he wasn't.

Fortunately he didn't die, fortunately he lived.

When it came to light that this is what Joe had done

he would have been court-martialed for that

and the sentence for having done that

would have been death

and Joe would have been sentenced to death.

(door bell rings)

I was given the task of taking him away,

bringing him across the border

and leaving him in the hands

of people who would deal with him.

He came in the car with me and he tried to explain to me

what had happened and I said, I don't want to know Joe,

I really don't want to know what happened,

I just know that I have this very difficult thing to do.

And he apologized to me for being responsible

for my having to, to take him

and he brought his little overnight bag with him

which I thought was very sad and pathetic

because he sat with it on his knee

and I thought on the way, as I was driving down

I thought, I should take him to the boat

or I should or why doesn't he jump out of the car?

Why doesn't he smack me on the head and run away?

Why doesn't he do something to save himself?

But I realized that, his loyalty and his dedication

to the movement was such that he had accepted his fate.

And my dedication to the movement was such

that I couldn't have taken him to the boat

because I would have been disobeying my orders

and I would have been acting contrary to what I believed in

and I know Joe had done wrong

and I couldn't have seen any other sentence for him

other than that and I think he accepted,

he accepted his fate fully.

He shook my hand and he thanked me for driving him

and I said, well I'll see you Joe,

knowing full well that I wouldn't see him again.

I couldn't live with the failure

of what my life's purpose had been.

My life's purpose had been to fight the fight

that had been established and had been conducted

throughout my family over the generations

and to realize that it had all been for nothing.

(dramatic music)