For Peace! exhibition at Four Corners

'For Peace!' is an interesting exhibition at Four Corners gallery in Bethnal Green, based around material from the archive at MayDay Rooms. The focus is very much on the more radical end of peace and anti-militarist movements - not simply calling for an absence of conflict but challenging the existence of the military and the state's weapons of mass destruction which tick along beneath the radar of mainstream political discourse. Was anybody ever asked for instance whether we wanted a continuing massive US military base at Lakenheath in Suffolk? 

From this perspective the efforts of the Greenham Common and Faslane peace camps set up in the 1980s are seen as central, installing themselves at what is perhaps the real heart of the state - less  Whitehall than the fenced off compounds behind which it accumulates its missiles.

Abolish War! - Greenham common women's peace camp

The Faslane peace camp was set up in 1982 at the Royal Naval base in Scotland that is home to Britain's nuclear weapons-armed submarines

There is archive material from the direct action end of the 1950s/60s movement against the bomb (Committee of 100 and Spies for Peace) and from some less well known 1980s/90s activists such as those who opposed the 'nuclear colonialism' of testing sites and weapons bases.

'The peasants are revolting Ma'am' - a group of women protestors described in the Sun as a '15-strong feminist brigade' climbed over the wall into Buckingham Palace grounds in 1993 in solidarity with the Western Shoshone people whose land in the Nevada Desert was used as a testing ground for American and British nuclear weapons.

'Women working for a nuclear-free and independent Pacific' - a 1980s benefit at the Old White Horse in Brixton (later Brixton Jamm). The Rongelap survivors were those still living with the radioactive aftermath of the 1950s H Bomb tests in the Pacific.

There is also an emphasis     on solidarity movements such as the Troops Out Movement who campaigned for British withdrawal from Ireland from the 1970s to the 1990s

1980s Southwark Troops Out Movement meeting -  SNOW venue refers to 'Squatters Network of Walworth'

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament against Trident missiles and a flyer for the 1983 'Festival for the Future' in Bristol

For Peace! at Four Corners from 9 to 24 May 2025 

Shocking Pink and other feminist zines: an interview with Katy Watson

The 'Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990' exhibition at Tate Britain (2024) included a great collection of zines and printed ephemera from the feminist movements of that period. Included in one of the display cases were issues of Shocking Pink magazine alongside punk/post-punk records from bands including X-Ray Spex, Au Pairs and Mo-dettes. Sadly my friend Katy Watson, who was involved in Shocking Pink, is not here to see this but as a sometime queercore/punk DJ she would no doubt have been delighted to be in such company. Shortly before she died in 2008 I interviewed Katy about her life, including in this section about her memories of being involved in Shocking Pink and other zines including Outwrite and Bad Attitude, all in the context of living in Brixton in late 1980s and 1990s. Katy first moved to London in 1988 after finishing University, her first home being a rented room in a house in Kennington next door to future Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw! Soon, as she recalls, she was getting involved in feminist publishing...

Outwrite

'The best thing about this time was that I used to work as a volunteer on this newspaper called Outwrite, a feminist paper which I really admired. It was very lesbian and I was thinking about my sexuality at that point. It was really big on international news, they had a very international collective from all over the globe. I thought it was wonderful, but unfortunately it closed down during that year.

After a year or so I ended up living in Brixton. That was the place for me. For the first time I felt ‘I am at home here’. I really liked it, there was a big alternative profile, a big anarchist scene, a big squatting scene, a big lesbian scene, and suddenly not having a job became a very good thing. I was signing on and realized I had plenty of time to hang out with my friends, drinking tea, yakking on and watching daytime TV but also to do political stuff which I got more into at that time.

Troops Out

I was involved in the Troops Out Movement quite early on when I lived in London. I worked on their magazine, Troops Out. I was also part of organizing an Irish arts exhibition and film festival. The art exhibition we tried to put on through Southwark Council initially and that lovely publication the South London Press ran a front page news splash saying council funds IRA film show and the Council very bravely shut the thing down. We managed to transfer over to Lambeth and had the exhibition in the basement of the recreation centre, not the most accessible high profile place, but we put it on and it did have some really good art work in it. We had a weekend film festival at the Ritzy cinema with various political Irish films, some really good stuff. Some of it was not very subtle but some was much more exploratory – I wouldn’t call it straightforward Irish republicanism but something in that area.

I went on the Troops Out delegation to Belfast and stayed with a family, it was shocking and frightening to find yourself walking past soldiers with their guns. It did feel pretty besieged.

Shocking Pink

I started working on this magazine called Shocking Pink, which at that point had an exhausted collective who really wanted to palm it off on someone else. Me and my friend Vanida took it on to quite a large degree. It was based in squats, and was a young women’s magazine. It was supposed to be an alternative  to magazines that were around at the time like Jackie and My Guy which were all about boyfriends and getting your make up right,  whereas this was feminist and had a good lesbian profile as well, which definitely was a big pull for our readership. We used to get lots of letters from isolated lesbians from all round the country. They found it a real lifeline when they felt isolated at school and stuff like that. 

I really liked that magazine. I liked the way it worked. We had a kind of no-editing policy - if we wanted to put something in we just put it in wholesale. We didn’t put everything in, we were selective about what we put it in, but very open. It meant that we put in heaps of stuff which individuals on the collective might never have agreed with and thought was rubbish, it made it very varied and quite strong for that. It made the collective meetings and collective process of putting it together quite light and quite fun because we weren’t sitting round saying ‘what news issues do we need to cover‘. We were just saying ‘OK what articles have we got typed up on the computer, what cartoons have we got, is this enough to fill a magazine yet?’, and then when it seemed like it had  built up quite a lot we’d shove it all together and have these big press weekends. First of all it had to be typeset, which we did late at night in this friendly typesetters’ office. I first started learning typesetting which led ultimately to the layout and subbing work I did later on. I really took to it, I really liked the whole world of newspapers and magazines.

I learnt how to use the typesetting machine, it was a beautiful old machine, very difficult to use and user-unfriendly compared to the DTP that was going to come in a couple of years later but the results were really beautiful. We’d come up with lovely long columns of beautiful quality typeset articles - galleys - ready to stick down in our mad collagey style that we had at Shocking Pink. Then we’d all spend a whole weekend spending 16 hours a day sticking it all together, doing lots of art work round the articles. 

It was loads of fun as a collective experience,  there were lots of volunteers who’d all come out of the woodwork at that point and join in. Just generally around Shocking Pink it made it into a little gang. There was another woman called Louise who I guess was the third main person in the collective apart from me and Vanida, a lovely person who used to do our music reviews - a good little punk. It was just fun being in a gang. After a new issue came out we’d go round selling it, even selling outside Brixton tube station just like the SWP would with their paper, or else we’d go the easy route and go to lesbian pubs and sell it there because it was easy-peasy selling it as a dyke thing, We’d go on demos with it and flog it. It was such a sort of positive publication it was very easy to promote it, you didn’t feel like you were forcing anything difficult or worthy on people that they are less keen on sometimes.

Shocking Pink’s office shifted from a couple of squats, and we managed to get ourselves a huge big room at the top of 121. We had to fight with one of my flat mates, Alex, who wanted it for Class War but we managed to just swing it by claiming that we should have more women in the building!

The poll tax riot

We went on that really huge anti-poll tax demo [31st March 1990] - it was absolutely vast with about half a million people on it or something like that , the one that turned  into a riot in Trafalgar Square. There were lots of little poll tax riots going on all over the country at that point, quite a busy political time with quite an anti-Thatcher focus. We went on that big demo with our stacks of Shocking Pinks, selling it, and it was a mad demo. It had all the lefties and anarchists and all the trot groups but also Tories in big flowery hats, it was a sunny day, it was like people were out for a big picnic partly as well. 

And then in Trafalgar Square it just turned into a riot with police horses and people chucking loads of stuff. I’d met up with my poor sister who absolutely hates that sort of thing. Of course I was totally thrilled that there was a riot. We were sitting by some landmark and I would say ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes’ and I’d go and try to riot and chuck things into the crowd. I was a really awful rioter because I couldn’t throw very well so I ended up throwing things on the heads of the people in front of me which was not a lot of help to anybody. I’d do that for a bit and then I’d go back and check on my sister who was completely stressed out about the whole thing, and then I’d go  and try and riot very ineffectively a bit more. It was an exciting time when you just felt that a lot was happening and I do personally credit that particular riot with bringing down Thatcher- there’d been lots of riots, but that one was big, there were huge buildings in Trafalgar Square set on fire and it went on well into the night. That was a very good time.

Squatting in Brixton

I moved around loads when I was living in Brixton. Some of the time I was living with these friends right in the middle of Brixton in Rushcroft Road, which felt like quite a crazy place. I lived in this very nice co-op for a while, but everyone was always arguing. Then I moved into a squat for a year and a half - I had the world’s easiest squatting experience, we had electricity and I wasn’t there at the point when they actually opened it up and did all the hard work, I just moved in and said ‘Oh will this be my bedroom then?’, and painted it nice colours!  It was quite together it wasn’t one of those disaster squats full of hopeless types, it was quite organized and sensible, it was very sociable and very pleasant.

I really enjoyed squatting, it was very much part of the Brixton anarchist scene, very connected with the 121 bookshop.  I lived in a squat in Saltoun Road, then later lived in flat back in Rushcroft Road with Rosanne and Atalanta and about ten pets - cats and dogs. 

After a bit I decided that since Shocking Pink was a young women’s magazine I was maybe getting  a bit old for it, it was supposed to be for teenagers and I was beyond that so  I left.

I was working part time, I’d done a course in typesetting and DTP and started working on TV Quick. I was doing lots of writing, working on my first novel, unpublished to this day!

The Wild Women’s Weekend

I went to the Wild Women’s Weekend [in May 1990], it was in a squatted former council housing benefit office in Brixton,  next to the George Canning pub [later Hobgoblin and now Hootenanny] and also unfortunately next to Brixton’s rather anonymous Tory headquarters. It doesn’t have the name on it - they wouldn’t dare, just a bit of blue paint. I think it was them who were instrumental in eventually getting the place shut down. It was this lesbian squat for quite a while, well not exclusively lesbian but quite lesbian.

All that dyke scene in Brixton did dissolve fairly quickly in the 1990s because the squatting laws got harsher, and all the gentrification started and  Brixton just became too hard and too expensive to live in, but at the time that squat was a fantastic achievement. The Wild Women’s Weekend was absolutely amazing, women coming from all round the country and probably abroad as well. There were loads of workshops, sort of practical workshops like bike maintenance, lots of discussion groups, and obviously good parties in the evening. That was a very fine achievement.

Bad Attitude

A couple of years on I got Bad Attitude together, it was really me that motivated it because I was still sort of hankering after the days of Outwrite because I so admired their international news perspective, and I thought ‘we need that”. We went through  quite an arduous process of fundraising for it, galvanizing a collective, sending out loads of letters appealing for people to take out advance subscriptions and we managed to buy ourselves this tiny apple mac to lay it out on. Shocking Pink had folded by that point, and Bad Attitude took on the office and took on some other people involved. We had Vanida, and Sam my old flat mate, Rosanne and lots of other people who came and went'.

(The loose transcript above doesn't completely follow the audio interview here as it was edited from a number of different taped conversations).

See also:

Remembering Katy Watson

Katy's music column in Bad Attitude (1995)

Katy Watson and London Queercore 1995

'How to produce a feminist magazine': Bad Attitude - radical women's newspaper (1992-97)

Shocking Pink and Clause 28

'Time for Peace, Time to Go': demonstrations in London, Belfast and Dublin - August 1994

1994 marked the 25th anniversary of British troops being sent on to the streets of the north of Ireland, and there were demonstrations in London, Belfast, and Dublin on the theme of '25 years - time to go, time for peace'.

London, 13 August 1994

In London the Troops Out Movement and other groups including the Irish in Britain Representation Group held a march from the park by the Imperial War Museum. Black balloons were released to mark the dead of the conflict and a coffin taken to Downing Street labelled 'Britain's War: 25 years - 3400 dead'. Around 3,000 people took part.

A sticker for the demo

Black balloons released over Westminster

'Troops Out' magazine, August/September 1994

Belfast, 14 August 1994

In Belfast the next day there was another demonstration, with thousands of people converging on City Hall in parades from all parts of the city. The largest contingent came from West Belfast, where 'The march proceeded to the Whiterock Road where the Ballymurphy section of the march joined them. Several of the visiting delegations were with this section of the march. There were contingents from Noraid, from the Basque country, from Italy as well from the Troops Out Movement and many other solidarity groups' (An Phoblact, 18 August 1994). Speakers at the end of the march included Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

'Falls/Clonard: 25 years of resistance' - mural in Dunville Street off the Falls Road in Belfast

'Free the Ballymurphy Seven' - the campaign in support of seven young men who were arrested following a bomb attack on an army patrol in 1991. They were charged on the basis of 'confessions' obtained under duress in Castlereagh interrogation centre. Eventually all were acquitted but not after spending several years in prison.

'Cheering marchers say Britain Must Go', An Phoblact, 18 August 1994

Dublin, 20 August 1994

The march in Dublin on the following Saturday 20th August was one of the largest pro-republican rallies there since the 1981 hunger strikes.  Over 10,000 people took part in what was billed as a parade and pageant rather than just a traditional demo. There was street theatre and more than 54 floats highlighting current and historic issues.  The Wolfe Tones played to the crowd gathered by the GPO, and of course there were various republican flute bands including the Spirit of Freedom,  Sliabh Dubh, Gleann an Lagain and Tom Smith.

 

The Angel of Death leads the march

'Get out of my sight!'

A float highlighting Fermanagh/Monaghan border posts

'Guth na mBan' singing 'Something inside so strong'

The Dublin and Monaghan bombs in 1974 killed 33 people and were planted by the Ulster Volunteer Force with the knowledge of British intelligence

At the GPO

'Slán abhaile' (Safe Home)

An Phoblact, 25 August 1994

A summary of other Time to Go events including in Derry, Crossmaglen, Newry and around the world
(An Phoblact, 18 August 1994)

1994 was a key turning point in the conflict. The year before Gerry Adams and John Hume had launched the Irish Peace Initiative, and then on 31 August 1994 the Irish Republican Army announced a ceasefire.  After several years of a stop and start process the Good Friday Agreement was signed in Easter 1998, paving the way for demilitarisation and prisoner release.

Anyway that was a busy week for me, rushing from London to Belfast then travelling around Ireland towards Dublin. Stopping off in Sligo for a banging house club night in a hotel back room full of people celebrating on the day of their Higher exam results. Where was that I wonder? 

[I recently donated some photos and papers to the MayDay Rooms in London for their archive of Troops Out Movement and related materials. If you have anything you can share with them get in touch with them. This post is one in a series where I contextualise this material with my recollections]

See also:

The Hunger Strike, the Irish War and an English Town: Luton 1980-81

Remembering Bloody Sunday 

May Days in Dublin 1994

'Time for Peace, Time to Go'
(I did think this photo might have been from Dublin, but seems it's actually Albert Square in Manchester, so this must have been on the Bloody Sunday demo there in January 1995)

May Days in Dublin, 1994

I have taken part in many May Day celebrations large and small, but the biggest was certainly in Dublin in 1994. The occasion was a huge parade to mark the centenary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, I believe it was actually held on Monday 2nd May 1994, notable as the first May Day bank holiday in Ireland.

It was more a celebratory affair than a demonstration with a spectacular street theatre pageant. It looked great, and in the evening there was a fantastic open air gig with a rare (for then) appearance of Moving Hearts, including a couple of songs with Christy Moore, and 1990s favourites The Saw Doctors. I ended up with friends and a guitar singing rebel songs in a pub. 

There's some RTE footage of the event online; here's a few photos I took on the day:

Still it was also a dangerous and tragic time in the North, with the Irish Peace Process inching forward towards an IRA ceasefire later that year while loyalist killers seemed to be stepping up sectarian attacks.  The following month saw the UVF kill six people watching a World Cup match at a bar in Loughinisland.

 In Dublin we stayed for the weekend with some Irish friends we know from their time in London and who had moved back home. They had been involved with the Troops Out Movement in London, which I was a member of. I was also active in Justice for the Casement Park Accused which campaigned around an infamous miscarriage of justice in Belfast.  

That weekend in Dublin we went to an an event in a hotel where long time Troops Out Movement member Nina Hutchinson was being honoured for her support for Irish prisoners in English jails (I will write more about Nina another time). The 'Gathering of the Clans' brought together families of prisoners.

After it finished some of us went on to an after party in the far-famed Ballymun Flats, late night drinking with ex-prisoners amongst others. The next day we went to the Widow Scallans pub in Pearse Street for a drink, followed by the May Day parade on the Monday.

Later that month, on the 21st May, the band The Irish Brigade were playing a benefit gig at Widow Scallans for prisoners in an event organised by Sinn Fein's Prisoner of War department. There were hundreds of people inside. Two UVF members approached the bar with a bomb, intending to place it inside but were blocked by one of the stewards, Martin Doherty. Doherty was shot dead but he managed to prevent them getting in and they abandoned the bomb and fled. Had the bomb exploded inside the pub, there would have been a massacre and no doubt many of the people we had met on that May Day weekend would have been killed or injured (I later heard that Doherty, who was from Ballymun, had been at that party).

Martin 'Doco' Doherty memorial fund appeal, An Phoblact, 23 June 1994

[I recently donated some photos and papers to the MayDay Rooms in London for their archive of Troops Out Movement and related materials. If you have anything you can share with them get in touch with them. This post is one in a series where I contextualise this material with my recollections]

See also:

The Hunger Strike, the Irish War and an English Town: Luton 1980-81

Remembering Bloody Sunday 

Time for Peace, Time to Go: demonstrations in Belfast, Dublin and London 1994

The Hunger Strike, the Irish War and an English Town: Luton 1973-81

The 1981 Irish Hunger Strike started in the H Blocks of the Maze prison (also known as Long Kesh) in March and finished seven months later following the deaths of 10 Irish Republican prisoners.  The mass support for the hunger strikers was to prove a turning point in Irish politics, but it resonated across the world. 

I grew up 300 miles away in Luton, an English town albeit one with a large Irish community. The events had a profound impact on me as a teenager just getting involved in radical politics, it was heartbreaking following the news day by day of prisoners getting sick and dying in the face of the chilling, cold-hearted indifference of Margaret Thatcher and her Government. All the more so in that the five demands of the prisoners were quietly conceded shortly afterwards:

- The right not to wear a prison uniform;

- the right not to do prison work;

- the right of free association with other prisoners;

- the right to organize their own educational and recreational facilities;

- the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.

Many Irish people moved to Luton to work at Vauxhalls and other workplaces after the Second World War, and as long as there have been Irish people in the town there seems to have been involvement in the Republican Movement. In 1958 for instance it was reported that 'a concert was held in the Assembly Hall. Waller St., Luton by the newly formed Sinn Fein Cumann of that area. All the artistes gave their services free' (United Irishman, April 1958). Luton had a significant role in the Irish Republican Movement in the 1970s and early 1980s, and was the scene of one of the last Hunger Strike demonstrations.

Frank Stagg and The Luton Three

An earlier hunger strike had been mounted by Irish prisoners in English jails in 1976, demanding a transfer to prison in Ireland.  In the course of this protest Frank Stagg died in Wakefield Prison and Michael Gaughan died in Parkhurst.  Frank Stagg had first joined Sinn Fein in Luton in 1972. 

Frank Stagg

In November 1973, three members of Luton Sinn Fein - Sean Campbell, Phil Sheridan and Gerry Mealey -  known as the Luton Three, were convicted of ‘conspiring to rob persons unknown'.  No robbery had taken place and it was claimed  that 'They were the victims of a trap laid by police agent Kenneth Lennon at the instigation of Special Branch. At the trial Lennon’s name and his role in the affair was concealed by the prosecution denying the defence any opportunity of contesting the basis of the police case. All three were sentenced to ten years' (Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 12, September 1981). In another twist Lennon (who lived in Francis Street, Luton) then encouraged an 18 year old Luton man, Patrick O'Brien, to take part in a plot to help the Luton prisoners escape from Winson Green prison in Birmingham. This seems to have been another Special Branch sting. Lennon later confessed his role as an agent provocateur to the National Council for Civil Liberties, shortly before he was found shot dead in the Surrey countryside.

The Luton Three all had a tough time in prison. Mealey spent seven weeks on hunger strike in 1976 as part of the same protest in which Frank Stagg died. While in Albany jail on the Isle of Wight, Campbell was badly beaten up by prison officers during a prisoners protest in 1976, sustaining a broken leg, jaw and ribs.  Shortly after his release in 1982 he was admitted to hospital after suffering a severe stroke, but he went on to become a Sinn Fein councillor in Cookstown, County Tyrone until his death in 2002. 

'They were taken to Luton Police Station where they were again assaulted and beaten and interrogated'. Republican News, 25 August 1973. The Patrick McAdorey Sinn Fein Cumann in Luton was named after an IRA volunteer killed in a gun battle out with the British Army in Belfast in 1971

In another incident in 1976 John Higgins, an electrician and the National Organiser of Sinn Fein in England, was arrested in Luton and later jailed for four years after being convicted of soliciting arms as well as walkie-talkie radios (Belfast Telegraph 7/4/77).  He was convicted on the dubious evidence of John Banks, an ex-paratrooper and mercenary recruiter with links to the British  intelligence. Higgins had earlier been the focus for an entrapment attempt from  Kenneth Lennon. 

Greetings to John Higgins from friends and family, An Phoblacht 11 March 1978

'MI5's own mercenary - ex-Para set up Irish Republicans'

There was also the odd case in 1977 when Luton Sinn Fein member Michael Holden was approached by Luton Labour Councillor Finbar McDonnell and asked if he knew about an IRA plan to bomb the Vauxhall car factory in the town -  a false story apparently originating with police/security services. As Holden commented at the time: 'I don’t think that the IRA would bomb the Luton factory. They have never bombed factories. And, anyway we have 16 or 17 members of Sinn Fein working at Vauxhalls’. I asked who would benefit if such a thing happened — only our enemies would benefit. I said if a bombing was carried out there it would completely destroy all Sinn Fein activity not only in Luton but in the whole area' (statement in Hands off Ireland, November 1977).

Republican News, 21 June 1975

The Luton 2: Jim Reilly and  Gerry MacLochlainn 

The case of the 'Luton 3' was followed in 1980 by that of the 'Luton 2', which I remember personally. Jim Reilly was a familiar figure on the Luton Left, and had been a union shop steward at Vauxhall as well as the Home Counties organiser for Sinn Fein.  He lived in Highfield Road in Luton's Bury Park area.  

Born in the New Lodge area of Belfast in 1927, Jim Reilly was first interned in Crumlin Road prison as a young republican in 1942. After emigrating to England, he founded the Luton branch of Provisional Sinn Fein in 1971 and was arrested at least four times in the 1970s. For instance in 1975  Reilly and three other people from Luton including John Higgins were arrested in Liverpool as they left the Belfast boat on their way back from a Sinn Fein conference (Belfast Telegraph 31/10/75). Reilly wrote about this experience in the Luton Street Press paper, associated with the mid-1970s Partisan Books radical bookshop in Luton's Dallow Road:

'On Wednesday, Oct.29th [1975] at 6 am, Mr and Mrs Higgins, Brian Gray and myself were stopped and questioned by members of the special branch police as we left the 'Ulster Prince at the Port of Liverpool, and although we produced the necessary credentials, identification etc. we were nevertheless taken to the main Bridewell police station and questioned further. At this stage our rights as citizens ceased to exist. Our property was taken from us and listed, money was segregated in English and Irish currency - so much for Anglo-Irish relations. We were then placed in what can only be described as dungeons, without heating of any kind. The only apparent ventilation were broken panes of glass. When Karl Marx said that there wasn't anyone as cruel to their prisoners as the English, he wasn't kidding! There are no rats in Bridewell (main), they walked out in protest against conditions... we were each served with a piece of paper which in effect said that being a a person "seeking to enter Great Britain" we would be detained under 9 (1) of the anti-terrorist act. Since I have been living in "Great Britain"  for over 25 years, the "seeking to enter" part seemed a little ludicrous... we decided on a policy of non co-operation which we maintained and went on hunger strike which was maintained until our release on Saturday'

Article by Jim Reilly in Luton Street Press, No.3, December 1975

In the same year, Reilly had chaired a successful conference at Luton Town Hall organised by the Luton branch of the Troops Out Movement. Belfast Sinn Fein speaker Seamus McCusker was detained on the way to the conference but released in time to speak (he was to be killed  later that year in the tragic conflict between Official and Provisional IRA, shot dead by the former).


Source: An Phoblacht, 25 July 1975

Reilly was arrested again in 1976, as reported at the time in Red Weekly (International Marxist Group paper):

His arrest in March 1980 was reported in Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (no.4, May/June 1980):

'On Sunday and Monday 30 and 31 March two leading members of Provisional Sinn Féin (Britain) – Gerry MacLochlainn South Wales Organiser and Jim Reilly, Home Counties Organiser – were arrested under the racist anti-Irish Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Sinn Fein and Hands off Ireland staged pickets of Luton police station, on one of which - on Easter Sunday - police piled in. 10-15 police rushed from the station and kicked and punched the demonstrators back from the entrance. This was followed by the arrest of five Hands Off Ireland supporters – four of whom were subsequently charged with ‘breach of the peace’.

That morning Jim and Gerry appeared in court and were charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. The conditions under which Jim and Gerry are being held also violate their rights as remand prisoners. Both men are forced to wear prison uniform and are being held on 23 hour lock-up in solitary confinement and denied association or recreation. Since being moved to Leicester prison, they have been held in the punishment block'.

Another Luton Vauxhall car worker, Willie Higgins, was also arrested under the PTA in April 1980, but was released without charge (he was the father of John Higgins, referred to above).

On 28 June 1980 there was a demonstration from People's Park in Luton calling for the dropping off charges against 'The Luton 2', as well as those arrested in the police station protest. Around 150 people took part in the demonstration which was addressed by Jim Reilly (by then out on bail) when it paused by Luton police station. The march had been arranged by Hands Off Ireland, the Revolutionary Communist Group's Irish campaign.

(The RCG did not have a branch in Luton, but there were a few members in nearby Hemel Hempstead including one of my teachers from Luton Sixth Form I believe. I recall them turning up at a Luton CND meeting around this time at the Communist Party HQ at 8 Crawley Green Road and trying unsuccessfully to get them to adopt a Troops Out of Ireland position.  They spent a great deal of time denouncing other left factions for not having the 'correct' line on Ireland, but to give them their dues they did prioritize solidarity when for much of the Left the fact that British troops were on the streets just across the sea was treated as background noise, just another issue on the menu of causes) 

Report of the Luton demo in June 1980, from FRFI, July/August 1980

I remember going to a public meeting at the International Centre in Old Bedford Road called by the Defence Committee Against the Prevention of Terrorism Act at which both Jim and Gerry spoke- the latter also having just been released on bail. I believe this was the meeting on June 19th 1980 mentioned in the following article, it also included a showing of a film 'Prisoner of War' about the prisoners' struggle.

'The racist anti-Irish Prevention of Terrorism Act... allows the police to arrest and hold people for eight days without any evidence or charge, without any legal advice or contact with the outside world, and in atmosphere of intimidation and anti-Irish prejudice'

The death of Jim Reilly

Sadly, Jim Reilly was to die shortly afterwards at the age of 54. A long time asthma sufferer, he was admitted to hospital with a chest complaint and died at St Mary's Hospital in Luton in September 1980. 

Reilly's treatment in prison in 1980 was widely held to have contributed to his death (not to mention his earlier experiences of being on hunger strike as a teenage prisoner in the 1940s). His obituary in An Phoblacht mentioned that 'during his imprisonment tablets which were vital for Jim's chronic asthma and heart condition were withheld from him until he fell seriously ill and needed medical treatment'.  The Revolutionary Communist Group accused the British state of  'hounding him to death':

'Jim Reilly, Luton Sinn Fein and Home Counties Organiser, died in hospital on Friday 26 September 1980. Jim Reilly was a lifelong revolutionary Republican fighter working right up to the moment of his death. His death was a direct result of the frame-up organised against him and his close comrade Gerry MacLochlainn (now serving a six year sentence). Having hounded Jim Reilly throughout his life, British imperialism succeeded in hounding him to death in September 1980. Jim Reilly’s death was a great loss both to the Republican movement and the British working class. He will always be remembered as a courageous dedicated Republican and convinced socialist' (Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 12, September 1981).

As a final indignity, British Airways refused to fly his body back to Belfast, resulting in his funeral at St Peter's on the Falls Road being delayed. He was buried in Milltown Cemetery.

Jim Reilly Obituary, from Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism, Nov/Dec 1980

Class struggle (Revolutionary Communist League), 2 October 1980

An Phoblacht (4 October 1980) - obituary and sympathy notices for Jim Reilly, which highlight his socialist politics. 'He was a socialist republican in the tradition of Larkin and Connolly' who 'worked tirelessly, despite chronic ill health, for the Republican movement and socialism'. At the 1980 Ard Fheis (Sinn Fein conference), Reilly had pushed for the party to take a more explicitly socialist position, see An Phoblacht, 26 January 1980) [found at the excellent Republican Archive]

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Gerard MacLochlainn was jailed for 6 years, like me he ended up in Kent a couple of years later: he was in Maidstone Prison and I was at University of Kent at Canterbury! Gerry applied for a course at the University and was refused admission, I was involved in a short lived campaign in his support which involved painting 'Defend Gerry MacLaughlin' and 'Troops Out of Ireland' across the campus among other things (his name variously given in English and Irish spellings in different reports). I also came across him later on when he was the Wolfe Tone Society/Sinn Fein organiser in London in 1990s, I was in Troops Out Movement at the time. Later he moved to Derry and became a Sinn Fein councillor.

Troops Out, December 1982

The Next Step, November 1982

1981 Hunger Strike

Shortly after Reilly's death, in October 1980, prisoners in the H Blocks began a hunger strike in support of their five demands. This was called off after 53 days with the prisoners believing an agreement had been made. When it became clear that this was not the case, a second hunger strike began. Bobby Sands was the first to die on 5 May 1981, less than a month  after being elected as MP for Fermanagh and Tyrone. Immediately afterwards the Government passed a law to stop prisoners standing in elections to ensure there would be no repeat of this.

Between then and the end of August, nine other prisoners died: Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee and Michael Devine. All were volunteers with the Irish Republican Army or the Irish National Liberation Army. 

Kevin Lynch (INLA), who died on 1st August aged 25 after 71 days on hunger strike, had previously lived in the Luton area: . 'Kevin Lynch was the youngest of a family of eight, five boys and three girls. Four of the Lynch brothers worked in England in the building trade and while there they got involved locally in Gaelic games, mainly with St Dympna's Club in Luton, members of whom extended their sympathy to the family on Kevin's death' (An Phoblacht, 10 August 2006).

Kevin Lynch

As the prisoners died they were replaced by others on the hunger strike and in September 1981 Sinn Fein announced that it planned a demonstration in Luton in support of the prisoners.  In the event the demonstration was banned, along with all other demos in the town, after the neo-nazi British Movement announced its intention to stage a counter-demonstration. Not long before, on 11 July 1981, more than 100 people had been arrested in a full scale riot in Luton sparked by clashes between skinhead British Movement sympathisers and predominately Asian youth in the town centre.  The threatened BM demo was the latest in a summer of threats from the group in the Luton area, and it provided a pretext for the Home Secretary to ban the hunger strike demo - not to mention the  fact that Luton Town FC were at home to rivals Watford on the same day (for the historical record I will simply state that the mighty Hatters won 4-1).

However, a static Sinn Fein rally did go ahead in Luton's Manor Road recreation ground on Saturday 26 September 1981,  which I attended along with about 250 people in the pouring rain. The speakers included prisoners' relatives including Nora McElwee (sister of Thomas McElwee), Malachy McCreesh (brother of Raymond) and Marius McMullen, brother of Jackie McMullen who was still on hunger strike (1). Other speakers included Michael Holden (Luton Sinn Fein), Eddie Caughey (Sinn Fein prisoners support) (2)  and ex-soldier Meurig Parri. Guest of honor was Owen Carron, who had been Bobby Sands' election agent and then after his death won the subsequent byelection on an 'Anti H-Block' ticket (3).

The British Movement had claimed that on the same day 200 - 300 people would protest outside Luton police station to protest against their march being banned (4)), but nothing materialised.

Just over a week later, on 3 October 1981, the hunger strike ended - but will never be forgotten.

London H-Block/Armagh Bulletin, 2 October 1981

 

Troops Out, October 1981

At the time of the Luton riot in July 1981, the local Herald newspaper said: 'The scene could have been Belfast, or even Brixton or Liverpool' (16 July 1981). I think it's important to remember that the Hunger Strike was going at the same time as the 1981 uprisings in English town and cities. I have no doubt that the young people rioting in Brixton and Toxteth on the one hand, and Belfast and Derry on the other took inspiration from each other - the TV news was dominated throughout the year by such scenes. Many black and Irish activists definitely saw each other as both being in the front line against British imperialism - to take but one example, radical black magazine Race Today published a text by Bobby Sands. And of course the British state was also not slow in making such connections -  in July 1981, the army demonstrated its water cannon to police chiefs and senior police officers from England visited their counterparts in the Royal Ulster Constabulary to learn about their methods of riot control.

(1) Belfast Telegraph, 24 September 1981

(2) 'Troops Out demand by Sinn Fein’, Luton News 1 October 1981

(3) Special Category: The IRA in English Prisons, Vol. 2: 1978-1985 by Ruán O’Donnel 

(4) Luton News, 24 September 1981.

Leaflets from my own collection, The Splits and Fusions RCG archive was a useful resource

A couple more leaflets on the Jim Reilly/Gerry Gerard MacLochlainn campaign. This from the Defence Committee Against the Prevention of the Prevention of Terrorism Act:

Back of leaflet advertising events in Luton

'Luton Magistrate Obstructs Bail' - Hands Off Ireland press release:

[post last updated August 2026 with addition of Jim Reilly's Luton Street Press article from 1975]

Other Luton writings:

Partisan Books - Luton's radical bookshop in the mid-1970s 

How it all began (for me): a School Kid against the Nazis in Luton 1979/80

Blinded by the Light - memories of racism and job cuts in 1980s Luton (including the Luton Youth Movement)

The Luton Riots of 1981 - 'Brixton comes to Bedfordshire'

Karma Sutra, Luton anarcho-punk and hunt sabbing

Clubbing in Luton 1984

Dole Days in Luton: unemployed protests, 1985

Luton Punk Squat Party 1985 - with Karma Sutra

We are Luton - opposing the English Defence League in 2012

'Angry White People' book review (at Datacide magazine)

More posts on Ireland

The Hunger Strike, the Irish War and an English Town: Luton 1980-81

Remembering Bloody Sunday 

May Days in Dublin 1994

Time for Peace, Time to Go: demonstrations in Belfast, Dublin and London 1994