Brendan Hughes: An Inspiration
The most recent phase of the national liberation struggle in Ireland has produced many iconic figures, notable for their courage and steadfastness in the face of all that British imperialism had to throw at them.
Brendan Hughes, who the people of Belfast turned out to say farewell to on Tuesday, was undoubtedly one of these figures.
Ironically, Brendan himself would have been highly uncomfortable with a term like icon. But that is exactly what he was.
At the height of British military repression and a unionist sectarian onslaught in the Six Counties, it was Brendan and people like him that working class nationalist communities looked to for protection and leadership. And he and others provided it.
Brendan ‘Darkie’ Hughes was born in west Belfast in 1949 at a time when the one-party unionist state was at the height of its power.
When the republican insurgency broke out in 1969, Brendan joined the IRA and immediately became involved in defending his community and taking the war to the British government and its forces.
Captured in 1973, ‘The Dark’, as he was known, escaped soon after and returned to active service. The British placed him at the top of their ‘most wanted’ list and, when he was recaptured a year later, Brendan was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
After he was imprisoned for the second time, the British government unleashed its criminalisation policy upon the political prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.
Always a leader, ‘The Dark’ was to the forefront in combating this threat to the freedom struggle, with his body if need be. While on the Blanket and No Wash protests, Brendan became Officer Commanding the H-Block POWs and led the first hunger strike in 1980. The strike was later called off due to British duplicity.
Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes
Having sacrificed everything for his community and their struggle, Brendan was under absolutely no illusions as to what the outcome of that struggle should be.
He consistently stressed the class nature of the republican struggle and the reality that the British gun would always be a predominant factor in Irish politics until their political presence was removed.
Writing in 2002, The Dark spoke about the need for a new direction in Irish politics:
“What then about something really new? What about new socialism? A socialism that would ignore the tripe talkers and their vanguard party nonsense? One thing that is not new is the working class. It is as old as capitalism itself. They are still being exploited, maltreated, forced to work for bad pay on unhealthy sites with poor safety regulations. Could someone please tell me where a worker's wage packet is fatter than a politician's? Or where oppression of the working class is not planned? It is not in Stormont, Leinster House or Westminster. They all love the workers alright as long as they can keep them working for buttons.
”Take the gun out of Irish politics - maybe. But not at the command of those in the above three parliaments. As long as there is injustice the gun will always be there.”
Paying tribute to Brendan, Éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson said,
“Republican Ireland is rightly in mourning following the death of this brave man.
“The Dark was a leader, a republican, a revolutionary, a socialist and unashamedly working class. In many ways he epitomised the shining example given by the working class youth of areas like west Belfast and Derry’s Bogside following the tumultuous events of 1969.
No longer prepared to put up with the second class citizenship that had been the lot of their communities since the foundation of the Orange State, the response of Hughes and his peers was fierce and awe inspiring.
His steadfastness in the face of British brutality in the H-Blocks was an extension of this man’s determination to hold the line for his people and their struggle.”
Brian continued, “But The Dark also knew that there was little romance about the struggle he was involved in. He experienced at first hand the sacrifices that activists had to make and the consequences they had to face.
He knew that if a struggle which entailed so much suffering for so many was to be worth it, then a radical restructuring of Irish society had to be its outcome – namely, the establishment of an Irish socialist republic.
Hughes believed, in the tradition of Connolly, that if the socialist republic was to be achieved then the people leading the struggle had to be the Irish working class.
Éirígí fully share this analysis and we will continue to work in the time ahead in support of the class and the objectives for which Hughes gave so much .”
Brian concluded, “On behalf of Éirígí, I would like to extend our condolences and solidarity to the whole Hughes family at what must be a very difficult time.”
Codail go sámh le sloíte na bhFiann a chomrádaí.