Dolours and Marian Price’s hunger strike in British prisons

Dolours and Marian Price’s hunger strike in British prisons was a protest against their imprisonment in England and a campaign to be returned to Northern Ireland. It brought the sisters into conflict with prison authorities through force-feeding and appeals for their transfer; its end did not end the physical consequences of imprisonment, which continued after they reached Armagh jail.

Imprisonment and the Strike

After the 1973 London bombings, both sisters were held in Brixton Prison. Their hunger strike took place there, making refusal of food a means of protest within a prison system that controlled their bodies and their location. The campaign was not confined to the refusal itself: Dolours Price appealed for the return of a stolen Vermeer, and the sisters’ cause also involved art thefts and kidnapping. These appeals connected the protest to the wider effort to secure their return to Northern Ireland.

Force-Feeding and the End of the Protest

Prison authorities force-fed the sisters during the strike. For Dolours Price, the intervention became a sustained part of the campaign, and Roy Jenkins ultimately decided to end force-feeding and arrange her repatriation. The sisters’ hunger strike ended, and they were returned to Northern Ireland. That outcome addressed the demand for transfer, but it came after a period in which bodily survival and political protest had become inseparable.

Aftermath and Significance

The sisters were subsequently held in Armagh jail, where both drew back from the republican movement. Their prison experiences were followed by eating disorders: Marian Price was released because of a severe eating disorder, while Dolours Price was released on medical grounds in April 1981. The evidence records these outcomes separately rather than establishing a single medical cause, but they show that the consequences of the strike and imprisonment extended beyond the decision to transfer them. The episode’s defining reversal is therefore partial: the protest secured their return to Northern Ireland, while their health and political commitments continued to change in prison and after release.