Tomás Ó Fiaich

Tomás Ó Fiaich was an Irish cardinal who intervened on behalf of Dolours Price as her health collapsed in prison. After visiting her in Armagh, he appealed directly to Margaret Thatcher to release her, warning that Price was dying and that her death could precipitate recriminatory violence. Thatcher rejected the appeal; Price was transferred to hospital in mid-April weighing seventy-six pounds.

Visit to Armagh

Ó Fiaich had visited Price before her condition deteriorated and remembered her as vivacious. On 3 April 1981, he wrote to Thatcher that Price had spent the previous month confined to the infirmary. She was listless and alone, could scarcely walk, and needed help on the stairs. The contrast between the woman he remembered and the prisoner he now described made the decline unmistakable.

Appeal to Thatcher

Ó Fiaich framed Price’s condition as an immediate humanitarian emergency. He urged Thatcher to face the fact that Price was dying and argued that her death could trigger an explosion of recriminatory violence. His plea was not simply for a future review: he warned that even the following week might be too late. The urgency of his appeal rested on both the suffering he had witnessed and the danger he believed her death could bring.

Refusal and aftermath

Thatcher acknowledged the Price family’s anxiety but said she had no intention of releasing Dolours Price, adding that her condition would continue to be closely monitored. In mid-April, Price was rushed from Armagh to the secure ward at Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast. By then she weighed seventy-six pounds. Ó Fiaich’s intervention had made the severity of her condition explicit to the government, but it did not change the decision to keep her imprisoned.