“…their own voluntary abstention from food”: the 1943-1944 hunger strikes

In April 1944, IRA sentenced prisoners in Crumlin Road ended a hunger-strike that had begun just over forty days earlier, on the 22nd February 1944. The hunger strike was the latest in a sequence of prison protests that had included a strip strike in mid-1943 and an earlier hunger strike by the female prisoners in

The 1944 IRA hunger strike

The 1944 IRA hunger strike marks a significant stage in the evolution of tactics by long term prisoners that culminated in the likes of the 1972 and 1981 hunger strikes.