Announcer: Time, weather, and... [Static] ["The Bold O'Donoghue" playing] Man: ♪ Well, here I am from Paddy's land... ♪ Woman: Where's this?

Ballymurphy?

Man: ♪ I broke hearts of all the girls... ♪ Let's see who I can see here.

Man: ♪ And when they hear that I'm awa' ♪ ♪ They'll raise a hullabaloo... ♪ I think that's my street.

Man: ♪ For I'm the boy to squeeze her ♪ Ballymurphy Road.

Oh, flip me!

Man: ♪ I'll tell you what I'll do ♪ ♪ I'll court her like an Irishman ♪ ♪ With me brogue and blarney, too ♪ ♪ With the holligan, rolligan ♪ [Song fading] ♪ Woman: God, I felt a wee bit emotional there looking back.

There were happy times, I suppose.

Your youth's always pretty happy, isn't it?

You think back because maybe that's the innocence of the times, where you don't really know the stresses and the worries of the older people, so you're happy in yourself.

You look back and think your life was happy.

It was good.

James Bluemel: You don't really do many interviews like this, do you?

Nope.

I said I would do it for you, and I would just like to do it and then get it behind me, and then...

I was actually going to phone last week and say, "I'm not doing it."

James: Oh, really?

Mm-hmm.

I was crying.

I've been crying an awful lot.

The feelings all come back out again, so putting it out there for people to see-- our life had been on camera long enough, do you know what I mean?

But I'm OK. Yeah?

I'm OK. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I'm OK.

I'm strong.

Woman 3: The Troubles, that's been our life from--you know, from when we were children.

In the flick of a switch, your life changed forever.

You're brought into that-- that group of victims that have been affected by the Troubles.

You're one of them.

♪ It's turned out lovely.

Look at that.

Somebody's looking down on you.

This is Upperlands.

You're about 40 mile from Belfast and 40 mile from Londonderry.

My name is June McMullin.

I'm just a country lass from Northern Ireland.

Upperlands, it's a quiet, quiet sleepy wee village in the middle of nowhere.

Everybody would know everybody.

I know our village was very much Protestant, but that didn't mean that we wouldn't allow Catholics in or anything like that.

We were mixing together at school and youth clubs and things like that.

[Indistinct chatter] I met Johnnie on a Friday night at a wee tiny Orange hall in the middle of nowhere.

I was going with him when I was about 14 1/2, and I mind me mother chasing him from the door, saying..."Away home the boy, you."

But, no, he kept coming back.

He was a gentle person... and he had a car.

If you know what a Lada is, it was like a skip with a roof, and he loved them cars.

When you got a lift to a dance, you need to make sure you got a lift home, so he was fit to take all us girls home.

When you're in the country, like, the Troubles were happening other places, but there was nothing in our area.

What were they going to blow up?

A couple of sheep, a couple of cows in the field?

Like, a tree or something like that?

[Neighing] Country life was so, so different to city life.

On the news it was constantly talked-- IRA, IRA, UDA, UVF.

Any kids that were reared in the city couldn't have had much of a life.

There were so many bombs going off in the city.

Reporter: This is the reality of Belfast today-- bombs in the city center, so much disruption, so many explosions.

From time to time, you forget that it's become part of everyday life, and that really is one of the tragedies of it.

My name is Bernadette O'Rawe.

I grew up in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast.

[Chanting] [Cheering] There wasn't much fun in Ballymurphy, but you made your own fun in the area, you know.

I was just coming up from maybe 16 I think, hadn't really been anywhere outside the area because you couldn't go into the town because there was random bombs here or there, so people tended to stay within their own areas from both communities.

There was a community center that became one of the places to go.

I met Ricky in 1975.

We met in the community center, and that's where we began our story.

Ricky O'Rawe: We met at a dance.

She 3 years younger than me.

Couldn't believe my good fortune.

I had the best-looking girl in west Belfast.

Punching over my weight.

I don't know.

I just liked the look of him.

We got together, we went out together, and then I got to know him, and then I kind of liked what I got to know.

I think maybe I got filled in about Ricky's family and his background from my own daddy, who knew more about them because he went about with his daddy, and then I started to realize how much republicanism was in his family because up till then I didn't know much about republicanism.

In fact, I didn't know anything about it.

[Man speaking German] The future of Ballymurphy is very bleak.

Ricky, voice-over: That's me.

This German documentary team were looking for someone to speak about Ballymurphy.

Really there was no work, and there was no money, and it was a society that lived from hand to mouth.

I mean, for a revolutionary it was tailor made.

♪ I was involved in the IRA.

By the time Bernadette came on the scene, I'd been involved for almost 4 years.

She knew I was a Provisional IRA man.

I was known as a gunman... and I liked it.

I liked the thought of taking the fight to the British, and I was a committed republican, I truly was.

♪ If you're gonna be out on operations, sooner or later, you're going to get caught, or you're going to get killed.

One or the other.

♪ Bernadette: I was 18, I was pregnant, and then we decided to get married.

I didn't really know what else to expect.

I knew I was going to be a mother.

Now when we got married, I knew he was in the IRA, but I said to him, "No, I don't want you in the IRA because I don't want to be left sitting as a prisoner's wife," and he said, "OK then.

I'll give it up"... but he didn't.

He didn't.

We got this house up in Moyard, and he left the house one morning, said he was going to look for a job, and I said, "Right.

OK then.

I'll see you later."

James: What had you told her that morning then?

That I was out--going to go out looking for a job.

Looking for work.

Yep.

Heh heh heh!

♪ Reporter: To sustain their operations, the Provisional IRA have launched a concerted campaign of armed robbery, and hundreds and thousands of pounds have been stolen, much of it to fund the Provisional IRA.

Ricky: We were asked to rob this bank for the IRA.

It was an order.

We robbed the bank, we held up the staff, we held up the customers, and filled a pillowcase full of money.

It was good old-fashioned Jesse James type robbery.

[Police radio chatter] The cops were waiting on us outside the bank.

I ended up getting arrested, and I remember actually saying the words, "Mother Ireland, get off my ******* back."

Right?

He was sent out to rob a bank, and I was absolutely flabbergasted.

"He's been sent out to rob a bank?

For who?

He's not in anything."

Then, I thought, "How was I so stupid not to know that he was still there?"

It was awful, truly was, it was awful, and you feel like an absolute bastard, and I let her down badly.

He was sentenced to 8 years.

This was exactly what I didn't want.

I thought, "Oh, no.

No.

"Now I'm going to be a prisoner's wife.

Now I'm going to be a single mother."

I didn't have much of a dream prior to that, but we got married, and I thought, "Well, we have a baby now, so we'll make this dream along the way."

But this was a broken dream.

This was--turned into a nightmare, and I was very, very angry with Ricky.

Very let down.

Very hurt, and it was a very hard and very lonely time.

♪ Reporter: This is the home for the majority of those convicted of terrorist offenses in Northern Ireland.

It's called the Maze Prison, where just over a thousand prisoners are kept in these so-called H blocks.

Reporter: The government ruled on March the 1st last year that terrorists convicted of crimes committed after that date would no longer get special category status but must wear prison uniform just like ordinary criminals.

Ricky: We were in prison because we were fighting the struggle against the British government.

Prior to the 1st of March, 1976 all republican prisoners didn't have to wear prison clothes, they didn't have to do prison work.

They could be in their own cages, have their own command structure, virtually political prisoners.

That was the prevailing wind until the Brits says, "There will be no more political status.

From here on in, every prisoner is a criminal."

The republican prisoners, they refused to be criminalized, they refused to wear prison clothes, they refused to do prison work, and they were thrown in their cell, and they were thrown a blanket, hence the term "blanket man."

By time I was sentenced, for me not to go on the blanket would have been very dishonorable.

My hesitation was Bernadette.

After not telling her I was back in the IRA, here I was gonna go back on this blanket thing, right, that was going to ensure that every minute that I was on it was a minute longer before I could get back to her, right?

So in many ways, it was a double betrayal.

♪ Bernadette: You had to get a minibus up to the jail.

[Indistinct chatter] You had a wee box visit, and sometimes, a prisoner officer just came in and stood right in, and you only got a half an hour a month.

[Indistinct chatter] You're looking at a different man, who was obsessed with his role and his republicanism, even though I was sitting there as his wife.

I had to go up, I wanted to go up, but I hated going up.

There were a lot of women out there.

There was a lot of-- I would have called them now looking back, you know, republican groupies.

There was some women flocked to men.

They looked up to and admired these men.

You know, there was this machoism they thought came from them.

You know, republicanism and this sort of life, it was OK for them.

It just wasn't OK for me.

♪ Women were left carrying the can.

You know they did do the triple shift is what they say, you know, keep the men happy in jail and look after the kids and run the house.

You know, women, they were like second-class citizens.

The one with the harness.

Bernadette: When almost all the men were in prison, their kids were reared by the women.

[Indistinct chatter] Those kids were-- they were lost, as well.

There was a whole generation of kids lost.

They grew up, and it was such an imbalanced society.

They grew up without their fathers, without a father figure.

♪ Boy: Aah!

♪ I'm Bernadette McDonnell.

I grew up in Lenadoon Avenue.

it was just off Andersonstown.

There was me, me mummy, Joseph, and my daddy when he was there.

I remember Mummy saying it was a thing then, like, fellas didn't push prams.

That was a woman's job.

She says, "But your da when he come back," she said, "he pushed youse up and down them hills," and, you know, he was so proud.

He was always, you know, hands-on.

Whenever he could, he would, he was there.

My daddy was my daddy.

My daddy was just an ordinary man.

Nobody knew you were in the IRA.

I sort of can't remember the bomb itself.

It would have been just on the news.

I can remember them coming in saying they got my daddy.

He was sentenced when he went to Long Kesh.

Got sentenced 14 1/2 years, so when he went there, he decided there and then that he wasn't taking visits and would not let me or Joseph see him in there.

James: So you didn't see your dad?

No.

4 1/2 years.

The only communications we had with him was wee letters that were smuggled in and out of the prison, and there was nothing worse than your mummy if you were messing about or you'd done something, and she'd have said, "I'm writing to your daddy."

The thought of it would have killed you.

Ha ha!

And it wasn't--we laugh about it now.

Like, what could he have done?

You know, when you get older, you realize "What could he have done?"

but then it was "Ohh.

She's going to write and tell him."

♪ Mummy just had to get strong.

Mum had two young kids to look after.

♪ Reporter: The number of killed and injured have made this the worst weekend for months in Northern Ireland, but as in the case of most reprisals, the people who suffered weren't the ones who started it all, just innocent customers sitting in a bar.

Reporter two: A bus carrying workers to their homes in Bessbrook village were stopped by gunmen and 10 Protestants shot.

A Protestant paramilitary organization is thought responsible for the bomb which killed two and injured 5 members of Lisburn's Hibernian Club last night.

June: I thought we were lucky out in the country.

I thought it was a safe haven out there.

There's one of Johnnie and Adrian at the front door of the flat.

That's a good one.

At that stage, Johnnie was working in a mechanics' place.

He says, "I think I'll hand in me job and join the police."

The RUC is the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

First time he brung the forms home, I threw them in the bin.

I thought, "No, we'll not-- we'll not go down that road."

It wasn't--it wasn't safe.

[Siren] Reporter: By any standards, the RUC is unique.

No other force in the United Kingdom is permanently armed with guns.

Man: Our main problem, of course, is the fact that we undertake policing in a province that's divided against itself, and it's against that background that the police have to perform their duties, which are in service of both and all sections of the community.

June: You could hear in the news that police were being targeted.

Probably the republican side of the community would have seen the police as representing the queen and the British government, and they didn't want that.

I just thought we'd be better not going down that road and staying away, and Johnnie said no.

Be a better job, better pension, better life, better pay, so he joined.

[Marching footsteps] It was a good job, it was a good living.

There wouldn't have been any riots down round where we lived, so Johnnie's way of life would have been just doing his job but being extra careful.

[Moo] He loved going out in the community and doing the work with the police.

We were very happy.

Ricky: We weren't getting a great deal of traction from the outside in general because we were lying there every day, and we were doing nothing on the blanket, and nobody had much interest in us.

[Men shouting] And then the dirty protest started, and bit of momentum gathered.

Reporter: These are the first pictures to be taken of the protesters.

We put **** on the wall, piss out the door.

We were doing something positive.

As we seen it, we were fighting back.

There was actually a fight.

We're political prisoners!

We want political status!

We're political prisoners!

Ricky: We didn't shave, we didn't wash, we didn't brush our teeth for 3 1/2 years.

You walked into the H-block, you were hit with an abominable smell.

Come on in.

It's lovely here, brother.

I hated maggots, hated them.

The next thing these ******* things came, started to emerge, and I was aghast.

Never seen a maggot in my life.

Dozens of them.

Here's me "****!

What am I gonna do?"

But there's other guys, their hairs was just full of dozens and dozens of maggots.

♪ It was horrendous... but the camaraderie was just incredible.

That was the one thing that kept the blanket men together.

James: And did Bernadette visit you?

Every month religiously.

It was very, very unpleasant.

I don't think I'll ever forget the smell, ever forget the smell or ever forget what it was like even kissing Ricky.

I used to go home and try and rub my lips, you know, because I could feel that smell on my lips, and this was horrendous.

It was a horrific experience.

She had to kiss me because I had to give over wee letters, wee communications-- we called them comms-- to the outside leadership.

Bernadette: It was wee tissue papers, and when Ricky came out on a visit, then you had to kiss it over.

There was just this assumption you'll be brought down, you'll go in there, you'll get that letter.

It was just this expectancy.

I was told what to do as if they owned me.

I just felt I'm drawn into this wee world here where I don't want to be.

All the time, all this anger was growing inside of me.

I got by, but I hated it.

I hated every minute of being a prisoner's wife.

I never knew the word hate until I got married, until this happened.

♪ [Cheering and applause] Thatcher, voice-over: Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to form a new administration.

Where there is discord may we bring harmony, and where there's despair may we bring hope.

Reporter: The British government have made it clear, there's no going back to the pre-'76 arrangements, and meanwhile, neither the blanket protest nor the dirty protest have had the slightest effect in persuading the authorities that those convicted of terrorist offenses should have political status.

British government just sat back and said, "**** them.

Who cares?"

We were on the dirty protest for the guts of 3 1/2 years, and it had run its course.

The British conceded none of our 5 demands, so it ended.

Something needed to present itself, and what presented itself was the hunger strike.

Well, there was a huge list.

There might have been 70 or 80 names on it, people wanting to go on hunger strike, and our job was to pick people who would die.

It's as simple as that.

Bobby Sands went on hunger strike on his own on the 1st of March.

Thatcher: We have a hunger strike at the Maze Prison in the quest for what they call political status.

There's no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence.

There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing, and criminal violence.

Audience: Hear, hear.

We will not compromise on this.

There will be no political status.

Everything got more tense, and, you know, when you went up for a visit, and things were getting worse on the outside, and, you know, it was-- the whole thing was gathering momentum.

[Drums playing] Protestors: [Indistinct] Man: Bobby Sands!

[Chanting] Bernadette: You thought by putting your face in with the crowd and building the crowd that maybe the numbers here on the streets will get this stopped.

Gerry Adams: The torture must be called by its proper name.

So must all forms of oppression and exploitation of man by the state, of one people by the other.

[Cheering and applause] ♪ Reporter: Britain's problem does not end with Sands.

Behind the corrugated defenses of the Maze Prison, there are 3 other men in the queue for an agonizing martyrdom.

The IRA has phased the hunger strike to maximize pressure on the British.

Man: As the hunger strikers near the critical stage, the atmosphere will become more tense.

The temperature will rise, and eventually, there will be a confrontation.

[Drums playing] ♪ You did feel sorry for them, but I didn't think they would go as far as what they did.

I thought they would have called it off like the dirty protest.

Like, who in this day and age would starve themselves to death for a cause?

Ricky: The wing itself became like a morgue.

It was a death march.

Because we all knew Bobby wasn't going to stop.

Unless the British moved... substantially, he was gonna die.

Reporter: Mrs. Sands, when are you coming to see your son again?

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, again.

Do you think if he does go into a coma you would give the authorization for him to be intravenously fed?

He told me not to.

No, he told me not to.

It's a sad thing to say, and I would feel-- I love my son just like any other mother does, but I wouldn't.

Ricky: After 21 days or something, he left our wing and was taken up to the prison hospital.

I remember just talking, just having a quiet word with him.

"How are you, Bob?"

And there was an awful sadness in his eyes.

He didn't want to die.

He was hoping against hope that some solution could be found.

Reporter: An IRA man on hunger strike in the Maze Prison, Bobby Sands, has been left with a straight fight against the official Unionist candidate Mr. Harry West in next month's Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election after the withdrawal of the independent candidate.

Man: Sands, Bobby, Anti-H-block, Armagh, political prisoner 30,000... Man: Yeah!

492.

Reporter: Hunger strike prisoner Bobby Sands has won the by-election in Northern Ireland by a narrow majority, but it's still a propaganda boost for the IRA.

Ricky: There was a hope.

It was a very faint hope that maybe because he was now an MP Thatcher would be reluctant to let him die.

I understand Mr. Sands is still on hunger strike, and I regret that he's not decided to come off it.

Reporter: And no concessions as they have asked for?

No, there can be no possible concessions on political status.

Reporter: Bobby Sands, IRA man serving a 14-year sentence for arms offenses, begins the 61st day of his hunger strike.

Reporter: How's your son, Mrs. Sands?

My son's dying, and I would like to appeal to the people for to remain calm and have no fighting or cause no death or destruction.

And away, all right?

Thanks very much.

♪ Reporter: In the last hour, the news has filtered through to this community that Bobby Sands has died after 66 days of hunger strike.

It was just awful, it was just--ugh-- incredibly, incredibly sad.

You know... it was a blessing to have met him.

♪ [Clattering, whistles blowing] I can remember hearing the bin lids when Bobby Sands died.

Crowd: now and at the hour of our death, Amen.

Man: There was a lot more rioting.

It definitely did up the ante.

There's no doubt about that.

John Chambers: Belfast was ratcheting up to boiling point, you know.

It was craziness.

The Tribal thing split the two communities in half.

The Catholics would be mourning the death of the hunger strikers, and we'd be praying for them to die, you know what I mean?

[People shouting] [Gunshots] Ugh.

I just got the shivers even thinking about it.

The atmosphere was so heavy.

You felt it, and you heard it.

[People shouting] And you just knew it's going to just explode.

[Explosion] ♪ Man: I think those for me are probably the worst times that I remember whenever Northern Ireland was very, very close to all-out civil war.

Man: Now tell me, you ******* bastard!

Ohh!

[People shouting] [Gunshot] ♪ Man: Hey.

Yo, yo, yo, yo!

Bernadette: I mean there was 100,000 people or something at Bobby Sands' funeral.

There was so much fear and anger and hopelessness.

Man: Lámhach.

[Bang] Lámhach.

[Bang] McDonnell: I carried a wreath for Bobby's funeral behind the coffin.

Bobby was just my daddy's friend.

I can remember Bobby's family, Bobby's son.

Heartbreaking, heartbreaking seeing them standing at the grave.

James: Did you ever think when you saw that that you'd be in their position?

No, never.

♪ It was Friday night, and my mummy got us before we went to bed, just got us, me and Joseph, together, told us, explained to us what was happening, that my daddy was going on hunger strike the next day.

We got up the next day, and the cameras were all outside the front door.

Mrs. McDonnell: My husband could die.

I know he could die, and if my husband did die, I would still, I will continue and fight till every man, every Irish man is free.

I'm young, I want my husband, and my children need their father.

McDonnell: We got to see my daddy on hunger strike.

That was the first time in 4 1/2 years.

So to see your daddy after 4 1/2 years, it was very special, very special.

He--put us on his--his knee, he let us sit on his knee, and I remember me aunt saying, "Get off your knee"-- "Get off your daddy's knee."

He says, "I'll hold them here as long as I can."

To me that day, he was Joe McDonnell, my daddy.

He wasn't Joe McDonnell the hunger striker.

♪ Ricky: A week later, Frank Hughes is dead.

[Bin lids clattering, whistles blowing] Man: I'd just like to say that Margaret Thatcher and the British government has murdered my brother.

Francis' blood is on Margaret Thatcher's hands.

Ricky: Thatcher was ecstatic as ever.

"**** them.

Let them die.

Bring it on."

It's a tragedy that young men should be persuaded, coerced, or ordered to starve themselves to death for a futile cause.

It would seem that dead hunger strikers, who have extinguished their own lives, are of more use to the Provisional IRA than living members.

Two weeks after that, we had the deaths of Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara... so there were 4 hunger strikers dead.

So you had this sort of cycle of death.

[Loud rattling] [Fwoosh] [Man screaming] June: There was quite a lot of murders during the hunger strike.

Another policeman, another soldier.

Johnnie had been on the police for about a year.

We were scared.

Ricky: The IRA have always viewed the RUC as legitimate targets.

They've always viewed them as the defenders of the state.

Reporter: This is constable Robinson's local pub.

The gunmen were obviously aware of his movements and were waiting for him to leave.

James: And did the IRA make a distinction between good cops and bad cops?

No such thing.

As far as the IRA was concerned, they were all bad cops.

Did you ever consider that police officers had families?

No.

It was never the individual.

The IRA attacked the uniform.

They didn't attack Henry Jones or Bertie Smith.

They attacked the uniform.

June: In our village, there had been a young man going home from work on the main road when another car had come up behind him and tried to shoot him.

Only the gun jammed, and the magazine fell out.

Then that heightened the whole security thing.

You were just--you knew this had come home, this had touched our village.

You know, the Troubles had come to sleepy Upperlands.

You'd have been going shopping and watching was there anyone following you, or was there a car sitting about?

When you had someone in the security forces in your family, that was-- that was your way of life, constantly living the fear of not knowing when--when it would be your turn.

Bernadette: Every time you turned the TV on, somebody was dead.

6 IRA men were killed, or 13 paratroopers were killed, or another policeman was killed.

[Women sobbing] Just so much killing in this place, and it's becoming so normal... but we were a very dysfunctional and broken society.

I don't think Bern-- Bernadette didn't handle the whole thing well at all.

Bernadette came up on a visit, and all I talked about the whole visit was the hunger strike, and she snapped... and she says, "I don't-- "I don't give a **** about you.

I don't give a **** about your hunger strike."

I were so angry, so angry.

I didn't want to go up there and listen about the so-called war.

I think at that stage they must have thought I was having a breakdown because they sent somebody up to the house.

This was after a visit, and I said, "**** you and **** the IRA, **** Maggie Thatcher and **** Richard O'Rawe."

So it wasn't a good place.

It wasn't a good place.

♪ McDonnell: We were going up to see our daddy... and because he was on hunger strike, then we got to see him more.

Two fellas in America had decided that they were going to try and take kids out of the conflict from both sides over to America to give them a break during the summer, and Joseph decided he wasn't going, so I says I wasn't going.

My daddy said to me, "Please go.

Go, love."

He says, "Go there and tell everybody.

Tell everybody what's happening here"... so I did.

I was going to make him proud.

Reporter: Over 700 children from both sides of the divide are flying to America to holiday together.

[Cheering] McDonnell: It was difficult because I was leaving my daddy, I was leaving my mummy and Joseph, but I knew I had to do it.

I went on TV.

I went on the radio, papers, anything just to try and keep my daddy alive.

♪ Young McDonnell: Playing in the swing, and I heard 5 big shots going off, and you'd think the sky was just coming in on you.

David Hartman: Now your dad--I think we should say your dad is in prison, right?

Yes.

And he is also one of the hunger strikers, isn't he?

Yes.

Can anybody help the situation, do you think, in Northern Ireland?

Well, if the people of America would write to President Reagan, he might phone Mrs. Thatcher, and then the pressure would be put on Mrs. Thatcher, and she will have to do something.

Unbelievable, isn't it, like, for a 10-year-old?

You know, we had to let the world know.

James: You felt that responsibility?

Yes, I did feel that responsibility, yeah.

Reporter: 10-year-old Bernadette McDonnell is visiting a Long Island, New York, family.

Her father Joseph McDonnell is 7 weeks into a hunger strike in Maze Prison.

Young McDonnell: He's fighting for his country.

Reporter: When you saw him last Saturday, how was he?

Well, his teeth were starting to stick out, and he was spitting up water.

Is he?

Reporter: And every day, Bernadette awaits her aunt's telephone calls on her father's condition.

We just go on doing what we've been doing, helping in the streets and watching.

Well, tonight, the man with most at stake is the hunger striker Joe McDonnell, now about to enter his 61st day without food.

He's said to be very weak, and his family are at his bedside.

McDonnell: I can remember getting phone calls.

I knew my daddy wasn't good.

I just knew by the phone calls, and I wanted home.

Me aunt came and got me from the airport, and we were coming up Kennedy Way up on the Andytown Road, and there was a bus burning.

[Dog barking] And I says, "What's the bus burning for?"

And they said, "Joe McDonnell's dead."

So that's how I found out my daddy was dead.

[Bin lids clattering] [Whistles blowing] At that time, my daddy's body was home, and I can remember looking at him and crying, and I cried and cried hard, and that was it.

I didn't cry again.

I wasn't going to do this.

Heh heh.

♪ We just kissed the coffin, and that was my 11th birthday.

My daddy was buried on me 11th birthday.

Alls I ever wanted when I was a kid was my daddy, just my daddy to be there.

Think any wee girl wants their daddy.

♪ Bernadette: That poor wee girl.

I remember her mum, and I remember what they went through.

You didn't think you were ever going to come out of it, and you didn't know does anybody want to resolve this?

And you were going, "There's lives here.

"There are lives, there are men dying.

Somebody, swallow your pride, do something."

The thing was like a juggernaut, an out-of-control juggernaut.

Reporter: With 6 hunger strikers now dead and 2 more likely to die within a few days, the IRA protest, far from fizzling out as some people thought it might, seems to be making a growing impact.

Nobody knew where it was going or how it was going to end.

[Shouting] [Gunshots] [Gunshots] [Bang] Reporter: Now 9 prisoners dead.

The strike has still not ended.

Another IRA man began refusing food today.

At the weekend, there were violent scenes in Dublin as a demonstration in support of the hunger strike was broken up.

Reporter 2: By then it was clear this war could have no winner.

♪ [Bleating] Man: This is where they were planning to come to live.

It's decorated to perfection.

Oh, they had done very well, you know, to have this house finished for the new baby coming home on Friday.

June: We actually had moved house, and I was papering.

I was putting wallpaper on, and I went into early labor.

So I went into hospital on the Thursday morning, and then Johnnie was born on the Thursday night.

James: How was that?

That was quick.

Ha ha ha!

That was quick when he wasn't due for another 5 weeks.

[Indistinct chatter] On the Saturday night, uh, when I was still in hospital, my friend and neighbor had been shot dead in the village, and Johnnie had come up to the hospital that night to tell me.

That was a shock.

Alan was security forces, as well, so that would be the first night that it brought it home to him that he had a target on his back.

♪ Johnnie went to his funeral and carried his coffin.

Then he come up that night to visit.

I can still recall that day, that night, still recall waiting on Johnnie coming to the hospital.

It's husbands only at night, so no one else is allowed in to visit, and he come in, and we had sandwiches in the ward.

Somebody had brought sandwiches up, and we're having tea and sandwiches, and we're still chatting, and it come that time.

It's time to go home.

You know, you can still see yourself walking down the corridor and saying good night and then hurrying back up the corridor to the window and then standing there to wait for his car to come up, which never came.

You know, you're standing at the window, and the--the gunman's car come up.

♪ I was only in hospital for 5 days.

Within 5 days, the IRA had everything set up, you know, for to kill him that night.

[Gunfire] Reporter: John Proctor was the 17th policeman to be killed in Ulster this year, but the cold-blooded cruelty of John Proctor's murder has left people shocked and horrified.

He was just getting into the car.

We'd bought a new car, and he was getting into the car, so it was, and Johnnie didn't see them, and they shot him in the back.

In the back, of all places, in the back.

June, voice-over: Our whole families were just ripped apart.

Like, the hunger strikers, they had a choice on their life whether to starve themselves and give up their life, whereas Johnnie didn't pick that he wanted to be killed that night outside the hospital, you know.

He got no choice in that.

Pastor: As we are baptized into the death of thy blessed son.

June: That night, he wasn't a policeman.

He was a father and a husband going up to see his newborn son.

[Adrian chattering] Reporter: The day after the funeral, June returned to the hospital where John was killed to collect the new baby.

Is that our wee baby?

Is it?

Coat?

No, that's not a coat.

That's a shawl.

Shawl?

Shawl.

You have to wrap that round him to keep him warm.

Nurse: He has to keep warm.

Reporter: June had intended to call the new baby Ryan, but he'll now be christened John after his father.

That's your wee brother.

Baby.

Baby.

June, voice-over: Everything changed.

It was going to be a whole new world.

Not one we had planned, but two boys and no father.

♪ James: Did you sort of wonder why it had to be your Dad?

Not then, no.

Afterwards maybe.

I can't imagine a life with him being there because he wasn't, you know what I mean, but I can tell you what he missed.

He missed a life with my mummy.

He's missed watching me and Joseph grow up.

He's missed out on life himself... but he done it for us.

He done it for his country.

I still get people coming up to me say he was a hero.

How does it make me feel?

Proud.

Very proud.

♪ Bernadette: Everything about the Troubles was sad.

Every life that was lost during the Troubles was sad, whether you were a police officer, a soldier, a UVF man, an IRA man, a hunger striker.

Every life was precious, and yet life here meant nothing.

So many broken hearts, so many broken hearts in this country.

♪ Ricky: I left prison.

Bernadette said to me, "Look.

I want you out of everything," and, um, she says, "It's like this here.

"It's either the republican movement or me and your daughter," so I left the movement.

I think I put her through hell, and I regret that.

We made it through.

Surprising as it was and tough as it was.

We're lucky that we're still alive and we're still together, and we got here because so many people from that period of time didn't make it through.

James: You're still married.

Still here.

You did it.

Yeah.

46.

46 years, aye.

46 years married.

46 golden years.

No comment.

Ha ha ha!

♪ Reporter: The principal strand of evidence linking this man Seamus Martin Kearney to the killing was a cigarette butt found close to the getaway car.

The judge imposed a life sentence.

♪ We were robbed of our justice.

I've had good times.

I've remarried, I've more family, I've grandchildren, but it's always been there.

The hatred's there.

I've lived my life with that.

My prayers at night I could never say, "and forgive those that trespass against us."

Can't say that.

Can't say that in my prayer.

♪ ♪