SEAN McCaughey, Heathfield Road, Belfast, the Portlaoise Prison hunger striker, died in the prison at 1am this morning. He had entered his 23rd day of hunger strike and the 19th day of his thirst strike. His sisters, Mrs McCloskey, Mrs O'Hara and Miss A McCaughey and a brother, Mr Patrick McCaughey were with him when he died.
Although David Fleming has now entered his 52nd day of hunger strike in Belfast Prison, Dr Fred McSorley MP, who saw him yesterday, said he was surprised at the amount of vitality that Fleming had.
Mr McSorley, who was given permission to visit Fleming by the Northern Minister of Home Affairs, told the press: "I saw Fleming, not as a doctor, but as an MP. The ward was equal to that of any private nursing home in the city. I endeavoured to point out to him that he should give up his hunger strike but it was of no avail. I am quite convinced that he is receiving every care and kindness from the governor and other prison officials. His main theme to me was the prospect of the government giving him better treatment as a political prisoner." (Sean McCaughey, a leading Northern IRA figure, had played a key role in the interrogation of the alleged top-level IRA informer, Stephen Hayes in 1941. Sentenced to death in Dublin in 1942, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 1946 he launched a hunger strike in support of political status. The De Valera government held firm and the Belfastman's death in May 1946 was a key factor in the formation of a new constitutional Republican Party, Clann na Poblachta led by former IRA Chief of Staff and leading defence counsel, Sean MacBride. MacBride would later devise the 'MacBride Principles' which would force the British government to act on fair employment here in the 1980s.)
Anger of German admiral
FLUSHED with anger, Karl Doenitz, the former German Grand Admiral and Hitler's successor, half rose from his seat in the witness box and shouted his replies at Sir David Maxwell Fyffe, who interrogated his record as director of Germany's U-boat warfare at Nuremberg yesterday. "Your allegations are untrue," he said, his face blazing angrily. "We rescued crews with the greatest devotion. We rescued more than you ever rescued." Doenitz said he would never have permitted an order to be given for the annihilation of survivors of attacked vessels "in view of the idealism of the U-boat service".
Edited by Éamon Phoenix e.phoenix@irishnews.com