https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-plotted-covert-measures-against-irish-republican-hunger-strikers/

The UK government planned “covert” measures to monitor “everything” which was said and written by Irish republican hunger strikers in prison in 1980, declassified files reveal.

The strike had been called in response to the removal of political status for convicted paramilitary prisoners, with seven men in HMP Maze refusing their first meal on 27 October.

It ended 53 days later, with some of the hunger strikers claiming the UK government had gestured towards meeting their demands before reneging.

The incident set the scene for the 1981 hunger strike, which saw ten Irish republicans including Bobby Sands starve themselves to death amid a showdown with Margaret Thatcher.

Files released to the National Archives in London now detail how the UK government was acutely concerned about the domestic and international implications of the 1980 hunger strike.

It produced weekly bulletins on the situation, monitored media coverage, liaised with the Catholic church, and even considered meeting some of the strikers’ demands, the files show.

Plans were also made to employ “covert techniques” in order to “find out as much as possible about the day-to-day state of mind of each striker”.

This would apparently include eavesdropping on the prisoners’ private conversations and intercepting mail so that the British state could know “everything” that was said and written.

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