Remembering Ray McCreesh

Posted by Jim on May 27, 2018

 

Several hundred republicans gathered in McCreesh park in Newry last
weekend to honour local hunger striker Raymond McCreesh in separate
events organised by Saoradh and Sinn Fein. The following tribute is from
the oration delivered by Saoradh’s Nuala Perry.

 

Tomorrow it will be thirty seven years since Raymond McCreesh lost his
life in the H Blocks of Long Kesh after 61 days of hunger-strike, and on
that same tragic day when Republicans tried to absorb the sheer
ruthlessness of Thatcher�s government�s indifference to the loss of
another young Republican life, Patsy O’Hara another young volunteer
would succumb to the horrors of the strike that night.

Ray McCreesh was nineteen when he was arrested after an ambush on
British soldiers near Beleek in South Armagh in 1976.

After nine months on remand he was sentenced in a non-jury Diplock court
in March 1977. Ray spent four years on the blanket after refusing to
wear the prison uniform. The one and only prison visit he would take
during that time was to inform his parents he was going on hunger
strike.

When Ray McCreesh was arrested in June 1976 Gardiner�s recommendations
to phase out the overt policy of internment and special category status
were well under way.

Under this new policy a situation which was recognised as political
prior to March 1st 1976 effectively became criminal through legislation,
this would mean that despite the fact that the individual and the
collective characteristics of the prisoner remained the same the idea
that a political motivation existed was being reframed.

In many ways there was surreal feeling about the events as they unfolded
around us 37 years ago, few of us, whether it was in the prisons, in
call houses or protesting on the streets could ever have realised the
extent or the gravity of the sacrifice that was about to unfold.

In the prisons our days and nights seemed to be defined by the next
hourly news bulletin, yet usually even when the slightest glimmer of
hope came it would be overshadowed quickly by despair and that feeling
of helplessness.

On the streets the Republican movement and people from various shades
waged a campaign to highlight the horror of the Brits pursuit to
criminalise the campaign in the North, the latter sometimes barefooted
and wrapped in blankets, the former by any given means.

Criminalisation was the process that would replace militarisation and
when Republicans were suitably tarnished we would then reach the
ultimate goal of normalisation.

The only problem with that was and is, that irrespective through which
mouth the policy of Gardiner is being spouted or regurgitated the
Republican psyche is always conditioned to resist it.

When Ray McCreesh lost his life after 61 days on hunger strike he
joined the ranks of IRA volunteers who were determined that their people
would be free from the shackles of British occupation and that Irish
Republicans would never again be stigmatised or criminalised, and for
that we owe him a debt of honour.

Beir Bua Ray McCreesh. Go Raibh Maith agaibh.